The Promise - Bruce Springsteen

Johnny works in a factory

And Billy works downtown

Terry works in a rock 'n' roll band

Looking for that million dollar sound

Me, sometimes I don’t do nothing

Spend a lot of time alone

Some nights I go to the drive-in

And some nights I stay home

I followed that dream

Just like those guys do way up on the screen

And I drove a Challenger down Route 9

Through the dead ends and all the bad scenes

And when the promise was broken

I cashed in a few of my dreams

Well now, I built that Challenger by myself

But I needed money and so I sold it

I lived a secret I should’ve kept to myself

But I got drunk one night and I told it

All my life, I fought this fight

The one that no man can ever win

And every day just gets harder to live

The dream I’m believing in

Thunder Road, oh baby, you were so right

Thunder Road, there’s something dying down on the highway tonight

Well now, I won big once and I hit the coast

Oh, but somehow I paid the big cost

Inside, I felt like I was carrying the broken spirits

Of all the other ones who lost

And when the promise is broken, you go on living

But man, it steals something from down in your soul

Like when the truth is spoken, and it don’t make no difference

Something in your heart goes cold

Well, I followed that dream through the southwestern tracks

That dead ends in two-bit bars

And when the promise was broken, I was far away from home

Sleeping 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

Thunder Road, oh, Billy and me, we’d always sing

Thunder Road, we were gonna take it all and throw it all away