There's a wonderful Andy Gill article about Springsteen's Thunder Road in a recent issue of 'The Independent' and if you're especially lucky, you might be able to catch it here :



Here's an extract :

""Thunder Road" is a quintessential Springsteen portrait of restless yearning, its youthful protagonists captured on the cusp of adulthood, the narrator waiting behind the wheel listening to Roy Orbison on the radio as his Mary dances across the porch to join him, "riding out tonight to case the promised land". It has all the classic Springsteen elements: the guy, his girl, the romance of cars ("the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets"), the stagnating small town, the symbolic freedom of the open road, and a burning faith in the redemptive power of rock'n'roll. "Well I got this guitar, and I learned how to make it talk", the protagonist tells Mary, and it's clear that's the only future he sees for himself, the only way to avoid becoming his parents. "It's a town full of losers," he concludes dismissively, "and I'm pulling out of here to win."

Go read.