"The River"

“The River” is one of the most known songs by Bruce Springsteen. That is a quite old song, and came first in 1980 on his fifth album with the same name. The song was a hit single in some of the European countries. On Springsteen’s tours, “The River” became a central piece. A piece of the show was often that Bruce told a story about his battles against his father growing up.

That led to totally silence by the spectators. The silence after the story would then be interrupted by the start of the harmonica part. Especially in Europe on later tours, the song was extended to the whole length with the spectators was singing the wordless “oooh” parts at the end.

The setting in the song is dark. Bruce sings a bit slow and dark, something that underlines the dark setting. The “I” person in “The River” do not need to be Bruce himself, maybe he sings about another guy? Who knows?

In the song there are only the words in the refrain which are repeated. The reason is that Bruce tries to tell a story. He sings in the beginning of the song that “Me and Mary we met in high school” and in the next line he sings “Then I got Mary pregnant”.

In short, the song is about a boy and a girl who went to the same high school. They both lived in a valley, but one day they rode away. The main person got Mary pregnant, so they planned to marry on his 19^th birthday. They didn’t marry and he started to work. Later he acted like he didn’t remember and Mary didn’t care.