Early draft #1
She was dancin on the hood like a angel
with powerglide
Don't let em tell you angel your to young
you ain't deaf you ain't dumb
Tramps like us baby we were born
to run
baby's tongue mamas heels let me show
you love is wild let me show
you love is real
music blastin out of those amps
be my highway queen + baby
I'll be your Tramp
End - check - Oh Billy how come
meet scums in an everlasting ease
where whores + angels meet she buckled in the heat
highway vanish in the mist
scum + angel locked / Enchant
bit filled with / nothin' can stop me now
young empty / chasin
where mothers / on young fury wheels searchin for
broken
a busted glory
GLORY ROAD is a Bruce Springsteen song from the Born To Run period (late 1973 to early 1975). It was a candidate track for the album, as evidenced on three Springsteen handwritten lists of proposed tracks for his third studio album. See the "Handwritten Track Lists" section below for more details.
At least two handwritten lyrics sheets containing what seem to be early drafts of GLORY ROAD exist. They were written by Bruce Springsteen using a blue ballpoint pen on ruled notepapers. This website refers to them as "Early draft #1" and "Early draft #2".
Early draft #1, a scan of which can be seen below and from which the above lyrics are transcribed, is the least developed among the two. Though it's titled "Glory Road", it contains only a few cohesive lines while the rest is just rhyming and ideas. This draft surfaced online in October 2019 when it was auctioned on LiveAuctioneers.com. That same draft was again auctioned on GottaHaveRockAndRoll in October 2024.
"Early draft #2", though untitled and still not complete, is much more developed than the earlier draft. See early draft #2 for more details.
Charles R. Cross wrote in his 1989 book Backstreets: Springsteen, The Man And His Music that GLORY ROAD was a "very early version of lyrics that later became 'Thunder Road'." During an April 1995 interview with Australian rock journalist Ian 'Molly' Meldrum held in Los Angeles, Springsteen was asked about a song called GLORY ROAD, which Meldrum thinks it was a very early draft of THUNDER ROAD. Meldrum got his information reading Cross' book. Springsteen, of course, was not expecting this kind of very specific question from him. He appears bemused at first by the question, but then seems to have a recollection of the title and says, "now that title sound familiar, [...] you know, you might be right". He adds later that he's "not sure if that ['Thunder Road'] started out as 'Glory Road'."
However, the above-mentioned lyrics sheets tell a different story: GLORY ROAD developed into BORN TO RUN, not into THUNDER ROAD. The line "I looked out over (cross) my hood + (saw) the highway buckle in the heat" (from early draft #2) was later used in an early daft of BORN TO RUN and much of the last verse later became the last few lines of BORN TO RUN. However, GLORY ROAD and BORN TO RUN are two different songs as evidenced in the proposed handwritten song lists for Springsteen's third album (see section below). This may mean that these early drafts of GLORY ROAD later evolved into two very different songs: GLORY ROAD (a very evolved song whose lyrics are yet to surface) and BORN TO RUN.
Moreover, a Bruce Springsteen handwritten lyrics sheet for an early draft of THUNDER ROAD that was auctioned in 2014 provides further evidence that GLORY ROAD is not an early version of THUNDER ROAD. See the early draft of THUNDER ROAD for more details.
In his 1989 book Backstreets: Springsteen, The Man And His Music, Charles R. Cross mentions a list of songs titled "New Album #3" that Springsteen wrote when he "first planned the third record." The list seems to emanate from very early in the Born To Run recording sessions, which started in January 1974. Among the nine songs in the list is GLORY ROAD.
GLORY ROAD appears on a list titled "Album #3" that contains 12 tracks with their recording times, which indicates that the tracks where already recorded in studio. The list dates from 1974 and was written on a lined notebook page using blue and black ballpoint pens (see below scan). Springsteen listed "Glory Road" as the fifth track, but exceptionally with no running time.
GLORY ROAD appears on an untitled list containing 10 tracks and dating from 1974. The list was written on a lined notebook page using blue ballpoint pen (see below scan). Springsteen listed "Born To Run - Glory Road" as the fourth track. This apparently means that he was undecided which song to include as the fourth track, BORN TO RUN or GLORY ROAD.
GLORY ROAD appears on an untitled list that containing 7 tracks and dating from 1974. The list was written on a lined notebook page using blue ballpoint pen (see below scan). To save space, it seems that Springsteen just wrote the list on the same page that he previously used for a 3-line "to do" list.
Two lists titled "New Album #3 (Songs)", one containing 10 tracks and one containing 13, were on display at the From Asbury Park To The Promised Land 2009-2010 exhibition at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame And Museum in Cleveland, OH. They date from 1974 and were written on the same notebook page, but it's unknown whether the two were composed at the same time or if Springsteen returned to the same page some time later to add the second. The below scan is taken from issue #89 (Summer 2010) of Backstreets magazine in which a typed version of the lists is reproduced. GLORY ROAD is on the second of these two lists. Springsteen listed "Glory Road" as the thirteenth track.
Bruce Springsteen often creates song titles first and then attempts to write words and music around it, so the existence of a song title is no guarantee that a song was ever created. From the early 1972 to early 1975 period, there are many titles garnered from completed lyric sheets, partially completed lyric sheets, or documents in Springsteen's handwriting containing song titles but no lyrics. There is as yet no evidence that these were completed songs (both words and music) and no evidence that they were recorded during any of the first three albums' studio sessions. If they do exist as recordings, then they would most likely be either as work-in-progress home cassette recordings or from the little known about 1974 sessions at 914 Sound Studios in New York.
Most of these titles came to light in the second edition (1992) of Charles R. Cross book Backstreets: Springsteen, The Man And His Music. Very few were mentioned in the first edition (1989), but the second edition was more accurate and more detailed of the two versions of Cross's book. The primary reason for the flood of new and previously undocumented information in the second edition book is that soon after the first edition was published, Cross was granted quality interview and research time with Mike Appel at Appel's office. And as part of that, he was allowed to go through Appel's files of surviving Laurel Canyon-related documentation, which included inventory lists and some lists of song titles. At the time, Appel did not have any transcription/lyric sheets (or photocopies of them) in his possession because they had been handed over to Springsteen as part of terms and conditions of the 1977 legal settlement.
There was also an untitled list of about a dozen titles in Appel's files dated to spring 1975. Cross included them in his book as song titles, but it was later confirmed through Appel that this list was not of song titles, but rather potential album titles for the work-in-progress 3rd album and not song titles.
In an interview with Mark Hagen published on Mojo magazine in January 1999, Springsteen implied that the only unreleased song from the Born To Run sessions that is complete and in release-quality and not included on the Tracks box set was WALKING IN THE STREET. This means that it is highly unlikely that any of the titles from late 1973 to early 1975 was recorded in a complete form and is ready for release.
List of unknown songs from April 1972 to February 1973: (the Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. period)
List of unknown songs from fall 1972 to fall 1973: (The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle period)
List of unknown songs from late 1973 to early 1975: (the Born To Run period)
Thanks Pete Russell (Peteadmin at Brucebase) and David Tilson for the help.
If you have scans or photos of the lists that were on display at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame And Museum in Cleveland, OH, or any other Springsteen sheet that mentions this title, or just any additional information about this song, please contact me via the below form or by email: .
List of available versions of GLORY ROAD on this website:
GLORY ROAD [Early draft #1]
