E Street Shuffle Archive

The dice direct our attention to another unreleased classic: “Walking in the Street,” first recorded in the summer of 1974, reworked during the Born to Run sessions in May 1975… and then subsequently lost forever. (Bruce searched for the master tape when compiling the 1998 Tracks box set but was never able to locate it.)

Some would argue that “Walking in the Street” isn’t a song of its own but rather a very early version of what would become “Thunder Road.”

There is some merit to that argument: musically, the melody is a dead ringer for the outro of “Thunder Road,” and that outro was a late addition to that song. (Early versions circulate with a different outro or coda.)

And lyrically, a late verse sounds very similar to “Wings for Wheels,” which was definitely an early version of “Thunder Road:”

From “Walking in the Street..”

Oh baby, I can’t lay the stars at your feet,
Oh but I think we could take it all, just you and me
Oh come on and see there’s a lot of room for you baby in this front seat.

…to “Wings for Wheels…”

Maybe I can’t lay the stars at your feet,
But I got this old car and she’s pretty tough to beat
There’s plenty of room in my front seat
If you think you can make it, climb in.

to “Thunder Road.”

Well, I ain’t no hero, that’s understood.
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good some how… hey, what else can we do now?

But thematically, “Walking in the Street” (sometimes called “Lovers in the Cold”) is a very different song from “Thunder Road.” The latter is a classic expression of desperation, yearning, and escape. The former is a fatalistic tale of Billy and Cherry, who seem reconciled to their lot.

Billy carries a gun and walks Lexington Avenue, “casing the promised land.” A getaway driver “waits outside the store. He pulls away just as Billy runs out the door. Oh, and Billy won’t run any more, no no no…”

They sound more like the lovers in “Atlantic City” or “Meeting Across the River” than in “Thunder Road.” (And having written that, I now wonder whether the story in “Walking in the Street” migrated to “Meeting Across the River” when the melody left town for “Thunder Road.”)

The chorus pairs a soaring melody with gorgeous but grounded imagery:

Tonight we’re lovers in the cold, running past the graveyards in the snow
Walking in the street with nowhere to go.

…and even though there’s a hint of hope in the line “I think we could take it all, just you and me,” the song returns and ends on the chorus, and it’s clear that Billy and Cherry won’t ever be pulling out of there to win.

So give a listen to this never-released, never-performed classic, lost somewhere with Billy and Cherry, forever walking in the street with nowhere to go.

Walking in the Street
Recorded August-September 1974
Never released
Never performed

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