The text that Bruce Springsteen has been misrepresenting for decades

Often these lyrics are relatively harmless. For example, when listening to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” some people don’t sing “Feel the beat on the tambourine” but rather “Feel the beat on the tangerine.” However, there are also songs where the meaning is so misunderstood that the whole song takes on a different meaning.

Think of the Beatles and the lyrics “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” often understood as “I Want to Hold Your Man.” What is intended to be a straightforward love song takes on a new narrative about sexuality and infidelity, something that the masses of the 1960s may have had a hard time accepting.

If you ever feel embarrassed because you get the lyrics to a song wrong, don’t. The truth is, it happens to everyone, and sometimes even the person responsible for the lyrics can get them wrong. That’s what happened to Bruce Springsteen when he finally announced the correct lyrics to his hit “Thunder Road,” revealing that he had been singing the song wrong for nearly 50 years.

This line is placed at the very beginning of the song, because people all over the world have been debating for years whether Bruce Springsteen sings “Mary’s dress sways” or “Mary’s dress waves.” To settle the argument once and for all, Springsteen brought a copy of the original vinyl record of Born to Run, complete with a lyric sheet. “The lyrics to ‘Thunder Road’ are on this album. The right lyrics,” he says.

“I’ve been singing ‘Sways’ for nearly 50 years,” he says, opening the record and holding it to his chest while adjusting his reading glasses. “‘The screen door slams, Mary’s dress… waves,'” he reveals, to the shock of the crowd. As people cheer and applaud, Springsteen does what anyone would do if they found out they’d been singing the wrong lyrics to their own song for nearly five decades: He closes the record and declares, “That’s wrong.”

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