Cowboy Junkies' cover version
[Spoken:] I play the banjo.
Saigon, it was all gone
The same Coke machines as the streets I grew on
Down a mesquite canyon we come walking along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Campsite's an hour's walk from the nearest road to town
Up here there's too much brush and canyon for the CHP choppers to touch down
Ain't looking for nothing, just wanna live
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Come the Santa Ana's, man, that dry brush will light
Billy Devon got burned up in his own campfire one winter night
We buried his body in a white stone high up along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Had enough of this town and the street life
Over nothing you end up on the wrong end of someone's knife
Now I don't want no trouble and I got none to give
Me and the brothers under the bridge
I come home in '72
You were just a beautiful lights in your mama's dark eyes of blue
I stood down on the tarmac, I was just a kid
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Come Veterans Day, I sat in the stands in my dress blues
I held your mother's hand when they passed with the red, white and blue
One minute you're right there and something slips
The above lyrics are for the Cowboy Junkies' cover of Bruce Springsteen's BROTHERS UNDER THE BRIDGE. It was released on their 2005 album Early 21st Century Blues.
Cowboy Junkies is a Canadian country music and alternative rock band, formed by three siblings from the Timmins entertainment family: Margo Timmins on vocals, Michael Timmins on guitars, Peter Timmins on drums, and Alan Anton on bass.
Margo Timmins told Backstreets magazine that "all of us are huge Springsteen fans. I've always loved that song [Thunder Road]; It's one of the most beautiful songs ever written." She adds that to her, "'Thunder Road' is a real woman's song. It speaks of aging and losing certain dreams that you might have as a young woman that I don't think young men have. It's just a song I always wanted to sing from my perspective, a woman's perspective." Timmins said the group actually tried to record it several years ago but wasn't satisfied with the results. "I don't think I had the skill to do what I wanted to do with it," she says. "I knew how I wanted to do it but just didn't have the talent yet. So we waited and brought it back. I'm very happy with this take on it; it has a nice balance between the sadness and the beauty I think is part of that song."
In addition to THUNDER ROAD, the group had also released covers of Springsteen's BROTHERS UNDER THE BRIDGE, MY FATHER'S HOUSE, STATE TROOPER, and YOU'RE MISSING, and the five songs have been part of the group's live repertoire.
List of available versions of BROTHERS UNDER THE BRIDGE on this website:
BROTHERS UNDER THE BRIDGE [Official studio version]