Racing in the Street

Springsteen wrote this about a small-time drag racer who dreams of a better life somewhere else. Like Steve Earle's "Someday," it describes that very American desire of the young man to leave his town and see what is out in the big world - to avoid that soul killing life they see around them.

This is one of many early Springsteen songs featuring cars - in this case a Chevy. Some others were "Thunder Road," "Backstreets," and "Pink Cadillac." Bruce explained to Rolling Stone in 2010: "When you pick a song title like 'Racing In The Street,' that's a hard song to write. But that was sort of the local culture of Asbury in the '70s, which was still deeply enmeshed in car culture. If you went to the Stone Pony, it was a constant circle of souped-up muscle cars on Saturday and Sunday. Once again, I sort of stood outside of it, I was hitchhiking, I didn't have a car! But I wanted one real bad."

Springsteen wrote in his book Songs: "I wanted my street racers to carry the years between the car songs of the '60s and 1978 America."