Bruce Springsteen

1 page (8 1/2 x 11 in; 216  x 280 mm) on a single sheet of ruled notepaper, [Long Branch & New York City, 1974-5], comprising 30 lines written in blue and black ink, being a draft of "Thunder Road" with superscript and marginal notations. Lyrics from unpublished “Love and Defiance,” on verso, 22 lines. In good condition. 

Collection of Mike Appel – another owner – present owner

clean
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Before it became “Thunder Road,” the path out of town was “Glory Road”

In 1974, a 24 year old Bruce Springsteen began recording his third album, Born to Run. One year into recording, Springsteen and his band were still grinding away hoping to achieve a sound big enough and a record solid enough to help them hit it big. In April 1975, the group began working on the song that would eventually become "Thunder Road" in the famed Record Plant studio (see lot 82) in New York City. Springsteen is known to have an exceedingly intense drafting style, writing and rewriting and then recording and rerecording every song on Born to Run. The present manuscript finally confirms a theory of Springsteen biographer Charles Cross, told in his book Backstreets: Springsteen, The Man and His Music: "Glory Road" was "the early version of lyrics that later became 'Thunder Road,'" a hypothesis likely based on extent song listings from these recording sessions. From this manuscript, to live recordings of early performances of the song caught on tape before the release of Born to Run, to the version that ended up on the album, Springsteen’s artistic process is clear. He had a vision for the song consistent with the theme of the entire album: two hopeful teenagers jump in a fast car and escape down the road to freedom.

Springsteen is contradictory in his accounts of the inspiration for the song. In the 2005 aptly named documentary “Wings for Wheels” (also the title one of the intermediate versions of “Thunder Road” that Springsteen performed live in early 1975), he claims that Jon Landau had come on to coproduce and was actively involved in helping Springsteen thin out the lyrics, suggesting Springseen had already worked steadily on the song and was at this stage refining his work. However, a recording from a show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey during the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour in September 1978 provides a slightly more enchanting origin story, which starts with the 1950s movie called “Thunder Road” and ends with cosmic coincidence in finding a road with the same name:

“There was this… there was this Robert Mitchum movie. And it was about these moonshine runners down south. And I never saw the movie, I only saw the poster in the lobby at the theater. And I... took the title and I wrote this song, but I didn't... I didn't think that there was ever a place that was like... that was like what I wrote in this song and all I know... didn't know if there was or not. And uh.... we were out in the desert over the summertime driving uh... driving to Nevada and we came upon this, this house on the side of the road, this Indian had built... had a big picture of Geronimo out front with "Landlord", said "Landlord" over the top, had a big sign said "This is the land of peace, love, justice and no mercy". And it pointed down this little dirt road that said ‘Thunder Road.’”

The present manuscript includes several lyrics and themes that evolved into the final recorded version of “Thunder Road.” Highlights include: “And the wind blowin through (back) your hair" (line two) is repositioned in the final version to be a booming exclamation that punctuates the first chorus of the final song; "I bought this old guitar and I learned how to / make it talk I got this old car and / if yor [sic] ready to make that long walk" (lines 26 – 28) is retold nearly untouched as "well I got this guitar / and I learned how to make it talk / and my car's out back / if you're ready to take that long walk / from your front porch to my front seat"; this very same “front porch” makes an appearance in line 20 of the present manuscript, as well.  With lyrics like “take you where you never grow old” (line 9) and “this old car she’s pretty touch / to beat” 9lines 18-19) are classic Springsteen imagery of young lovers with a desire to rise up and become something bigger than their current circumstance.

The marginal note “promised land” is a revelation that Springsteen was developing this idea well in advance of the 1978 release of the song by the same name. Most importantly, the verso of this manuscript contains lyrics for an apparently unpublished, unrecorded song entitled "Love and Defiance." The lyrics are standard Springsteen fare and, while the song seems fairly well developed and the title appears on song lists from the Born to Run recording sessions, the tune never made it onto the album.