Bruce Springsteen

Released: November 21, 1995

Songwriter: Bruce Springsteen

Producer: Chuck Plotkin Bruce Springsteen

[Verse 1]
Got out of prison back in '86 and I found a wife
Walked the clean and narrow, just trying to stay out and stay alive
Got a job at the rendering plant, it ain't going to make me rich
In the darkness before dinner comes, sometimes I can feel the itch

[Chorus]
I got a cold mind to go tripping across that thin line
I'm sick of doing straight time

[Verse 2]
My uncle's at the evening table
Makes his living running hot cars
Slips me a hundred-dollar bill says
"Charlie, you best remember who your friends are"

[Chorus]
I got a cold mind to go tripping across that thin line
I'm sick of doing straight time

[Bridge]
Eight years in, it feels like you're gonna die
But you get used to anything
Sooner or later, it just becomes your life

[Verse 3]
Kitchen floor in the evening, tossing my little babies high
Mary's smiling, but she's watching me out of the corner of her eye
Seems you can't get any more than half free
Step out onto the front porch and suck the cold air deep inside of me

[Chorus]
I got a cold mind to go tripping across that thin line
I'm sick of doing straight time

[Verse 4]
In the basement, hunting gun and a hacksaw
Sip a beer and thirteen inches of barrel drop to the floor
Come home in the evening, can't get the smell from my hands
Lay my head down on the pillow and go drifting off into foreign lands

Bruce Springsteen is a rock ‘n’ roll icon from the great state of New Jersey. Nicknamed “The Boss,” he’s known for spirited sax-powered anthems about working-class people making their way in the world. Backed by the trusty E Street Band, he’s sold more than 120 million records, won numerous awards (including 20 Grammys and an Oscar), sold out stadiums around the globe, and earned a place alongside his teenage heroes in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Although he’s a living legend who ranks among the most important artists in rock history, Springsteen wasn’t an overnight success. Around the time of his first album, 1973’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., he was dismissed as just another “new Dylan"—some scruffy folk singer with a decent vocabulary looking to follow in Bob’s footsteps. In the decade that followed, Springsteen proved himself to be much more.

His breakthrough came with his third album, 1975’s Born to Run. The record hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and landed the singer-songwriter on the cover of both Time and Newsweek. Bruce nabbed his first chart-topping album five years later with The River, and in 1984, he went global with Born in the U.S.A., a critical and commercial smash that produced seven Top 10 singles.

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