Adam Raised a Cain Lyrics

Lyric discussion by spunkybuddy 

Cover art for Adam Raised a Cain lyrics by Bruce Springsteen

In the part where he sings about "all the old faces asked you why you're back, etc." I take that to mean the storyteller has come back to his home town to live with his parents, possibly after failing at a dream, and the old faces set him up with a job and he drives to work in his father's car.

The part about "in the darkness of your room your mother calls you by your true name," this is just a guess, but I think Springsteen was Catholic, and in this song the storyteller's mother is calling him by his real name instead of his Catholic name, which his dad might do.

My Interpretation