Bruce Springsteen Lyrics: MY FATHER'S HOUSE [Live July 2018 version]

MY FATHER'S HOUSE

Live July 2018 version

My father worked as a 16-year-old floor boy in that rug mill. Then he went off to war. When he came home he got married. They shut the rug mill down, and so he went to work on the Ford Motor plant line in New Brunswick. Then he worked at the Nescafé plant in Freehold, worked in a plastics factory in town. He was a truck driver, a bus driver, drove a taxi. He lived mostly at home, except for his second home, which was a little local bar in the center of town. Now to a child, bars in Freehold were these citadels of great mystery. When you walked through barroom doors in my hometown, you entered the mystical realm of men. On the rare night that my mother would call my father home, we would slowly drive through town until we drew to a stop outside of a single lit door. She'd look at me and say, "Go in and get your dad." This both thrilled and terrified me. Thrilled me, because I'd been given the license by my mother, the law... to go into the bar! I'm a kid! But it terrified me, because to enter the bar is to enter my father's privileged, private, and sacred space! He was not to be disturbed when he's down at the bar! Everybody knew that. So I would walk in. And I was waist-high, and like a Jack who climbed some dark beanstalk into a land of giants, all I remember is the men towering over me on their way out the door. Now once you were in, to the left against the wall was a line of red leather booths that were filled with husband and wife tag team drinkers. Now they were your hard-core regulars, there night after night after night, all right? Now to the right was the bar, a line of stools filled by a barricade of broad working-class backs, clinking glasses, too loud laughter, and very few women. I would stand there lost in the noise and the hustle of the crowd and I would drink in that dim smell of beer and booze and aftershave. That, to a kid, that was the scent of adulthood. It was the scent of manhood. I wanted some of that, you know? Finally somebody would notice me and draw me over to my pop. Now my view from the floor was the first thing I'd see is the chrome legs of the barstool. Then I'd see his black shoes, white socks, dark green work trousers, powerful legs and haunches. My dad, till the day he died, had the legs and an ass of a rhinoceros. And, and his trousers always looked like they were stretched, stretched over those legs and ass somehow. I don't know how. They were busting out, you know? Uh, then I would see his black Garrison work belt, his green work shirt, and then his face. By the time I got there, his face was flushed red, red as a tomato because he was Irish, and whatever he drank went straight to his face. All right? He couldn't hide a thing when he came home, you know? Uh, and not only was it red, but it was like it, it was like, distorted too, into some sort of booze mask, you know, by, by Mr. Schlitz and, and... It was so foreign to me as a child that uh, he... Fuck, I don't know! But it was scary, and he'd be peering down over his shoulder, down through cigarette smoke and he'd be looking at me like, "I've never seen you before in my fucking life." I'd then uttered the immortal words that I was sent to deliver, "Mom wants you to come home." I'd hear, "Go outside, I will be right out." And I would follow my breadcrumb trail back out the barroom door, I would hop into the backseat and I would inform my mother, "Um, he'll be right out. He'll be right out."

Last night I dreamed that I was a child
Out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest
Before the darkness, darkness falls

I heard the wind rustling through the trees
And ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snapping at my heels

I broke through the trees and there in the night
My father's house stood shining hard and bright
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran till I fell shaking in his arms

I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart
Would never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts
I got dressed and to this house I did ride
From out on the road I could see its windows shining in light

But I walked up the steps and I stood on the porch
And a woman I didn't recognize, she came and spoke to me through a chained door
Well I told her my story and who I'd come for
She said "I'm sorry son but no one by that name lives here anymore"

Now those whose love we wanted but didn't get, we emulate them. It's the only way we have in our power to get the closeness and the love that we needed and desired. So when I was a young man and looking for a voice to meld with mine, to sing my songs, and to tell my stories, well I chose my father's voice. Because there was something sacred in it to me. And when I went looking for something to wear, I put on a factory worker's clothes, because they were my dad's clothes. And all we know about manhood is what we have seen and what we have learned from our fathers. And my father was my hero, and my greatest foe. Not long after he died, I had this dream. I'm on stage, I'm in front of thousands of people and my dad's back from the dead, and he's sitting in the audience. And suddenly, I'm kneeling next to him in the aisle. And for a moment we both watch the man on fire on stage. And then, to my dad, who for years he sat at that kitchen table, unreachable, but I was too young and I was too stupid to understand was his depression. Well I kneel next to him in the aisle, and I brush his forearm, and I say, "Look, Dad, that guy on stage... that's how I see you."

My father's house shines hard and bright
Stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned

Info

The above lyrics are for the live July 2018 performance of MY FATHER'S HOUSE at Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City, NY, during Springsteen On Broadway. The song was played solo on acoustic guitar and harmonica.

This performance of MY FATHER'S HOUSE was recorded on 17 or 18 July 2018 during the taping of the Springsteen On Broadway Netflix special. It was released on the Springsteen On Broadway album in 2018.

Springsteen On Broadway

Springsteen On Broadway was a Bruce Springsteen concert residency held at Walter Kerr Theatre (in 2017-2018) and St. James Theatre (in 2021) in New York City, NY. The show consisted of Springsteen performing five shows a week, Tuesday through Saturday, at the Broadway theatres. The sold-out series of performances began with seven previews starting on 03 Oct 2017 and officially opened on 12 Oct 2017. It was extended three times after its initial eight-week run, running through 15 Dec 2018 and bringing the total number of performances at Walter Kerr Theatre to 238. On 10 Jun 2018, Springsteen received a special Tony Award for his Broadway show. In 2021, an additional limited run was announced, this time held at St. James Theatre instead of Walter Kerr Theatre. This new series of performances opened on 26 Jun 2021 and ran through 04 Sep 2021, bringing the total number of performances at both theatres to 268.

The show featured Springsteen, solo, playing guitar, piano, and harmonica, performing his music, restating incidents from his 2016 autobiography Born To Run, and performing other spoken reminiscences written for the show. His wife, Patti Scialfa, has also appeared at most shows, singing backing vocals on a total of three different songs.

Springsteen On Broadway, a Netflix special directed by Grammy- and Emmy-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny, was filmed during two special invitation-only shows on 17 and 18 Jul 2018. The film launched globally on Netflix on 16 Dec 2018 at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, just hours after the final Broadway performance at Walter Kerr Theatre closed. Two days prior, on 14 Dec 2018, Columbia Records released Springsteen On Broadway, an audio album encompassing the full film soundtrack. The audio was mixed by Bob Clearmountain and mastered by Bob Ludwig. The album is available physically as a 2-disc CD set or a 4-disc LP set, as well as digitally.