The Screen Door Slams, Mary's Dress....Does What???
Saturday cartoons, plus an amusing debate breaks out: Did her dress "sway" or "wave" in Springsteen classic "Thunder Road"? He's not saying. Update: Jon Landau (maybe) settles it.
The “Thunder Road” that I grew up with was actor Robert Mitchum’s 1958 single, which reached #68 on the charts. Mitchum wrote it himself and managed to sing in any number of his movies. Here it is. And after the cartoons below you’ll find the Springsteen “controversy.” Then tell us what you think, and subscribe (it’s free) if you haven’t. My important Countdown to Hiroshima today over here.
Saturday Cartoons
Horsey:
Kal:
Brodner:
de Adder:
Bennett:
Bramhall:
Sack:
Crowe:
Breen:
Luckovich:
Music
[See update at bottom] Yes, there’s a heated—well, it has to be, it’s summer—debate, quite amusing, over whether Mary’s dress “sways” or “waves” in Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” Even if you are no a fan, you may know that the song off Born to Run opens with, “The screen door slams / Mary’s dress waves (or sways???).”
The new conflict was kicked off by a recent tweet by, get this, Maggie Haberman, who cited the “sway” word as she sat in the audience awaiting Bruce’s return to Broadway. Always happy to correct her, I was ready to tweet a reply, since I always heard it as “waves” (and what the hell would “sways” mean with a dress?), but held off when I found several of the leading unofficial lyrics sites online claiming it was indeed “sway”! They seemed sway wrong.
Others were not so reticent to reply, however, and thus we have the new “debate.” Now there’s a 1500-word L.A. Times probe about it. Their conclusion: Who knows? Since I was there at or near the creation with The Boss back then, I have to weigh in with “waves”—and I’m amazed that the article finds some quasi-credible reasons to maybe “sway” some opinions (not mine, of course).
Bruce ain’t saying and Miami Steve in his Twitter feed screamed, “Oy vey! Get this Bruce lyric shit outta my feed!” I dared to write old pal Stevie Friday morning about this and predictably he replied: “Couldn’t care less.”
Rob Tannenbaum, who wrote the L.A. Times piece, continued the fun with an online poll that found “waves” winning by a fair amount but with 6.8 percent voting for “Mary’s dress (mumbles).”
Among the Twitter comments:
It is “sways” because when a woman is wearing a dress, her hips sway causing that dress to do the same.
It would only sway if Mary were wearing a petticoat, and no way is Bruce’s Mary wearing any damn petticoat.
Admiring the rabbit hole.
Well, here are a couple of Bruce live samples below. You be the judge. The second one, with just Bruce quietly on piano, should take care of it, but….he sure seems to sing “sways.” Although the caption calls it “waves.” I think it’s just a matter of Bruce slurring the “ess” in dress into waves to make it…swaves….Well, leave your own pick below in Comments. (And some will recall that I will always believe that I was partly responsible for the “Roy Orbison singing for the lonely” line.)
At least it’s not the classic misheard “Purple Haze” line: “Excuse me while I….kiss this guy.”
Update: Jon Landau late today to David Remnick at The New Yorker:
“The word is ‘sways,’ ” Landau wrote back. “That’s the way he wrote it in his original notebooks, that’s the way he sang it on ‘Born to Run,’ in 1975, that’s the way he has always sung it at thousands of shows, and that’s the way he sings it right now on Broadway. Any typos in official Bruce material will be corrected. And, by the way, ‘dresses’ do not know how to ‘wave.’ ”
Hi Greg,
I love your substack, and read it regularly.
wrt Mary's dress:
Background: I've seen Bruce 99 times in concert (yeah, I know, I know, I'm not in the 100 club yet!), and I've written for Backstreets and Bruce's web site, so sometimes people think I know what I'm talking about. Sometimes.
Mostly I find the "controversy" to be amusing. But this will be a serious reply.
I learned the song as "waves," and on those occasions when I've sung along with my car radio or with Bruce in concert, that's the word I've used.
But then, I always thought that in the 2nd chorus of "The Promised Land," Bruce said if he could "reach" one moment in to his hand, right up until I saw the movie "Blinded By the Light" a couple years ago and there was "wrench" right up on the screen. That one's not in the lyric sheet. I went back and listened to the old recordings, and realized I had heard it wrong all those years.
The same is true with "Thunder Road." The correct word is "sways."
That's not just because the lyric sheet to "Live 1975-85" says "sways," or because Bruce's autobiography says "sways," or because he both sang and said "sways" during the VH1 show. The 2nd time he said it during the VH1 show in explanation, he didn't even say "sways," he said "swayed," past tense. Listen closely, it's unmistakable, no matter what the closed captioning says (I'm from central Jersey, I speak that dialect). It's in this clip, at 2:36, "swayed" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv8p5aK-CGE
It's not Bruce just leaving out the "v," it's that there is no "v" to leave out.
But consider the scene. "Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays. Roy Orbison singing for lonely, hey that's me and I want you only."
With the opening of the screen door slamming and the dress waving, I always had the vision of Mary bursting through that door (bang!), and/or a breeze causing the door to slam and her dress to wave. Kinda sorta makes sense.
But "sways" is far better, much more literal, and more in keeping with vivid Springsteen scenes.
The radio is playing Roy Orbison's "Only the Lonely." Mary is on the porch, absorbed in the music. Maybe she has come through that screen door, possibly it just slammed shut while she was dancing across the porch, not paying the slightest attention to the door, she's lost in the music, and, yes, *swaying* to it. Because people sway to the music, they don't *wave* to it, and the dress does as she does. And that's a vision.
So the original BtR lyrics sheet is wrong. Not exactly the only time an official Springsteen lyric sheet has been wrong. As a result of the mistake in the lyrics sheet, both I and millions of others learned the song wrong. Today, I'm in a small minority acknowledging that, even though Bruce's autobiography -- an authoritative written source that is clearly written by Bruce himself -- says "sways."
So it's "sways," and I confess I had it wrong for more than 40 years.
Cheers, and again, I love the substack!
best,
Matt Orel
There was a piece posted to The New Yorker website. Editor David Remnick spoke directly to The Boss's manager, Jon Landau (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-springsteen-mystery-solved).
It's "sways."