So that he feels not only that he has something to prove, but that he has some thing huge to prove. It also is sounds like the expression “chip on his shoulder.” He doesn’t just have a chip, he has a boulder. Our man has been working out, or has just started developing. He’s not just putting on his hat, but making multiple small adjustments that look like pumping. I suspect that the pump refers more to a combination of fidgeting and perfectionism exhibited by the teenager to get his appearance just right before going out into the public. Pumps is a sexual word, and at a first reading I thought this was a metaphor for masturbation, but no self respecting teenage guy would jack off into his hat if he had any other option.
The adolescent pumps his way into his hat. It is telling that the mumps is a disease that gets more serious as you get older, that it is less serious to have as a child. Here the mumps make more sense as a metaphor for teenage awkwardness (mumbling) and sexual frustration. The mumps causes mumbling from swollen salivary glands and testicular swelling. I don’t think it means a literal sickness, unless it was one in the past that lead to missing out on opportunities, but a disease as serious as the mumps would put our hero our of commission. Since mumps is a rhyming word, I was at first tempted to pass it off as simple alliteration as opposed to any real meaning. As a musician, Springsteen is a representative to the cities and towns he visits, and to the people of the older generation.ĭown in the dumps with the mumps. A diplomat is also a person responsible for representing one culture to another. The juxtaposition gives a sense of awkwardness, of just coming of age that pervades the song. This is at odds with the teenage modifier. The diplomat is suave, sophisticated, a term of maturity. It is not a rhyming word, and so was chosen more deliberately for meaning. The motorcycle shows up dominant in another Springsteen classic: Born to Run, where it is referred to a “Suicide Machine.” It is the mode of escape, the tool of the young. The motorcycle is the symbol of freedom, and the cause of many young men’s premature death. In the north, you can’t ride in the winter when it snows, so the bikes come out in summer. Here I suspect the Indian refers not to a Native American, but to the motorcycle. Bummers: not everything is going to go well, and already we have a warning that there are things going on that will bring you down, bum you out, cause you to crash. Drummers is both a music reference and again that sense of rhythmic energy, the pulse of life. There is a sense of insanity, of hopped the up emotion that would cause one teenager to call the other a Madman. The word madman is telling here, as it doesn’t rhyme, it strains the rhythm, and it leads of the song. Because the style of the song is so constrained, it actually frees him from having to mean one thing, and instead can paint a picture with words that have multiple meanings, no one of which has to be the true one, but instead just have to be true to the theme of the lyrics.
These words we have to assume he chose more deliberately. What is most telling is where he chose not to rhyme.
#Lyrics blinded by the light meaning free
The burden is on the free words, the ones that don’t rhyme, to apply the connotation of the line of the song.
#Lyrics blinded by the light meaning series
He often had to choose a series of words that sounded good together, not necessarily that were the most direct way to describe what he was feeling. The inner rhymes of the song provide a great sound, but seriously constrained him as a lyricist. I suspect that, while both sex and drugs are reflected in the song, the song is not primarily about either, but is instead a description of the adolescent life of a musician. He’s alluded to drugs, but never sold himself as primarily a druggie. Springsteen has often written about love and sex. Many people have tried to show that this was a song about drugs, or about sex. He has stated that it was based on his experiences as a young musician and was based on people he met. Springsteen wrote this song when he was in his early 20s, and before he had any success as a recording artist. The obscure lyrics have long caused much discussion as to their meaning. He’s changed the orchestration, end even done it as a Latin number. Springsteen’s version of Blinded by the Light was never a hit, but he still plays it in concerts to this day.
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