Darkness from Legacy by BCI
Tracklist
| 4. | Darkness | 3:45 |
Lyrics
"how much of this was i thinking? none of it. but how much was i feeling? all of it."
Bruce Springsteen said this in 2005 on VH1 storytellers about "Devils and Dust." his words occur to me again in 2020, listening to "Darkness on the Edge of Town."
as a kid i remember just clinging to the second verse because i also had secrets that i dreamed of cutting loose. then after my first breakup, as a mopey teenager, the first verse spoke to me, seeing how people live on in different places carrying our little memory. in my headphones, in my bedroom, the singer seemed ancient and free and wise and i played the song on repeat to see my future through his eyes.
so what about the third verse? well i always heard it as catharsis, as in "i'll do whatever it takes,” within the metaphor of racing. but now i'm not so sure what the narrator's doing up on that hill, consumed by darkness, after losing everything. he says "lives on the line where dreams are found and lost," but whose life is on the line? and what exactly did you find? i can almost see that silhouette in the fadeout, that desperate jump, nihilistic and alone up there.
he was 28. it was the last song he finished for the record after sitting in fragments in a journal dating back to the earliest sessions. it can take a while to know what you're feeling, to see where you're going, to climb down from the hill.
