"The Highway is Alive Tonight"

It was when I really got into Tracks that I noticed just how much Springsteen likes re-using certains phrases and lyrics in his songs (although it's definitely less common on album-songs). There's many examples ("find out what I got" in Badlands and Iceman, "some stupid half trance" in Bring on the Night and My Love Will Not Let you Down), but the purpose of this post is not to list every such example.

I find the lyric "The highway is alive tonight" particularly fascinating.  It shows up in both Seaside Bar Song (an unreleased song from WIESS that is on Tracks) and The Ghost of Tom Joad.  Here are parts of both  songs where the lyric appears:

Seaside Bar Song

The highway is alive tonight so baby do not be frightened

There's something about a pretty girl on a sweet summer night

That gets this boy excited

The Ghost of Tom Joad

The highway is alive tonight

But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes

I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light

Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad

These two songs were written decades apart (Seaside Bar Song in the early 70s and the Ghost of Tom Joad in the mid 90s).  Stylistically, these two songs are dramatically different (and incidentally, are just one of the countless examples that counter the frequently made, annoying and terrible argument that "all Springsteen songs sound the same").  Thematically, they differ quite obviously as well.

Seaside Bar Song is a good example of a typical early Springsteen song - fun, upbeat, full of energy, and similar (in its youthful theme) to songs like 4th of July, Asbury Park and some of his earlier love songs like Rosalita (or Thundercrack, if you can call that a love song!...)

The Ghost of Tom Joad is obviously much more "serious" (for those unfamiliar with the song or 10th grade reading, its about John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath).  It's an ode to hardship and struggling, and especially somber, even for Springsteen.  Early-mid Springsteen songs often had a dark context or story, there was often hope of redemption and escaping the sadness.  In The Ghost of Tom Joad, there's no hope or possibility of "pulling out of here to win," even temporarily.  

Seaside Bar Song lacks the darkness of most Springsteen songs (although many of the very early Springsteen songs lacked that darkness and were simply fun, energetic, and even silly).  Especially in Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and onward, the highway, cars, and other similar devices were symbolic for the ability to escape from dark circumstances and were reminders of the possibilty of redemption, no matter how bleak the situation was.

The re-use of the lyric "The Highway is Alive Tonight" in Ghost of Tom Joad is especially depressing precisely for this reason.  Early Springsteen greeted the 'living highway' with excitment and antici....pation!  Perhaps, a contemplative and pessimestic Springsteen in the 1990s became frustrated with just how optimistic "The Highway is Alive Tonight" sounded. That would explain why in The Ghost of Tom Joad, "nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes."  And that is why the song takes on an especially dark meaning, and becomes so powerful when considered in the context of Springsteen's decade-long career.

I am by no means claiming that The Ghost of Tom Joad is simply a depressing and sad depiction of reality and hardship.  The song is better interpreted as honoring struggle and hardship.  However, what is dark and depressing is Springsteens rejection of the optimistism in proclaiming "The Highway is Alive Tonight!"  Of course, there is a reality of hardship in the world and there is artistic and practical value in representing that hardship.  What's dissapointing is that the situation is so bleak that (unlike for the characters in songs like Reason to Believe, arguably) Springsteen finds it necessary, after declaring "The Highway is Alive Tonight", to clarify that it's really not and we all know it.

*Lyrics taken from Springsteen's website's Search the Lyrics feature.