Lyrics The Promise - Live at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY - 7/1/2000 - Bruce Springsteen

Johnny works in a factory, Billy works downtown
Terry works for a rock and roll band
Lookin' for that million-dollar sound
I got a job down in Darlington
Yeah, but some nights I don't go
Some nights I go to the drive-in, some nights I stay home

But I followed that dream just like those guys did way up on the screen
I drive a Challenger down Route 9 through the dead ends and all the bad scenes
When the promise was broken, I cashed in a few of my old dreams

I built that Challenger by myself
But I needed money and so I sold it
I lived a secret I shoulda kept to myself
But I got drunk one night and I told it

But all my life I fought that fight
The fight that you can never win
Every day, it just gets harder to live
At dream you're believing in

Thunder Road
Oh baby, you were so right
Thunder Road
There's something dyin' down on the highway tonight

Well, now I won big once and I hit the coast
Yeah, but somehow I paid the big cost
Inside I felt like I was carryin' the broken spirits
Of all the other ones who lost

When the promise is broken, you go on living
But it steals something from down in your soul
Like when the truth is spoken and it don't make no difference
Something in your heart goes cold

Well, I followed that dream through the southwestern flats
That dead ends in two-bit bars
And when the promise was broken I was far away from home
Sleepin' in the back seat of a borrowed car

Thunder Road
For the lost lovers and all the fixed games
Thunder Road
For the tires rushing by in the rain

Thunder Road
'Member when Billy and me, we'd always say
Thunder Road
We were gonna take it all and throw it all away