This month on Twitter, @sotachetan hosts #BrandedInSongs – which is a head-on collision of my personal world of music and my professional world of branding and advertising. The challenge is to simply pick a song with a brand name in its lyrics or title. I added one more criteria to my picks, which is this: the songs themselves must be as iconic as the brands they mention. No filler here.
Songs that are covered by several legendary acts are few in and far between. “Thunder Road” is one of those rarities, a song that was also recorded by Tori Amos, Cowboy Junkies, Phish and Melissa Etheridge. It’s also spotlighted in Nick Hornby’s book, “31 Songs”. All this to say, it’s as clear as day that the opening track to Born To Run is absolutely revered by both musicians and fans alike.
I heard that “Thunder Road” started as a bit of an unwieldy affair, like its hinges are a bit loose. This prompted the producer to ask Springsteen and the band to streamline the sound a bit. Thankfully, this didn’t seem to diminish the song at all. “Thunder Road” is a full song, a rocker with unforgettable lyrics that was born out of combining sketches of multiple songs into one seamless track. Bruce’s vocals, as the often are, feel like he’s pushing himself to the max, and so do all the instrumental elements, including the piano, harmonica and sax. “Thunder Road” hits like thunder.
“They haunt this dusty beach road
On the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets.”