THUNDER ROAD ON NW LOVEJOY, PORTLAND

Thunder Road is a map of the love/hate relationship I’ve felt for Bruce Springsteen since 1975.

I love that Bruuuuuce has persevered beyond all expectations.

I hate the decision I made when Mary Anne in the Philadelphia clinic invited me along with her friends to see the local phenom across the river in New Jersey.

It was before Born To Run was released, before the Time and Newsweek covers.

I didn’t go because I’d already been disappointed by members of The Next Bob Dylan Club.

I was wrong about Bruce then and it made me like his music even more since.

You may have heard of Bruce Springsteen. His career requires little analysis here other than to say that if his second album had continued in the vein of his first, 1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., he might not have overcome his universally applied Next Dylan label. 

Thunder Road is no Dylan song, or a song he could sing. Bob Dylan would not be a ‘Next Springsteen’ candidate.

But it’s a song with a Dylan/Steinbeck kick.

(Bruce) called (Thunder Road), “an invitation” to a long-playing narrative about small-town kids dreaming of what lies beyond the horizon as the sun goes down on a sweaty summer night.“

It’s also the road that went through Northwest Portland when I met my future wife for the first time.

The local street was NW Lovejoy

I saw her, but our future together was a long ways away. Her name wasn’t Mary, not that it matters.

The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves
Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays

The front door of the Burgess Apartment slammed and I stepped out. I saw a young woman in the most eye-catching blue dress walking up the block.

We met, time passed, things happened, and we started moving forward together. We had a shared fear.

Maybe it was just me?

So you’re scared, and you’re thinking
That maybe we ain’t that young anymore

I was twenty six, twenty five years old then. Everyone in my family got married around twenty. It felt like no was that young anymore.

Since then I’ve gained a better perspective on what’s young and what isn’t. By sixty-seven you’d better gain something.

I wasn’t the answer to someone else’s romantic problems, I didn’t oversell.

Well now, I’m no hero, that’s understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood

I didn’t have a car with a dirty hood, but I did have a sweet silver Fuji 12-speed.

We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels

When she bought a new 12-speed bike I knew things were getting serious on Thunder Road

Oh-oh come take my hand
We’re riding out tonight to case the promised land

And we rode those bikes all over town, getting out early on Sunday mornings when we had the streets of Portland to ourselves.

And I know you’re lonely for words that I ain’t spoken
But tonight we’ll be free, all the promises’ll be broken

I’ve made promises, you’ve made promises, well I made one promise when I married the girl in the blue dress thirty five years ago. So far, so good. Unbroken.

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets

It was a red ’66 Chevy Malibu that looked like it had gone through a fire, and that boy had better have ghosts in his eyes. He was the man I had to fist-fight when he forgot he wasn’t in her life like he used to be.

So Mary, climb in
It’s a town full of losers
And I’m pulling out of here to win

She climbed in and we pulled out of Portland.

Did we win? We’re not done, so let’s wait on the final score.

But if we did keep a running score, we’ve won together.