Racing in The Street - Structure

Structure

The song is a near-dirge-like ballad that begins with a slow, graceful and elegant introduction by pianist Roy Bittan.

The narrator has a dead end job, but his pride and joy is his '69 Chevy that he and his partner built, and race across the northeast United States to win money gambling against similar racers. The first verse is accompanied only by piano and opens with the narrator singing that:

I got a '69 Chevy with a 396

Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor

Max Weinberg's drum rim taps signal a somewhat faster pace for the second verse. Midway through, Danny Federici's organ later joins in, combining to form what writer Robert Santelli termed "one beautiful, seamless sound". The organ entrance signals one of the lyric's main points, that the narrator divides the world into two types of people: those who "give up living / And start dying little by little, piece by piece," and those like himself who find something to live for, which in his case is going racing in the streets.

However, after an instrumental break the third verse unexpectedly takes place with again only piano behind it. The girlfriend the protagonist apparently won from a competitor in one of his races does not share his dream of going racing in the streets. Instead, she "stares into the night with the eyes of one who hates for just being born." But the story ends on a possibly hopeful note, as the narrator attempts to find salvation in the closing lines:

Tonight my baby and me are gonna drive to the sea

And wash these sins off our hands.

Other views of the closing have been grimmer. In any case, the song concludes with a moving fugue-like instrumental coda with Bittan's piano, Federici's organ and Max Weinberg's drums intertwining.

The chord progression in the choruses and coda is I–IV–VI–IV in the key of F. Springsteen uses the technique of withholding the V chord, which is only heard during the piano introduction and during a later transition; by reducing the chord's influence, the sense of longing or desperation in the song is heightened.

"Racing in the Street" contains two clear homages: the title and chorus refer to Martha and the Vandellas' 1964 hit "Dancing in the Street", while the instrumental break after the second verse and chorus is an allusion to The Beach Boys' 1964 song "Don't Worry Baby", itself about the emotional aspects of drag racing. The song also inhabits the space established by other early 1960s works, such as Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve" and various other Beach Boys works. Indeed, writer Jim Cullen sees as one of Springsteen's goals with the song to comment upon and reconnect certain elements of rock history. Structurally, the song is also influenced by Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey".