" In the parking lot the visionaries
Dress in the latest rage
Inside the backstreet girls are dancing
To the records that the D.J. plays
Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners
Desperate as the night moves on,
Just a look and a whisper, and they're gone"... "
"Now's there's things no one can rearrange
We both have yesterdays that we can't change
It's closing time-Bartender's ringing last call
These days I don't stand on pride
And I've learned how to take a fall"
"In a six dollar motel with the honey bun
With seven glorious days in the Nevada sun
He played the tables, she pumped the slots full of dimes
They came back broke but they had a good time
Now many fell apart in the years come and gone
But Big Bill and little Angel they'd last on and on
They held together when the times grew thin
A little boy that looked like her,
And a girl that looked like him
So mister don't you pay it no mind
Let the sun go down and the moonlight shine
Back of a greyhound bus sit two lovers entwined
Just Big Bill and little Angelyne"
"Now Billy was an honest man
He wanted to do what was right
He worked hard to fill their lives
With happy days and loving nights
Alone on his knees in the darkness
For steadiness he'd pray
For he knew in a restless heart
The seed of betrayal lay
One night Billy awoke from a terrible dream
Callin' his wife's name
She lay breathing beside him in a peaceful sleep,
A thousand miles away
He got dressed in the moonlight
And down to the highway he strode
When he got there he didn't find nothing but road
Billy felt a coldness rise up inside him that he couldn't name
Just as the words tattooed 'cross his knuckles
He knew would always remain
At their bedside he brushed the hair from his wife's face
As the moon shone on her skin so white
Filling their room with the beauty of God's fallen light"
"Everybody's got a secret Sonny
Something that they just can't face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag `em down
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town
Some folks are born into a good life
Other folks get it anyway anyhow
I lost my money and I lost my wife
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now
Tonight I'll be on that hill `cause I can't stop
I'll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town"
"Well now on a summer night in a dusky room
Come a little piece of the Lord's undying light
Crying like he swallowed the fiery moon
In his mother's arms it was all the beauty I could take
Like the missing words
To some prayer that I could never make
In a world so hard and dirty, so fouled and confused
Searching for a little bit of God's mercy
I found living proof"
She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
She'll let you come just far enough
So you know she's really there
She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away
"I'm riding down Kingsley,
Figuring I'll get a drink
Turn the radio up loud,
So I don't have to think,
I take her to the floor,
Looking for a moment
When the world seems right,
And I tear into the guts,
Of something in the night.
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,
You can ride this road 'till dawn,
Without another human being in sight,
Just kids wasted on
Something in the night.
Nothing is forgotten or forgiven,
When it's your last time around,
I got stuff running 'round my head
That I just can't live down
When we found the things we loved,
They were crushed and dying in the dirt.
We tried to pick up the pieces,
And get away without getting hurt,
But they caught us at the state line,
And burned our cars in one last fight,
And left us running burned and blind,
Chasing something in the night."
Johnny works in a factory
And Billy works downtown
Terry works in a rock and roll band
Lookin' for that million-dollar sound
I got a little job down in Darlington
But some nights I don't go
Some nights I go to the drive-in,
Or some nights I stay home
I followed that dream
Just like those guys do up on the screen
And I drive a Challenger down Route 9
Through the dead ends and all the bad scenes
And when the promise was broken,
I cashed in a few of my dreams
Well now I built that Challenger by myself
But I needed money and so I sold it
I lived a secret I should'a kept to myself
But I got drunk one night and I told it
All my life I fought this fight
The fight that no man can ever win
Every day it just gets harder to live
This dream I'm believing in
Thunder Road, oh baby you were so right
Thunder Road there's something dyin' on the highway tonight
change
pray
anyhow
mercy
loud,
factory
