The Promise

Johnny works in a factory

Billy works downtown

Terry works in a rock and roll band

Looking for that million dollar sound

I got a job down in Darlington

Some nights I don't go

Some nights I go to the drive-in

Some nights I stay home

I followed that dream

Just like those guys do way up on the screen

Drove my Challenger down Route 9

Through the dead ends and all the bad scenes

The promise was broken

Cashed in a few of my dreams

Well I built that Challenger by myself

But I needed money and so I sold it

Lived a secret I should've kept to myself

But I got drunk one night and I told it

All my life, I fought that fight

The fight that you can't win

Every day it just gets harder to live

The dream you're believing in

Thunder Road, baby, you were so right

Thunder Road, something dying down on the highway tonight

Well I won big once and I hit the coast

Yeah, but I paid the cost

Inside I felt like I was carrying the broken spirits

Of all the other ones who lost

The promise is broken, you go on living

It steals something from down in your soul

When the truth is spoken, it don't make no difference

Something in your heart goes cold

I followed that dream through the southwestern tracks

That dead ends in the two-bit bars

The promise was broken, I was far away from home

Sleeping in the back seat of a borrowed car

Thunder Road is for the lost lovers and all the fixed games

Thunder Road is for the tires rushing by in the rain

Thunder Road me and Billy we'd always sing

Thunder Road, take it all and throw it all away