The best thing with this song is to listen to "Shut out the Light" right before it, which was the B side to Born in the USA if you have the record as a single. That song is about a guy coming home from Vietnam, he's not dead, but he may as well be. The songs even share a lyric, in that one it says "Bobby pulled his Ford out of the garage and they polished up the chrome." In that song the vet comes home to everything he loved and after the horrors of war he is not the same person. "He stares across the lights of the city and dreams of where he's been." This song tells a similar story, but this time he returns in a coffin. Beautiful song, excellently written. Bruce once again proves his ability to not only interpret the present, but put it in the scope of the past. Listen to "Shut out the Light" and then "Gypsy Biker." Scary to think we can make the same mistake twice...
The best thing with this song is to listen to "Shut out the Light" right before it, which was the B side to Born in the USA if you have the record as a single. That song is about a guy coming home from Vietnam, he's not dead, but he may as well be. The songs even share a lyric, in that one it says "Bobby pulled his Ford out of the garage and they polished up the chrome." In that song the vet comes home to everything he loved and after the horrors of war he is not the same person. "He stares across the lights of the city and dreams of where he's been." This song tells a similar story, but this time he returns in a coffin. Beautiful song, excellently written. Bruce once again proves his ability to not only interpret the present, but put it in the scope of the past. Listen to "Shut out the Light" and then "Gypsy Biker." Scary to think we can make the same mistake twice...