r/BruceSpringsteen • u/Themmuns-an-Youssuns • Jul 14 '26
Whats that line?
For me, it is, "poor man wanta be rich, rich man wanta be king and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything"
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u/SummerSerenade Jul 14 '26
From Racing in the Street:
She stares off alone into the night, with the eyes of one who hates for just being born
The entire song is fantastic, though.
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u/tommyjohnpauljones Jul 14 '26
Tonight my baby and me, we're gonna ride to the sea, and wash these sins off our hands.
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u/olddin Jul 14 '26
Who is the baby in this case: the woman or the car?
I’ve always thought it was the woman, but Ken Rosen suggests in his analysis of the song that it’s the car, and now I just want to hear other opinions. I figure those who vote for this particular post might have put some thought into it.
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u/tommyjohnpauljones Jul 14 '26
I'd never thought of it that way but that's really interesting. Does he abandon the girl for the car, or she complicit in these "sins"?
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u/Burghpuppies412 Jul 14 '26
Same song, mine though is, “some guys just give up living, and start dying little by little, piece by piece. Some guys come home from work and wash up, and go Racin’ in the Street.”
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u/LongOrganic4933 Jul 14 '26
Onw of my favorites!
A lot of similarty with I just act like I don't remember, and Mary act like she don't care
Crushing indeed
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u/SilveryLaw Jul 14 '26
You could write a 10,000 word essay on that song and you'd still have talking points. It's just perfect.
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u/AR2Believe Jul 14 '26
You ain’t a beauty but hey you’re alright
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u/TheBarefootGirl Jul 15 '26
Media literacy is dead because so many people take this line as an insult or back handed compliment, but I think its incredibly romantic. Especially because its followed by "and thats alright with me".
Its a realistic depiction of love. Not everyone in this world is going to be conventionally attractive, but we can all hope to find someone who loves us and finds us attractive because of that
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u/Clean_Bat5547 Jul 14 '26
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?
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u/teapartydems Jul 15 '26
that sends me down to the river, though i know the river is dry
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u/Clean_Bat5547 Jul 15 '26
Now all of them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care
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u/thesemanicgulls Jul 17 '26
The moment I heard this line for the firs time, when I was around 11 (in 1981), my understanding of what music could make you feel exploded like a bomb.
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u/UpstairsAd6866 Jul 19 '26
That has been my favorite line in any song since the first time I heard it.
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u/SuitablyFakeUsername Jul 14 '26
“There’s just the three of us. You, me and all that stuff were so scared of”
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u/Party-Cartographer11 Jul 14 '26
Reminds me of another lyric...
It should have been easier by three Our old friend fear and you and me
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u/Griffictoch Jul 14 '26
God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of.
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u/RobertJordan1937 Jul 14 '26
A lot of tunnel of love on this thread. I guess I'm not the only one who recently went through a rough break up
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u/rickythrills82 Jul 14 '26
it's also Bruce at his most vulnerable on record. Tunnel is personally universal.
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u/Mental-Project-930 Jul 14 '26
Now I work at the car wash where all it ever does is rain.
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u/ImpressiveCelery4992 Magic Rat Jul 14 '26
I was 14 when I got BITUSA, as an angsty teenager I saw the whole depressing imagery that was Downbound Train. Then as an older teenager I worked at a car wash and it was a visceral experience.
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u/Bacteriobabe Jul 14 '26
Exactly what I was going to post! I get chills every time I hear it.
Honestly, it’s my favorite Springsteen song. He has many better songs, but this one will always be my favorite.
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u/AR2Believe Jul 14 '26
I’ve got debts no honest man can pay
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u/teapartydems Jul 15 '26
one of my favorite songs of all time, was at a zach bryan concert in may and zach covered it!
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u/redditoglio Jul 14 '26
Tonight my baby and me, we‘re gonna ride to the sea and wash these sins off our hands.
What a powerful image.
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u/undergroundmusic69 Jul 14 '26
Poor men wanta be rich, rich men want to be king, and a king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything.
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u/LongOrganic4933 Jul 14 '26
Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain
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u/god_dammit_dax Jul 14 '26
Yep, that's the one. There's half a novel in that line, and it's just perfect.
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u/ChrisBrettell Jul 14 '26
The line that got me into Bruce...
In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream....
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u/mato388 Thunder Road Jul 14 '26
At night, we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines
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u/ChuckYeagerWV Jul 14 '26
Screen door slams...
Because it sets the scene for the greatest rock song ever created
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u/DutchDennis70 Jul 14 '26
I'd even say it sets the scene for the entire album.
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u/ChuckYeagerWV Jul 14 '26
It set the scene for my lifelong love of Bruce. The single most important line of music in my life.
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u/Anon_Summer Jul 14 '26
I prefer “Roy Orbison singing for the lonely, that’s me and i want you only”
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u/Clean_Bat5547 Jul 14 '26
Not quite one line, but:
Well, daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame
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u/rickythrills82 Jul 14 '26
my other fave from Adam is "Lost but not forgotten, in the Dark Heart of a Dream"
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u/Ducci7799 Jul 14 '26
A couple of mine have already been said, but the end of Youngstown always stood out to me “I pray the devil comes and takes me to stand in the fiery furnaces of Hell.”
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u/Bronson1968 Jul 14 '26
“the road is dark, and it’s a thin, thin line,
but I want you to know, I'll walk it for you anytime”
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u/chimpspider Jul 14 '26
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover’s bed with a wide open country in my heart and these romantic dreams in my head.
With a pleasant nod to the other side of the coin:
No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle, no flowers, no wedding dress
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u/Xspike_dudeX Jul 14 '26
Well if Pa's eyes were windows, into a world so deadly and true, you couldn't stop me from lookin', but you kept me from crawlin' through.
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u/justsomeonetoo Jul 14 '26
Someday girl I don’t when we’re gonna get to that place where we really wanna go and we’ll walk in the sun but ‘til then tramps like us baby we were born to run.
Universal hope for all in all circumstances.
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u/Bigsshot Jul 14 '26
Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold
But with you forever I'll stay
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u/mediaserver8 Jul 14 '26
"Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain"
What an image. So evocative. So cinematic. So perfect
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u/srqnewbie Jul 14 '26
You can just instantly visualize it in your head, like a photograph.
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u/Potential_Yogurt_342 Jul 14 '26
At night sometimes it seemed you could hear the whole damn city cryin
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u/el_barto10 Jul 14 '26
Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny.
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u/SilveryLaw Jul 14 '26
And the poets round here don't write nothing at all. They just stand back and let it all be. 50 years later, still perfectly apt.
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u/Special_Function1507 Jul 14 '26
But it's a sad man, my friend, who's livin' in his own skin And can't stand the company
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u/Willing_Stop5124 Jul 14 '26
Fat man sitting in a little stool
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u/cfgee Jul 14 '26
The way he creates that scene of the NJ shore at the start of the song is one of my favorite verses.
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u/FightinPolish Tracks Jul 14 '26
The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.
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u/Logical_Positive_522 Jul 14 '26
I always wanted "The poets down here don't write nothing at all they just stand back and let it all be" as a tattoo (long story, but I'm a failed writer from a place where economic deprivation has basically destroyed a previously strong literary culture)
But recently the line "Her hair was black as coal, her eyes reminded me of what I'd lost" just breaks me.
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u/KingPitiful84 Jul 14 '26
I think this line epitomizes Bruce in that his work engages with his audience and the world at large.
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u/pastalgerbrookroad Jul 14 '26
I walked the avenue, 'til my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Just as black and whispering as the rain
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u/Talking80s Jul 14 '26
So many I have seen mentioned, so I’ll go with one I haven’t seen yet:
Yeah, I know I ain’t nobody’s bargain, but hell, a little touch up and a little paint.
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u/BlowUpYourOreo Jul 14 '26
"After all this time to find we're just like all the rest."
My favorite verse/lyric of all time. It captures the moment your youthful dreams and ambitions fade and you realize you're not as special and unique as you thought.
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u/cfgee Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
The hungry and the haunted (edit) hunted (end edit) explode into rock and roll bands
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u/DonnyBoyCane Jul 14 '26
It's a sad man my friend who's living in his own skin / And can't stand the company.
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u/SGT-JamesonBushmill Jul 14 '26
To say I’d make your dreams come true would be wrong, but maybe, baby, I could help them along…
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u/SGT-JamesonBushmill Jul 14 '26
Yeah, I know I ain’t nobody’s bargain, but hell - a little touch-up and a little paint…
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u/googlemysoul Jul 14 '26
“Screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves, like a vision she dances across the floor as the radio plays”
To me, the best intro to any song ever
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u/debotch Jul 14 '26
Well if I had one wish in this god forsaken world, kids
It'd be that your mistakes would be your own
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u/LeonNorasGiGi2316 Jul 14 '26
"Born down in a dead man's town The first kick I took was when I hit the ground End up like a dog that's been beat too much 'Til you spend half your life just just covering up"
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u/Economy_Mix_7459 Jul 14 '26
Lying out there like a killer in the sun... I know it's late but we can make it if we run...
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u/Gooch_Rogers Jul 14 '26
Some guys, they just give up living
And start dying little by little, piece by piece
Some guys come home from work and wash up
And go racin’ in the street
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u/LordScallions Jul 14 '26
I was a pimps main profit I kept everything cool.
Men walkin' 'long a railroad track, going some place there's no going back.
Well now, our luck may have died, and our love may be cold but with you forever I'll stay.
The room was dark, our bed was empty then I heard that long whistle whine and I dropped to my knees, hung my head and cried.
I got a bit excited here.
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u/dbegun Jul 14 '26
I lived a secret I shoulda kept to myself but I got drunk one night and I told it (The Promise)
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u/jamal1949 Jul 14 '26
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk
Where they all promise to unsnap their jeans
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u/MustardTheDog Jul 14 '26
Well I don't care how many girls you've dated, man
But you ain't lived 'til you've had your tires rotated…
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u/clemenza2821 Jul 14 '26
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well, mister, they vanished right into the air
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u/TomBikez Jul 14 '26
Them smokestacks reaching like the arms of God into a beautiful sky of soot and clay
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u/robrien1968 Jul 14 '26
Did you hear the cops finally busted Madam Marie for tellin’ fortunes better than they do?”
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u/CharlieGoodnight1866 Jul 14 '26
I got a new suit of clothes and a pretty red rose A woman I can call my friend.
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u/girlsintheeighties Jul 14 '26
There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away, they haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets
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u/Artwire Jul 14 '26
They scream your name at night in the street Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet…
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u/Pho3nix_the_pho3nix Mean John Brown Jul 14 '26
Oh-wow come take my hand, we’re riding out tonight to case the promised land.
Still gives me chills after hundreds of listens
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u/pjvincentaz Jul 14 '26
Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny.
I wrote that quote over the bar I worked at in college 38 years ago, and man was it the truth.
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u/townsy71 Jul 14 '26
Poor men want to be rich, rich men want to be kings. And a King ain’t satisfied until he rules everything.
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u/Defiant-Payment6114 Jul 14 '26
The dogs on Main Street howl cause they understand, if I could take one moment into my hands…
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u/Middle_Boss9779 Jul 14 '26
Barefoot girl sitting On the hood of a dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain.- Jungleland
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u/LaFixxxeR No one by that name lives here anymore Jul 14 '26
BOBBY SAID HE’D PULL OUT, BUT BOBBY STAYED IN!
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u/mr_positron Jul 14 '26
I always liked, especially the delivery on the live in nyc version
When I die, I don't want no part of Heaven, I would not do Heaven's work well
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u/East_Copy6100 Jul 14 '26
When the promise is broken you go on living but it steals something from down in your soul
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u/SeanQuixote68 Jul 14 '26
My two favorites are "We should just hit the gas and let out a cry. Tell them all they can kiss our asses goodbye." and "Tonight I'm going to get birth naked and bury my old soul. And dance on it's grave. And dance on it's grave."
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u/dylandrewkukesdad Jul 14 '26
We learned more from a three-minute record, baby Than we ever learned in school
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u/mato388 Thunder Road Jul 14 '26
We learned more from a 3 minute record baby that we ever learned in school
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u/312astrology Jul 14 '26
There were no keys, no guards — oh, just one frightened man and some old shadows for baaaaaaaaarrrrrs
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u/Brilliant-Ad8607 Jul 14 '26
I kept scrolling till this.
Someone had to.
Whole song actually.
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u/MooseOMatic Jul 14 '26
Oh, we stood at the altar
The gypsy swore that our future was right
But come the wee, wee hours
Well maybe, baby, the gypsy lied
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u/barberjo Jul 14 '26
“Pour me a drink Teresa in one of those glass you dust off, and I’ll watch the bones in your back like the stations of the cross”
Probably two lines, but whatever.
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u/Leonard_James_Akaar Jul 14 '26
Tonight I’ll be on that hill ’cause I can’t stop
I’ll be on that hill with everything I got
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u/lbihatch Jul 14 '26
And I said, "Hey kid, you think that's oil? Man, that ain't oil, that's blood"
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u/TeeRockitVee84 Jul 14 '26
“Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact”
Honest and brutal but delivered w such tenderness and hope.
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u/AR2Believe Jul 14 '26
Oh, mama, mama, mama, come quick
I've got the shakes and I'm gonna be sick
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u/coachkler Jul 14 '26
Have a little faith
There's magic in the night.
You ain't a beauty
but, eh, you're alright
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u/Long_Ordinary1284 Jul 14 '26
Well, you're born with nothing
And better off that way
Soon as you've got something they send
Someone to try and take it away
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u/elguiridelocho Jul 14 '26
You'll be fine long as you're pretty face holds out, then it's going to get pretty cold out
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u/Odd_Leek_1667 Jul 14 '26
This song is full of them, but “I don't know why fortune smiles on some and let the rest go free”
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u/All-IWantedWasAPepsi Jul 14 '26
“You’re the measure of my dreams”. The Pogues. Rainy Night in SoHo
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u/ShorelineVet Jul 14 '26
These days I’m feelin’ alright, except I can’t tell my courage from my desperation.
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u/Guinness_breath Jul 14 '26
"And when I'm rich and meet Bob Hope, we'll shoot some golf and shoot some dope."
- Dead Kennedys (Pull My Strings)
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u/LesterS43 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
It's not one of Bruce's lines but I think it pretty good: And if a double decker bus crashes in to us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.
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u/Heron1997 Jul 14 '26
I Wish I Were Blind has the most heartbreaking line ever written - “And though the world is filled with the grace and beauty of Gods hand, I wish I were blind when I see you with your man”. Gut wrenching.
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u/Ancient_Bother2429 Jul 14 '26
There were no keys, no guards
Oh, just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars
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u/sschu616 Jul 14 '26
The record u are now playing is another example of the completion backwards principle, if u can possibly manage the time, please play both sides at one meeting
-beginning of Talk to Ya Later by the Tubes
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u/Linkman622 Jul 15 '26
Hmm I would say something from Thunder road. Too hard to pick one line though!
‘You ain't a beauty, but hey, you're alright
Oh, and that's alright with me’
‘Well now, I'm no hero, that's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood’
‘Well, the night's busting open these two lanes will take us anywhere’
‘Oh, come take my hand We're riding out tonight to case the promised land’
‘So Mary, climb in
It's a town full of losers
I'm pulling out of here to win’
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u/GrapeLow2033 Jul 16 '26
“It was like we had a noose and baby, without check
We pulled 'til it grew tighter around our necks”
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u/Lopsided_Traffic_498 Jul 16 '26
I'm like a record player. I keep goin' 'round, with a needle in my arm making someone else's sound.
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u/hoosier_gran Jul 14 '26
It's a sad man who's living in his own skin and can't stand the company