Bruce Springsteen didn’t write often about romance much on his early records, in part because he seemed laser-focused on his career at the expense of long-term relationships at that point. When he wrote about it on “The River,” released on the album of the same name in 1980, he concentrated on the realities of a young couple trying to make it, instead of the romantic aspects of it.
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Perhaps that’s because Springsteen based the song in part upon the marriage of his sister and brother-in-law, a real-life example from which he could draw his conclusions. In any case, the song now stands as one of the most revered of his career.
The River of Dreams … and Lies
Bruce Springsteen struggled with the path he wanted to take for his fifth studio album, the one that would follow up Darkness on the Edge of Town. Darkness featured Springsteen writing in much more succinct fashion than on previous records. He also focused more on adult concerns such as family and work, as opposed to the outsized urban dramas filled with charismatic scoundrels and lovable losers that made up albums like Born to Run.
Springsteen wanted to continue in that grittier direction going forward, knowing that his audience was dealing with a lot of those topics in their own lives. But he also wanted to somehow make room for the fun side of rock and roll, such as what was contained in the songs he loved as a kid.
After initially conceiving of the new album as a single disc, Springsteen underwent an eleventh-hour change of heart and made it a double disc. One thing that didn’t change: The Boss knew he had something special with the song “The River,” and he wanted it to be a centerpiece of any release.
Springsteen had watched his sister get married at a young age, and he’d witnessed the financial pressures that weighed upon her young family. That scenario was the basis for the basic story of the song, with Springsteen embellishing upon it with subtle allusions to one of his favorite topics: How the American Dream can be more of a pipe dream than a realizable ideal.
Behind the Meaning of “The River”
“The River” refers to the getaway location where the narrator goes to escape his problems and pressures, until the existential threats become so real and vast that it no longer works. Though I know the river is dry, he admits at the song. The life he imagined and the life he now leads have diverged, never to be reconciled.
Even before the narrator lays out his predicament, he hints at the lack of choices presented to him: I come from down in the valley, where, Mister, when you’re young / They bring you up to do like your Daddy done. Not long after he introduces us to his girlfriend Mary, and then he suddenly hits us with the big news, which he relates with an unromantic thud: Then I got Mary pregnant / And man, that was all she wrote.
None of the storybook frills of romance are evident as the pair gets married, while he gets a union card to pick up whatever work he can find. Instead of some sort of religious official marrying them and speaking of hope and love, this union is made official in a way that sounds like a death: And the judge put it all to rest.
The final verse finds the narrator reminiscing on better days, when he and Mary were carefree and the future seemed infinite. Reality has ruined those reveries, however, as Springsteen explains in one of the most devastating couplets of his career: Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse / Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse.
We’re left to ponder that question, because Springsteen ends the story there. We don’t know how these two young marrieds made out, although, for the record, Springsteen’s brother-in-law and sister are still married to this day. In any case, “The River” is ultimately less about the specific situation and more about that devastatingly fine line in life that separates dreams and lies.
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