What's the most striking Springsteen lyric? (poll 6831831)

What's the most striking Springsteen lyric?

A dream of life comes to me, like a catfish dancin’ on the end of my line

Ain't no sin to be glad you're alive

All my life I fought this fight, the fight that no man can ever win

All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood

At night sometimes it seemed you could hear the whole damn city crying

Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge, drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain

Barroom eyes shine vacancy, to see her you gotta look hard

Between our dreams and actions lies this world

Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

But I ride by night and I travel in fear that in this darkness I will disappear

Crying like he swallowed the fiery moon.

Every day ends in wasted motion, just crossed swords on the killing floor

Faith will be rewarded

Fried chicken on the front seat, she's sittin' on my lap; we're wipin' our fingers on a Texaco road map

Heartbreak and despair got nothing but boring, so I grabbed you baby like a wild pitch

I ain't here for business, I'm only here for fun

I don't understand how you can hold me so tight and love me so damn loose

I got debts that no honest man can pay

I got one hand steady on the wheel and one hand's tremblin' over my heart

I got stuff running 'round my head that I just can't live down

I had a jukebox graduate for first mate, she couldn't sail but she sure could sing

I had some victory that was just failure in deceit; now the joke's comin' up through the soles of my feet

I know that girl no longer exists, except for a moment in some stranger's eyes, or the nameless girls in cars rushin' by

I see your fortune in the lines in your face

I walk with angels that have no place

If Pa's eyes were windows into a world so deadly and true, you couldn't stop me from looking but you kept me from crawlin' through

In one last breath they built the roads they'd ride to their death

In the end what you don't surrender, well the world just strips away

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true or is it something worse?

Is a promise that love couldn't keep same as a promise broken?

It’s a long dark highway and a thin white line connecting, baby, your heart to mine

It's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin and can't stand the company

It's not your lungs this time, it's your heart that holds your fate

It wasn't the wind in the grey fields I felt rushing through my arms; no, no, baby it was you

I wanna find me a world, where love’s the only sound

Jesus, send some good women to save all your clowns

Let the broken hearts stand as the price you've gotta pay

Maybe you got a kid, maybe you got a pretty wife; the only thing that I got's been both'rin' me my whole life

My kids in the back seat got a graveyard cough

New Jersey in the morning's like a lunar landscape

Nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Nothing is forgotten or forgiven when it's your last time around

Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold but with you forever I'll stay

Now who's the man who thinks he can decide whose dreams will live and whose shall be pushed aside

Once I was your treasure and I saw your face in every star

Poets down here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be

Promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight

She stares off alone into the night, with the eyes of one who hates for just being born

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night

Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife baby, edgy and dull, and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul

Sometimes tomorrow comes soaked in treasure and blood; we stood the drought, now we’ll stand the flood

So walk tall, or baby, don't walk at all

Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night, with bruised arms and broken rhythm in a beat-up old Buick, but dressed just like dynamite

The Daily News asks her for the dope, she says “Man, the dope's that there's still hope”

The way the sun belongs to the sea, that’s the way you belong to me

Them smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us, you me and all that stuff we're so scared of

There's nothin' left but some blood where the body fell, that is, nothin' left that you could sell

There were no keys no guards; just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars

Tonight I got dirt on my hands but I'm building me a new home

Tonight I'm gonna get birth naked and bury my old soul and dance on its grave

Tonight I'm layin' in your arms carvin' lucky charms out of these hard luck bones

Tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea and wash these sins off our hands

To the dead it don't matter much ’bout who's wrong or right

When the truth is spoken and it don't make no difference, something in your heart goes cold

Where the distant oceans sing and rise to the plain, in this dry and troubled country your beauty remains

Why do the things that we treasure most slip away in time, till to the music we grow deaf, to God’s beauty blind?

You get used to anything; sooner or later just becomes your life

You lay back easy, cut loose your drive power; your girl leans over says “Daddy can you turn that radio up any louder?”

You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above

Other:

Select up to 10 answers.

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18 Comments

Val - 11 years ago

Show a little faith...there's magic in the night!
Andrea Verbeck - 11 years ago

So very many to choose from but from Backstreets: One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends, trying in vain to breath the fire we was born in
Catching rides to the outskirts, tying faith between our teeth, sleeping in that old abandoned beach house and getting wasted in the heat....
ste ainsey - 11 years ago

I gota find out how it feels I wana no if love is wild I wana know if love is real!!!!
Daina - 11 years ago

Wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims and strap your hands 'cross my engines

Yes please
Maffe - 11 years ago

This one is missing, in my opinion:

"The highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybodys out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide"
Peter Langstaff - 11 years ago

"Fear's a powerful thing
It'll turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust"
swsjohnny - 11 years ago

Dave was even better with the God have mercy line!
swsjohnny - 11 years ago

As tough as picking your top 10 favorite songs. Here's one of my faves that wasn't included: "ain't no one leaving' this world buddy without their shirttail dirty or their hands bloody"
Dave Maz - 11 years ago

So many..but most striking...has to be...
"God have mercy on the man...who doubts what he's sure of"
Think about that...brutally great!
Steve DaBrit - 11 years ago

'And when the promise was broken I was far away from home
Sleepin' in the back seat of a borrowed car
Thunder Road, for the lost lovers and all the fixed games
Thunder Road, for the tires rushing by in the rain'

Beautiful, such a sense of complete defeat, and then echoing what some have said above, "From Small Things' is an absolute nugget, a gem of a little song, packed with sharp lyrics

'first she took his order, then she took his heart'
Michele - 11 years ago

Sorry, Mike, Dave Edmunds recorded "From Small Things," but Bruce Springsteen wrote it.
Mike Gorski - 11 years ago

Sorry Frank, Dave Edmunds wrote " From Small Things "
Mike Gorski - 11 years ago

You could do this for days and not come up with a definitive list..................

Tonite this fool's halfway to heaven and just a mile outa hell,and I feel like I'm comming home
JustMe - 11 years ago

And your strength is devastating in the face of all these odds.
Ryan - 11 years ago

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
Then go racing in the streets
Frank Franco - 11 years ago

So many great lyrics. But my one of my favorites was left out.

She shot him dead on a sunny Florida road.
When they caught her, all she said was she couldn't stand the way he drove.
Brian Palinski - 11 years ago

Great list.

Kids flash guitars just like switch blades hustling for the record machine
Kevin O'Sullivan - 11 years ago

Not enough space above.
Now there's tears on the pillow
darling where we slept
and you took my heart when you left
without your sweet kiss
my soul is lost, my friend
Now tell me how do I begin again?

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