For me "sways" is a done deal. I am more concerned with the mad habit he has developed of singing "when I'm out ON the street". First time I heard that abomination was when Patti sang it while stepping into a car in the Blood Brothers documentary back in '95. I found it very odd and disturbing that she hadn't bothered to learn the lyrics. And then "on the street" apparently caught Bruce's ear. Read the lyrics on the goddamn telepromter - that's what it's there for!
I've always been in the sways camp... only because I first really heard and listened to Thunder Road via the Live 75 / 85 box, and the lyric book in that has it as 'sways'.
@Scott Peterson You made me rethink the ending... the whole song actually. The more I listen, the more midlife the song sounds to me. I can't believe he was 25 at the time he had written it...
How could it be a permanent issue after Jon has explained that "waves" in the original BTR lyric sheet was a typo? Nobody thinks it's Benny King's voice that fills the air, do they?
@Louisa So, I look at the song two ways. In the context of the album as a whole—and when looked at alongside "Rosalita" and "Born to Run," both of which have, to my ears, similarly ambiguous endings—I think it ends unresolved...but likely with the women not actually ending up going.
BUT.
In the context of each of those individual songs, I absolutely believe, every single time, that you're damn right they end up together.
Here's something I wrote a while back about it:
The first thing you hear is a harmonica winding upwards, sounding like it's coming from and imbued with the dark, rich loam of the midwest, accompanied by a slow piano which is nearly classical in tone without ever being anything less than 100% rock and roll. After only a few seconds, they speed up together and just like that, the curtains are pulled back and a vista opens up and all of America is spread out before you as day breaks. No one could have predicted it. No matter how big a fan you were of Springsteen's first two albums or his shows, there was no way to anticipate the masterpiece which was Born to Run and its opening song, a barely-challenged contender for Greatest Springsteen Song Ever. A widescreen, cinematic masterpiece which aimed for the scope, ambiguity and drama of The Searchers or The Godfather and the pure rock and roll power of Orbison and Spector, it is a stunningly brash move from a 25-year-old on the verge of being dropped from his label for low sales. Instead of playing it safe, he threw caution to the wind and shot for immortality and in the very first song, he grabbed it by the short hairs. The narrator is completely convincing, even as he’s far from smooth—unless “you’re not a beauty but, hey, you’re all right” is actually a successful pick-up line, and a vow to break all promises is itself a convincing argument for trust. In the larger context of the album and his career as a whole, you realize that the singer’s not so much running to something promising as away from his current life, and you can’t help but suspect that while the night was bustin’ open and he’d learned how to make his guitar talk, he never really did find what he was looking for—after all, as the song ends, Mary herself is still on the porch, undecided. But while the original recording is playing, failure is simply impossible to conceive. And when the “Layla”-like coda kicks in and Clarence’s sax harmonizes with Danny’s glockenspiel and Roy’s piano and Max takes it all down to a majestic half-time, the music proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there really is magic in the night and for at least these few minutes, they have pulled out of there, and they have won.
Seven words. Springsteen uses seven words to open one of his greatest songs on one of his greatest albums. Those two lines set the scene, they are intended to be the beginning of the day, the sunrise in the morning, the start of the song cycle, and they instantly bring you into the scene. We’re at a house that has a door and there’s a screen door. The door is in motion; doors either open or close, and here we infer that it has opened, because now Mary is outside of it. She could also be coming in, but the next line - “like a vision she dances across the porch” now informs us that she is outside, and there is a porch, and a radio is playing Roy Orbison’s “Only The Lonely.”
dum dum dum dum de do wahooh yea yeah yeah yaoh oh oh ohhh wahonly the lonely
Mary’s dress is waving, because she is dancing. She is dancing, not twirling or tapping her toes. She is dancing across the porch, a physical action, an emotional reaction to the lyrics of the song or her delight in hearing it on the radio, or in response to weather sufficiently clement to be outside on your porch with your transistor radio -- or maybe the radio is in the house, in my mind it could be either, she’s come out onto the porch because she heard the car driven by Our Hero pull up in front of the house, and she wasn’t sure who it was so she didn’t turn off the radio, she just stepped outside; she’s barefoot, the dress is some kind of cotton sundress that you would wear around a house that was likely not air conditioned -- I’ve always assumed that it’s summer -- it’s not fancy but it’s comfortable, it’s not the kind of thing you’d wear to go on a date but you’d wear it on a normal day to hang around the house or meet up with your girlfriends or run errands.
waveverb
to float, play, or shake in an air current : move loosely to and fro : FLUTTER
flags waving in the breeze
swaynoun
the action or an instance of swaying or of being swayed : an oscillating, fluctuating, or sweeping motion
Wave is a verb, it is an active word. Sway is a description of a thing that is happening. Mary is dancing, she is in motion, her dress is waving. She is not standing there listlessly on the porch like Blanche DuBois, she is so taken by a moment in “Only The Lonely” that she dances to it.
There goes my babyThere goes my heartThey’re gone foreverSo far apart
[This lyric is also genius, simpler, more direct, but also perfect in that in 14 words you know exactly what has happened and how the narrator feels, down to the depth of his anguish.]
Bruce uses this particular song by Roy Orbison as a deliberate device -- as Orbison describes in the next verse/chorus -- remember this song isn’t even two and a half minutes long! -- because ultimately about being brave enough to try for love, or try for it again:
Maybe tomorrowA new romanceNo more sorrowBut that's the chanceYou gotta take
Just like “Only The Lonely,” “Thunder Road” is a song about the aching depths of unrequited love and being terrified of expressing it, the anguished depths of trying and failing (or never trying!), the torment of failing and finding the strength to get back up and hold your hand out or grasp the hand being held out to you. Or climbing into the car with your Romeo and being willing to see what happens next.
This is why Mary’s dress waves and doesn’t sway. Mary has agency, Mary takes action, Mary decides to pursue the small flame flickering in her chest. Mary makes decisions, Mary dares to dream. Mary does not stand on the porch while the wind blows through her dress. Mary climbs in.
Seriously. It shouldn't--bizarrely, for someone who rates Springsteen and Dylan as high in his personal faves as I do, I'm not all that much of a lyrics guy. I kinda agree with something I saw Billy Joel say when I was in, I guess, high school, about how when you're singing the wrong lyrics and someone corrects you, you always think, well, I like my version better...
And it's not like this matters! And yet...and yet...
This has been set in stone since I was a kid and it's just...it fucking waves. I actually thought the commenters on the AVClub had some excellent rejoinders to Jon's comment. (Also, some interesting anecdotes about Bruce disappearing from the airwaves in California.)
Well, shit. Looks like we’re gonna have to change the Star Spangled Banner. Turns out that, say, that star-spangled banner cannot wave - this is the land of the free, and the home of fabric that can only sway.
For me "sways" is a done deal. I am more concerned with the mad habit he has developed of singing "when I'm out ON the street". First time I heard that abomination was when Patti sang it while stepping into a car in the Blood Brothers documentary back in '95. I found it very odd and disturbing that she hadn't bothered to learn the lyrics. And then "on the street" apparently caught Bruce's ear. Read the lyrics on the goddamn telepromter - that's what it's there for!
I've always been in the sways camp... only because I first really heard and listened to Thunder Road via the Live 75 / 85 box, and the lyric book in that has it as 'sways'.
Roxy 1975 he sings "wave" - without an s, even.
I've been listening all workday to the same version of TR... 👗
Ok. I realize sways/waves is apparently going to be a permanent issue, but whether she climbs in or not, I assume that's not questionable.
We all believe she climbs in?
The Born to run album is the greatest thing I have ever heard.
Seven words. Springsteen uses seven words to open one of his greatest songs on one of his greatest albums. Those two lines set the scene, they are intended to be the beginning of the day, the sunrise in the morning, the start of the song cycle, and they instantly bring you into the scene. We’re at a house that has a door and there’s a screen door. The door is in motion; doors either open or close, and here we infer that it has opened, because now Mary is outside of it. She could also be coming in, but the next line - “like a vision she dances across the porch” now informs us that she is outside, and there is a porch, and a radio is playing Roy Orbison’s “Only The Lonely.”
Mary’s dress is waving, because she is dancing. She is dancing, not twirling or tapping her toes. She is dancing across the porch, a physical action, an emotional reaction to the lyrics of the song or her delight in hearing it on the radio, or in response to weather sufficiently clement to be outside on your porch with your transistor radio -- or maybe the radio is in the house, in my mind it could be either, she’s come out onto the porch because she heard the car driven by Our Hero pull up in front of the house, and she wasn’t sure who it was so she didn’t turn off the radio, she just stepped outside; she’s barefoot, the dress is some kind of cotton sundress that you would wear around a house that was likely not air conditioned -- I’ve always assumed that it’s summer -- it’s not fancy but it’s comfortable, it’s not the kind of thing you’d wear to go on a date but you’d wear it on a normal day to hang around the house or meet up with your girlfriends or run errands.
Wave is a verb, it is an active word. Sway is a description of a thing that is happening. Mary is dancing, she is in motion, her dress is waving. She is not standing there listlessly on the porch like Blanche DuBois, she is so taken by a moment in “Only The Lonely” that she dances to it.
[This lyric is also genius, simpler, more direct, but also perfect in that in 14 words you know exactly what has happened and how the narrator feels, down to the depth of his anguish.]
Bruce uses this particular song by Roy Orbison as a deliberate device -- as Orbison describes in the next verse/chorus -- remember this song isn’t even two and a half minutes long! -- because ultimately about being brave enough to try for love, or try for it again:
Just like “Only The Lonely,” “Thunder Road” is a song about the aching depths of unrequited love and being terrified of expressing it, the anguished depths of trying and failing (or never trying!), the torment of failing and finding the strength to get back up and hold your hand out or grasp the hand being held out to you. Or climbing into the car with your Romeo and being willing to see what happens next.
This is why Mary’s dress waves and doesn’t sway. Mary has agency, Mary takes action, Mary decides to pursue the small flame flickering in her chest. Mary makes decisions, Mary dares to dream. Mary does not stand on the porch while the wind blows through her dress. Mary climbs in.
I gotta say, this is fucking me up.
Seriously. It shouldn't--bizarrely, for someone who rates Springsteen and Dylan as high in his personal faves as I do, I'm not all that much of a lyrics guy. I kinda agree with something I saw Billy Joel say when I was in, I guess, high school, about how when you're singing the wrong lyrics and someone corrects you, you always think, well, I like my version better...
And it's not like this matters! And yet...and yet...
This has been set in stone since I was a kid and it's just...it fucking waves. I actually thought the commenters on the AVClub had some excellent rejoinders to Jon's comment. (Also, some interesting anecdotes about Bruce disappearing from the airwaves in California.)
Was never a dilemma for me...
Would love to hear Landau's interpretation of Terry... 😳