“I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a 396

Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor

She’s waiting tonight down in the parking lot

Outside the Seven-Eleven store…”

I’ve never been much of a car guy. I’ve never owned a fancy set of wheels and the only things that come to mind when I hear the word “piston” are Isiah Thomas and the third opponent in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. Yet I hear these opening lines and, without exception, I become a car guy. I don’t know a 396 from a 401(k), but I put this song on and suddenly I’m popping the hood on my Honda Accord and making bizarre proclamations about the state of the carburetor. But isn’t that Bruce? Always finding a way for the listener to relate to the song, no matter the subject. For the opening verses of Racing In The Street, I become a car guy.

“Me and my partner Sonny built her straight out of scratch

And he rides with me from town to town

We only run for the money got no strings attached

We shut ‘em up and then we shut ‘em down…”

This verse reminds me of an earlier time, long before X-Boxes and iPhones. Two buddies spending time in the garage, trying to build the Jersey Shore’s best summer hot-rod. Picture it: the heat steaming off a black-top driveway, grease on their hands and face, a stack of empty Budweisers, and maybe Eddie Cochran or Roger Daltrey raising a fuss and a holler out of the 8-track player. No strings attached to this story; just cars, the strip and the summer sun. A simpler time.

“Summer’s here and the time is right

For goin’ racin’ in the street…”

At this point, this is still a song about fast cars and the eternal optimism of youth. We souped-up this old Chevy from scratch and now it’s time to race. We’ll meet up at that abandoned stretch of road down near the train tracks and may the best car win. Tomorrow, we’ll fix whatever we fucked up and then do it all again. But like so many Springsteen songs, life has a way of interrupting the blissfulness of youth. We begin to realize that this isn’t really a car song; and I am reminded that I am not really a car guy…

“Some guys they just give up living

And start dying little by little, piece by piece

Some guys come home from work and wash up

And go racin’ in the street…”

Going racing is no longer a youthful pastime for our narrator; it is now more of an escape. There is a transition going on in the song right now from youthful exuberance to the tired working man. He is now faced with adult responsibilities and relationships. While he spent his younger days living life to the fullest, he is now “dying little by little, piece by piece.” Yes, he still goes racing, but it has a different meaning now. While racing cars used to define him, it has now become a mechanism to escape what defines him: his work, his responsibilities. The pedal goes down a little more forcefully now; the smile that comes from revving the engine is now a snarl. Life isn’t so simple anymore.

“I met her on the strip three years ago

In a Camaro with this dude from L.A.

I blew that Camaro off my back, and drove that little girl away

But now there’s wrinkles around my baby’s eyes

And she cries herself to sleep at night

When I come home the house is dark

She sighs ‘Baby, did you make it alright?’”

Transition complete. They met at a drag race, where he stole her from that “dude from L.A.”  Time has stripped away that carefree life, however, and it has revealed the complexity and confusion of getting older. There is a picture of depression painted here: sadness, darkness, melancholy. This is what life has thrown at them: him escaping his depression by doing the thing that used to give him joy, and her fully immersing herself in her depression. “Baby, did you make it alright?’ is about all she can muster.

“She sits on the porch of her Daddy’s house

But all her pretty dreams are torn

She stares off alone into the night

With the eyes of one who hates for just being born…”

This is one of the bleakest lines in the Springsteen catalogue. “With the eyes of one who hates for just being born.” They say the eyes are the window to the soul, right? Well, her soul is a pretty dark place right now. This is the reality our narrator is faced with now: no longer is it he and Sonny building that Chevy out of scratch, but instead he’s trying to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship with someone who wishes she was never born.

“Tonight my baby and me we’re gonna ride to the sea

And wash these sins off our hands…”

There is a destructive, possibly suicidal vibe to this final verse. When it all became too much, they drove that hot rod straight into the sea, washing away not only their sins, but everything else they ever loved or feared. But I choose not to look at it this way. Consider me an optimist. Maybe they rode over to the ocean and then headed south along the coast, all the way to the Florida Keys. Maybe they opened a little auto shop down in Key West; hey, maybe even Sonny joined them. Maybe, amidst the palm trees and the turtles, they discovered the youth that they thought they had lost. Or maybe it’s just a song about cars.

 

“Racing In The Street” appears on Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 album Darkness On The Edge Of Town.