THUNDER ROAD

Live 05 Feb 1975 version

The screen door slams, Angelina's dress sways
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
That's me babe and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I can't face myself alone in that mirror again tonight
Don't run back inside baby, you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe you ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but baby ah you're alright
And that's alright with me

This 442 she's gonna overheat
Make up your mind girl I gotta get her back out on the street
I know you're lonely like me so baby don't try and fake it
I'm no prince and I can't lay the stars at your feet
But I got this old car and she's pretty tough to beat
There's plenty of room in my front seat, baby if you wanna take it
Oh roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair
It's like the rushing touch that dirty wings them highway angels wear
Well tonight we're gonna find out how it feels
I'm gonna trade in your wings for wheels
Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks

Ah mama come take my hand
We're gonna ride all the way to the promised land
Oh I'm gonna dance all the way, dance all the way
Well I don't know but baby I've been told
There's something waiting for us down that dirty road
Oh come take a chance, take a chance, take a chance

Well now I bought this guitar and I learned how to make it talk
I got my car parked out back if you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
Well I think we could take it all babe, just you and me
Climb in back baby, the ride's for free

Oh oh come take my hand
We're gonna ride all the way to the promised land
We'll dance all the way, oh oh-oh
Oh baby I don't know but I've been told
There's something waiting for us down that dirty road
If we take our chance, take our chance

Now the season's over and I feel it getting cold
I wish I could take you to some sandy beach where we'd never grow old
Ah but baby you know that's just jive
But tonight's bustin' open and I'm alive
Oh do what you can do to make me feel like a man
But this 442's gonna overheat
Make up your mind girl, I gotta get her back out on the street
I know you're lonely like me, oh so don't fake it
And maybe I can't lay the stars at your feet
But I got this old car and she's pretty tough to beat
There's plenty of room in my front seat
Oh if you think you can make it, climb in
This is a town full of losers and baby I was born to win

Info

The above lyrics are for the live 05 Feb 1975 performance of THUNDER ROAD at The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA, during what is considered The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle Tour. This was the earliest known performance of THUNDER ROAD. The song was still a work-in-progress, with the early title "Wings For Wheels" and lyrics varying significantly from the official album version.

The "442" (pronounced four-four-two) referenced in this version's lyrics is the Oldsmobile 442, an American muscle car from the seventies. It was a version of the old Cutlass with a 442 cubic inch engine.

The 05 Feb 1975 Show

The Main Point was a small coffeehouse venue on Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, PA. It was formed in 1964 by Jeanette and William Campbell and four other couples as a small folk-based coffeehouse venue inspired by the Philadelphia Folk Festival. The venue was famous for its small intimate atmosphere, homemade food and home baked goods, and inexpensive ticket prices. Over the years, various styles of music were presented; the venue hosted many famous performers in its heydeys, including Bruce Springsteen who performed there on no less than 25 dates between 1973 and 1975. He started as an opening act during a 4-night residency in January 1973 and returned in April as a headliner.

The Main Point was only open for shows and seats were not reserved. The audience would queue up long in advance before the opening of the doors.

Soon after The Main Point's opening, Bill Scarborough became co-owner and booking director from 1964-1975. When Philadelphia's Sunday Bulletin asked him in September 1973 how he made booking decisions, Scarborough cited several factors but admitted that occasionally his own musical tastes influenced him. "I think that the booking of a singer named Bruce Springsteen is the best example I can give you of personal taste and hunch entering into my final choice. Here was a new act out of nowhere, who happened to sign with a major label, and put out an album that reminded me of the best of Dylan. I decided to book him as a headliner, even though he was barely known. We did alright with him, but not as well as we'd hoped. I still feel, though, that he's going to be a big star."

The venue was popular among both musicians and listeners. Clarence Clemons commented in a special Main Point 10th anniversary publication, "The whole band had the flu. Bruce had 103 degree temperature. If it was any other place but the Main Point, any concert or club in the country, we would have cancelled."

The Main Point constantly ran into financial problems related to its intimate size. Ironically, it was its size that made it so popular. Musicians gave benefit concerts for the coffeehouse to help it out of its financial straits. Some of these concerts were broadcast over the local progressive rock radio station WMMR-FM, and many well known bootleg recordings have been made from these performances. Bruce Springsteen's 05 Feb 1975 benefit concert stands out as a particularly legendary event. The Main Point finally closed its doors in 1981.

At the request of Philadelphia's WMMR-FM disc jockey Ed Sciaky, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed a 05 Feb 1975 concert at The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA. This was a benefit show held for the financially struggling club, with Bruce and the band being the sole act on the bill. The show was MC'd by Sciaky and was broadcast by WMMR-FM on the same night. The station solicited for donations to be made by phone during the broadcast.

Shortly before he passed away in January 2004, Sciaky told Backstreets magazine (issue #82, Spring 2005) that the now-famous broadcast almost never happened. After a promise from Bruce Springsteen and Mike Appel to do a broadcast of the 02 Feb 1975 Main Point benefit, Springsteen decided the day of the show that he didn't want it to air. He was playing some new songs, which would soon appear on his upcoming Born To Run album, and many of them were still unfinished. Sciaky had to call Springsteen, despite Appel's objections, trying to convince him to at least do a shortened broadcast. In the end, Springsteen decided to do the whole show on the radio.

The show was not broadcast live-as-it-happened. "We didn't have a phone line from The Main Point, so they had to tape the show in hour-long segments and then drive them to the station and put them on the air," Sciaky explained to Backstreets. "And after the final reel had played, Bruce's lighting guy, Marc Brickman took all of the tapes. So we never got a good copy of the show. But it was a classic show, and it's collected to this day, and I'm glad."

This famous Main point concert was taped off the airwaves and immediately started circulating among a number of fans. In the late seventies, an edited from of the broadcast became available on vinyl bootlegs. This changed in the digital era, when pioneering Italian label and Springsteen specialists Great Dane Records released the show in 1990 on the 2-disc CD bootleg The Saint, The Incident & The Main Point Shuffle.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Saint, The Incident & The Main Point Shuffle (Great Dane Records)

The Saint, The Incident & The Main Point Shuffle utilized the commonly circulated recording of the broadcast, but a couple of years after its release, a 10-inch reel-to-reel tape containing the first 90 minutes of the pre-FM recording of The Main Point show made its way into collectors' hands. On this recording, the sound quality is far superior to the much more compressed off-air recording. The last 70-plus minutes of the performance, or what's presumably on a second reel, were never found from the pre-FM source. The discovery of the pre-FM reel-to-reel tape spurred a host of new bootleg releases, including the first "Masters Plus" reissue by Great Dane Records itself, which paired the new 90-minute pre-FM recording with the original FM-sourced remainder of the show.

The 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point was commercially released in Europe. Since 2005 some enterprising record labels in Europe (mostly in the UK) have been releasing Bruce Springsteen radio and TV broadcasts (and some soundboard recordings) from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Though these releases are not authorized by Bruce Springsteen or his record company, they are lawful due to a legal loophole in Europe.

Bruce Springsteen -- Live On Air

CD + DVD - Northworld (NW0001CDSE) - UK, 2005

The audio CD contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point and the bonus DVD contains various TV appearances from the nineties.

Bruce Springsteen -- Live On Air

CD + DVD - American Legends Ltd (AML2041) - EU, 2005

The audio CD contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point and the DVD contains various TV appearances from the nineties.

Bruce Springsteen -- Transmissions

CD - Storming (SMC2447) - UK, 2007

This release contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, plus two TV appearances from the nineties.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Best "Live On Air" Of Bruce Springsteen

CD - KM Records (KMR 0856-2) - EU, 2010

This release contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Live At The Main Point, 1975

2xCD - Leftfield Media (LFM2CD503) - UK, 2011

This release contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Live At The Main Point 1975

4xLP - Let Them Eat Vinyl (LETV035LP) - UK, 2012

This release contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point. It was released under exclusive agreement with Leftfield Media.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Live At The Main Point 1975 Volume 1

2xLP - Let Them Eat Vinyl (LETV190LP) - UK, 2014

This release contains part 1 of two of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point. It was released under exclusive agreement with Leftfield Media.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Live At The Main Point 1975 Volume 2

2xLP - Let Them Eat Vinyl (LETV191LP) - UK, 2014

This release contains part 2 of two of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point. It was released under exclusive agreement with Leftfield Media.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Spirit Of The Radio: Legendary Broadcasts From The Early 1970s

3xCD - Parallel Lines (PLCD022) - Europe, 2014

This release contains the 09 Jan 1973 WBCN-FM radio broadcast, the 24 Apr 1973 WMMR-FM radio broadcast, and part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen -- Live To Air

2xCD - The Store For Music (SFMCD267) - UK, 2014

This release contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point and various TV appearances from the nineties.

Bruce Springsteen -- On The Crest Of The Airwaves

Digital album - Rock Melon (no catalog number) - UK, 2014

This is a download-only digital album. It contains the 09 Mar 1974 KLOL-FM radio broadcast, the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, and various TV appearances from the nineties.

Bruce Springsteen -- Live Collection

3xCD - Bandana (BAND1011) - UK, 2015

This release contains the 24 Apr 1973 WMMR-FM radio broadcast, part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, and various TV appearances from the nineties.

Bruce Springsteen -- Fifth Of February, Bryn Mawr - WMMR FM

LP - Bad Joker (BOSS 5-1975) - EU, 2015

This release contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Boss Live On Radio '75

CD-R - Peacock Records Ltd (unknown catalog number) - UK, 2015

This release contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- The Main Point

Digital album - BKC (no catalog number) - UK, 2015

This is a download-only digital album. It contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- The Main Point, Bryn Mawr, PA. February 5th, 1975

Digital album - Doxy Records (no catalog number) - UK, 2015

This is a download-only digital album. It contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Ultimate Main Point '75

2xCD - Rox Vox (RV2CD2055) - Europe, 2016

This release contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- Live At The Main Point, Pennsylvania, April 1975

LP - Smalltown (SMALLT 66) - Europe, 2017

This release contains part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- The Main Point, Bryn Mawr, PA. February 5th, 1975

Digital album - RR Live Recordings (no catalog number) - UK, 2018

This is a download-only digital album. It contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- The Wild 1975

Digital album - Cult Legends (no catalog number) - Europe, 2018

This is a download-only digital album. It contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Broadcast Collection 1973-1993

5xCD - Cult Legends (CL78199) - Europe, 2019

This release contains the 09 Jan 1973 WBCN-FM radio broadcast, the 24 Apr 1973 WMMR-FM radio broadcast, part of the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, the soundtrack of the pro-shot video footage from the 11 Apr 1993 show in Verona, and some various TV appearances.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Great American Road Trip

10xCD - Evolution Music (EMG01) - UK, 2020

This release contains the 31 Jul 1973 broadcast from My Father's Place, the 03 Mar 1974 late show broadcast from Georgetown University, the 09 Mar 1974 KLOL-FM radio broadcast, the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, the 30 Sep 1978 broadcast from Fox Theatre, plus some various TV performances from 1992-1995.

Bruce Springsteen -- Thunder Road - Live

20xCD - KP Music (SPRING01) - Europe, 2020

This release contains the 31 Jul 1973 broadcast from My Father's Place, the 03 Mar 1974 late show broadcast from Georgetown University, the 09 Mar 1974 KLOL-FM radio broadcast, the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, the 15 Aug 1975 early show broadcast from Bottom Line, the 17 Oct 1975 early show broadcast from The Roxy Theatre, the 09 Aug 1978 broadcast from The Agora, the 30 Sep 1978 broadcast from Fox Theatre, the 05 Jun 1992 broadcast from Hollywood, the 20 Aug 1994 show with Joe Grushecky & The Houserockers at Marz American Style, plus some various TV performances from 1992-1995.

Bruce Springsteen -- The Broadcast Collection 1975-1995

5xCD - Cult Legends (CL93154) - Europe, 2023

This release contains the 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point, the 15 Dec 1978 broadcast from Winterland Ballroom, and the 14 Dec 1995 broadcast of the Columbia Records Radio Hour radio show.

Credits

Thanks Dave for the info about the Oldsmobile 442.

Available Versions

List of available versions of THUNDER ROAD on this website:

Page last updated: 15 Mar 2012