Stolen Car Lyrics
In a little house out on the edge of town
We got married, and swore we'd never part
Then little by little we drifted from each other's heart
That would fade as time went by and our love grew deep
In the end it was something more I guess
That tore us apart and made us weep
Down on Eldridge Avenue
Each night I wait to get caught
But I never do
When our love was young and bold
She said last night she read those letters
And they made her feel one hundred years old
On a pitch black night
And I'm telling myself I'm gonna be alright
But I ride by night and I travel in fear
That in this darkness I will disappear
I think this song is about infidelity. The stolen car is a metaphor. He wants to get caught. This is the dark night of his soul.
I was thinking the same, but I think it goes even deeper than having an affair. The dark side we all have manifests itself in many ways. Insecurity, addiction, depression, etc. I hear this guy as someone who doubts he is worthy of the gifts he has been given. He believes he has "stolen" an identity he feels he can not live up to. He has been living a lie for so long that he does'nt even believe he exists anymore. This is one of the best songs ever written by any artist - especially the Tracks version.
I was thinking the same, but I think it goes even deeper than having an affair. The dark side we all have manifests itself in many ways. Insecurity, addiction, depression, etc. I hear this guy as someone who doubts he is worthy of the gifts he has been given. He believes he has "stolen" an identity he feels he can not live up to. He has been living a lie for so long that he does'nt even believe he exists anymore. This is one of the best songs ever written by any artist - especially the Tracks version.
@stolencar51 yeah man, I like your interpretation or whatever you’d like to call it. I try to think of the age Bruce was when he wrote this: Thirty, with ideas of settling down, love etc, on his mind. I was very immature and slow to grow up; so I’m 52 now (Dealing with - or NOT dealing with, as it were - substance abuse, and the depression that comes with it, really had me doing nothing more than “treading water” for a long long time..say, roughly, 20 years, It feels/felt like I was standing still, emotionally) and I...
@stolencar51 yeah man, I like your interpretation or whatever you’d like to call it. I try to think of the age Bruce was when he wrote this: Thirty, with ideas of settling down, love etc, on his mind. I was very immature and slow to grow up; so I’m 52 now (Dealing with - or NOT dealing with, as it were - substance abuse, and the depression that comes with it, really had me doing nothing more than “treading water” for a long long time..say, roughly, 20 years, It feels/felt like I was standing still, emotionally) and I saw these songs in a different way when I was thirty. I was certainly not the adult Bruce was at 30. None of us reaches these points in our respective Lives at the same time, so I found it easy to hold myself in contempt, like I just didn’t Have it in me to not just BE a grownup, but to actually FEEL like one. Which I feel I am going thru right now, thank goodness, or I’d STILL feel like an “imposter”, a “stranger in my own life” as Sheryl Crow once wrote and sang…
These feelings Bruce is describing bring to my mind shades of The Doors’ People Are Strange, except that Bruce feels like he doesn’t belong ANYWHERE, it’s not just the other people who are “strange” - He finds himSELF strange, unfamiliar. He’s lost, wants to be “found”, wants someone to find Him, which is an awful place to be, when you can’t find yourSELF, no matter how hard you try.
In hindsight, I feel like it’ll all make sense to him, but “now” he can’t see the first for the trees
@stolencar51 Remember when musicians - and Bruce is one of the ones who always seemed to be able to use it to great effect - used to utilize the limitations of the popular Media (which, at the time The River was released would’ve been Vinyl/Cassette tape)? If you’re not sure what I’m saying, go look at the running orders of Born To Run and Darkness: Those two lps are sequenced in a way that presents the two sides of the album as mirror Images of each other. If you’re a Bruce fan from way back like I am, you already...
@stolencar51 Remember when musicians - and Bruce is one of the ones who always seemed to be able to use it to great effect - used to utilize the limitations of the popular Media (which, at the time The River was released would’ve been Vinyl/Cassette tape)? If you’re not sure what I’m saying, go look at the running orders of Born To Run and Darkness: Those two lps are sequenced in a way that presents the two sides of the album as mirror Images of each other. If you’re a Bruce fan from way back like I am, you already likely know what I’m talking about… The songs take on similar subject matter, but then they differ in some aspects, such as, How the narrator FEELS or, how he/she deals with the “problem(s)” presented by the song, or maybe they just differ In overall MOOD or FEEL. Doesn’t matter, what’s important is to just be aware that Bruce uses these tools to carry his message, and if you want to piece the puzzle together, he gives you the tools and hints. (One example, the most obvious, just in case I’m not communicating it well: Side 1 of Darkness begins with ‘Badlands’; side 2 starts with ‘The Promised Land’… Similar subject matter, however, ‘Badlands’ is more Determined, even ANGRY; ‘the Promised Land’ is more HOPEFUL. OK, one more example lol, Side 1 ends with ‘Racing In The Street’, in which a couple find themselves closed off from each other due to LIFE getting in the way, i.e., the narrator describes how he feels the need to Race (or whatever death-Defying behavior, paradoxically, manages to make him feel ALIVE), but his significant other can’t watch it, she feels like Something bad is about to happen to him, and that he’s tempting fate. So she just waits for him to make it home alive, but it eats at her. However, the narrator knows the relationship is shaky, and also knows they love each other - they’ve not lost ALL faith, not yet anyway - and are willing to at least TRY to keep it going with each other. The title track closes side 2/the album, and in ‘DOTEOT’, a similar relationship seems to have been involved in the song’s content, the important part being, it’s PAST TENSE, now the couple has already split, the female is off living in some hoity-toity life with some rich guy (“Now I hear she’s got a house up in Fairview, And a style she’s trying to maintain”). “Sliding Doors”-like, alternate universes taking place on the respective sides of the album…
Anyway, my point is, Stolen Car closes side 3 of the Double-LP The River; Wreck On the highway closes side 4/the entire album… in WOTH, Bruce’s narrator comes upon a car crash, finds a “Young man lying” there, gravely injured. The image of the young man - possibly a stand-in for Bruce himself - haunts him. He remembers the young man “crying, Mister, won’t you help me, please?”.
You see where I’m going, right?
This song soulfully used in the movie "Copland". Poor New Jersey, middlechild between Philadelphia and NY
"I want to get caught but I never do." "I ride by night and travel in fear that in this darkness I will just disappear." "Nobody sees me when I drive by." is the last verse of the "Tracks" version.
I believe the main character in "Stolen Car" is already dead, which makes the song take on a much different meaning, especially the section about the love letters.
Man, that is a good interpretation! I see him as feeling as if his life is over and his soul is dead, longing for that zest for living he had when he was much younger. It seems as if he is a middle aged guy that questions whether he means anything anymore to anyone in the world. He has no clue how to be true to his ownself and just wants to get out.
Man, that is a good interpretation! I see him as feeling as if his life is over and his soul is dead, longing for that zest for living he had when he was much younger. It seems as if he is a middle aged guy that questions whether he means anything anymore to anyone in the world. He has no clue how to be true to his ownself and just wants to get out.
@franklintitan I don’t necessarily agree that the narrator is PHYSICALLY dead in Stolen Car, but he absolutely, positively feels like a GHOST ????… So what I’m saying is, even though we may differ in our overall interpretations, there IS Death at the edges Of the song, haunting the narrator, meaning that, it looks like to me that we agree, yet don’t agree, each interpretation holding, for our intended and purposes here, legitimacy and weight!
@franklintitan I don’t necessarily agree that the narrator is PHYSICALLY dead in Stolen Car, but he absolutely, positively feels like a GHOST ????… So what I’m saying is, even though we may differ in our overall interpretations, there IS Death at the edges Of the song, haunting the narrator, meaning that, it looks like to me that we agree, yet don’t agree, each interpretation holding, for our intended and purposes here, legitimacy and weight!
Montresor is right, in my opinion. The "stolen car" is a metaphor for the isolation he feels after his failed relationship and the emotions he feels after it. He hopes to get caught ("Each night I wait to get caught but I never do"), but fears, and expects, to "ride by night and I travel in fear That in this darkness I will disappear" He fears total isolation from the people in his life.
It makes sense to me that the "stolen car" is a metaphor for a woman that the protagonist is having an affair with. He's waiting to get caught so that he can end the lie. The "restlessness" he experienced was his desire for other woman and he hoped this would disappear as his relationship grew deeper, but it never did and now he's left driving that stolen car.
Stolen car is a metaphor for a person in desperation, whose heart is broken, whose emotional life is in turmoil.
I personally find the Tracks version to be better than the River version. I understand the whole etherealness he was going for on the album, but the straight-forward treatment on Tracks hits me more every time.
No one empathizes more with the down and outer than Springsteen. Here we have a guy who married his sweetheart but as Bruce knows, real life doesn't have happy endings. They are not as close as they were, they have been driven apart from each other, and in an act of deperation, he steals a car. Desperate people do desperate things. Is he hoping this act will bring his love back to him? And the final line in the song, is he contemplating suicide? A truly sad song, yet it rings true in the real world.
what they thought was true love changed for the worse as they grew apart in time he is not blaming her or himself, but instead an outside force that tore them apart he didn't actually steal a car...it is a metaphor..he doesn't feel connected to her anymore and is doing something he knows is wrong and hopes someone will just put an end to it, implying he can't stop it himself
his wife is acknowledging that their love is not what it once was and seems like ages since it felt strong
he continues on...and he hopes he will be ok but he is ashamed of what he is doing and is afraid that he will lose sight of the person that he once was
The Tracks version and the River version are, basically, two different songs with identical lyrics. But the central character is the same. And he's a recurring character that was born in Stolen Car and resurfaces in "Two Steps Up", "Cautious Man", "Dancing in the Dark", "Two Faces", "Straight Time", "Nothing Man", "Loose Change", and others. A man defined by his own isolation. Crushed by it. And with no escape from it.
@ZFT A man defined by his own isolation. Sums that up nicely, maybe why i relate so much to this song. The theme threads through many of Bruce's characters including the audience. We ride together.
@ZFT A man defined by his own isolation. Sums that up nicely, maybe why i relate so much to this song. The theme threads through many of Bruce's characters including the audience. We ride together.