The seemingly omniscient narrator of the main verses is interrupted by a first-person speaker who sings something almost entirely different, setting up both a duality and a contrast that persists throughout the song until the very end, where it is either resolved with Billy as the speaker or someone else.
Bruce Springsteen recorded the incredibly bleak and unusually structured “Rockaway the Days” in 1984, but didn’t release it until 1998’s compilation album, Tracks. He has never performed it live in its entirety. Instead, he embedded a portion of it at an acoustic performance in 1986 and otherwise has left the song completely untouched for whatever reason. In some ways, there are obvious similarities with others in his canon, featuring a deadly car crash similar to Nebraska’s “Wreck on the Highway,” a police chase familiar from “Highway Patrolman,” and even a sequence of lyrics almost self-plagiarized from “Badlands.” There are also echoes of the Nebraska album overall, depicting a main character, Billy, who just “isn’t right,” suffering from some combination of mental illness and addiction. In “Nebraska,” which was inspired by two young people who went on a real life killing spree in the 1970’s, immortalized in the film Badlands, not to be confused with the song, there was just a “meanness in this world,” but in “Rockaway the Days,” Springsteen considers an outsider who has experienced mental issues his entire life, having been in and out of prison. One can even see a parallel to “Born in the USA,” where a more upbeat chorus belies the tragedies described in the actual verses, cutting through the bleakness with a message that simply means we must cope with the forces that buffet our lives, one way or another. Perhaps, Springsteen felt these similarities were just too much for the song to stand on its own, but there are also dramatic and stylistic differences from even the opening lines, where the stage is set for the inevitable events that will unfold:
Billy got out of prison but he wasn’t right,
Some like to drink or gamble, Billy liked to fight.
He tracked back to his home state of Maryland
Went to his mom’s mobile home where she took him in, alright.
Rare is the songwriter, storyteller, or poet who can impart so much in two short sentences, but we learn about both Billy as a man, that he has been to prison and has a violent temper, and the upbringing that made him so, a devoted yet poor mother, who we can imagine has troubles of her own. We can also assume he is a wanderer, a nomad, a drifter, who committed a crime in some other state, perhaps far away from home, and then had to track back to Maryland. From there, Springsteen chooses to change direction with a chorus that’s suddenly shifted to a first person point of view, as if a narrator has handed control of the story to one of the characters, and at first, seems oddly disconnected from the opening verse. The underlying, undulating, almost sarcastic riff continues, but now we’re gonna:
Rockaway the days, rockaway the nights
Gimme something to last me, baby, ‘til the morning light
I ain’t lookin’ for trouble, I ain’t looking for a fight
Honey rockaway these days, rockaway these nights
On its own, the chorus suggests an alternative to the main verse, where despite the cruelty of the world and the underlying desperation, we can rise above it, somehow, at least for a while. The precise means to pull off that trick is unclear, however, given the general nature of “rockaway.” The speaker could be rocking the night away as was a common phrase in the 1980s, could be seeking a romantic engagement, or something else non-destructive, but the idea of an escape is belied somewhat by the speaker’s desire for “something to last me” until the morning light, a possible reference to drugs, alcohol or some other equally destructive behavior. Also, the odd negative “ain’t looking” for either trouble or a fight, suggests he might be self-rationalizing and will stumble upon it regardless, perhaps he has a history and is prone to such things. At this point, the speaker’s identity remains unclear, but the reference to a “fight” offers a hint that it’s Billy himself, setting up a duality where a narrator tells a story, interrupted by the subject, though as we shall see even that remains unclear at the conclusion. In the meantime, the song changes direction again after the chorus, offering a moment of respite when “at a picnic one Sunday, Billy met Mary Dove, Mary Looked at Billy, Billy fell in love” in the second verse, perhaps the lone bright spot in his entire life. The two were married “in the valley where the river flows,” suggesting a possible reference to the classic and well-known “The River,” but after a repeat of the chorus, darkness intrudes once again, as we are certain it will somehow. This time, Billy “argued with a young man” at a roadside bar and settled it with a “razor in his hand.” He flees back to Mary, who is aghast, then to his mother, who will not let him in, and finally to a neighbor who doesn’t “want no trouble ‘round here.” With nowhere left to go, he takes to the open road, seeking an escape with his “brain on overload” from popping too many pills and God knows what else, but he sees the lights of the police behind him, gives it a “gun” and wraps himself around a telephone pole out on highway 101.
The almost inevitable outcome after Billy kills the young man is compounded by a refusal to revisit the more upbeat chorus throughout these events. Instead, the song plunges ahead as out of control as the protagonist himself. The beat might remain somewhat sarcastic, far too lilting up and down for the subject matter, but the desperation Billy experiences on the run is apparent in the near breathless lyrics. Springsteen might not sing them particularly fast either, keeping a certain detachment to his voice in line with the rhythm, but his ability to define scenes in just a few words, and effortlessly move from one location to another perfectly encapsulates the drama. We can literally see the argument unfolding, likely over nothing, a drunken incident that shouldn’t have happened in the first place that careens past the point of no return. The blood still hot on his shirt and his cheeks red with shame, he appears before Mary, but she can’t even look at him, doesn’t even have to tell him that he can’t stay there. He flees then to his mother. We can picture him standing outside the door, pleading for shelter, while she probably cries on the other side. More desperate than ever, he tries a neighbor, maybe a friend of his mother or someone he knew as a kid, but there’s no respite there either, so he steals a car and tries to make a run for it. Given his history in prison, we might even imagine he did something similar years ago. We can envision him popping pills behind the wheel, perhaps a bottle of booze at his side, mind racing, paranoid, knowing there is no escape, and then he sees the lights behind him. Here too, he probably knows he can’t outrun them, nor can he face prison again. We might wonder if he knew his time was up, pushing the car past the limit to intentionally end his own life, believing that was better than continuing.
Only then does the pace of the lyrical onslaught slow down. Springsteen deftly alludes to the dreaded scene for all parents, everywhere, “Sheriff told Billy’s ma that Billy died,” and once again we can picture the look on her face at the knock on door. Billy is offered one more brief moment of rest, his mother buries him “by the riverside,” perhaps near where he met Mary in the first place. We then return to the chorus, and the need to rockaway those days and nights, hoping we find something to last us to the morning light, before a final aside on the nature of things and a clue that the speaker in the chorus is Billy himself:
Well rich man want the power and the seat on the top
Poor man want the money that the rich man got
Honey tonight I’m feeling so tired and unsure
Come on in Mary, shut the light, close the door
Springsteen made a similar point in “Badlands,” where all men want to be rich, rich men want to be king, and a king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything. In another unreleased song, “Man at the Top” he devotes several verses to the same topic. Here, however, it seems admittedly out of place. What is the relevance to the rest of the song beyond providing a background on human nature, when the narrator already said Billy “wasn’t right” anyway? We cannot be sure, except if we assume the speaker is Billy based on his reference to Mary, he’s likely self-rationalizing his plight as he has been the entire song. He was a criminal because he was poor, born and bred in a trailer, and wanted to get rich, such is the way of the world, and there’s nothing he or anyone else can do about it except play their part. Even then, however, Billy, if it is actually Billy in the first place, doesn’t sound entirely convinced. Instead, he’s “tired and unsure,” and simply wants to hide from the world with his lover, knowing there is no permanent refuge there either. At the same time, it remains unclear if we are justified in believing the speaker is really Billy at all. The narrator tells the story of Billy’s release from prison, marriage to Mary, fight in the bar, and untimely death in the past tense. If we are to assume the speaker is Billy himself, the chorus must then be a flashback of some kind, a sort of interstitial where we see glimpses of his relationship with Mary, and while this assumption is not unwarranted or unsupportable, it hinges entirely on the speaker referring to Mary at the very end, as a sort of final twist on the story. We cannot know for sure, but there might be another explanation that illuminates the song even further. The narrator could be Mary in this telling, telling a new lover she met after Billy died, his sad story. The speaker listens attentively, and tries to ease her suffering at the ordeal by telling her everything will be alright, so long as they rockaway the days. At the conclusion, he doesn’t have anything specific to add, and so he offers something of a general comment, a platitude, and then tells Mary the story has shaken him, come to bed.
Whatever your interpretation, there remains no doubt the lyrical structure of the song is decidedly different from Springsteen’s typical fare or most other songs for that matter. The seemingly omniscient narrator of the main verses is interrupted by a first-person speaker, setting up both a duality and a contrast that persists throughout the song until the very end, where it is either resolved with Billy as the speaker or someone else. The story itself is a wide ranging narrative that captures the essence of an individual and their lot in life, along with the people that surround them. More complex than what is usually captured in five verses, it ends leaving us a little unsettled ourselves, between the comment on human nature and the potential for multiple speakers. Like the characters in the song itself, the best we might do is take it for what it’s worth, understanding that not every story can be easily explained or reach a satisfying conclusion. As they rockaway the days, we can rockaway the song.
ROCKAWAY THE DAYS
Billy got out of prison but he wasn’t right
Some like to drink or gamble, Billy liked to fight
He tracked back to his home state of Maryland
Went to his mom’s mobile home where she took him in, alright
Rockaway the days, rockaway the nights
Gimme something to last me, baby, ’til the morning light
I ain’t lookin’ for trouble, I ain’t looking for a fight
Honey rockaway these days, rockaway these nights
Well at a picnic one Sunday Billy met Mary Dove
Mary looked at Billy, Billy fell in love
Billy swore to Mary he’d always love het so
They were married in the valley where the river flows, alright
Rockaway the days, rockaway the nights
Gimme something to last me, baby, ’til the morning light
I ain’t lookin’ for trouble, I ain’t looking for a fight
Honey rockaway these days, rockaway these nights
At a roadside bar Billy argued with a young man
And he settled that argument with a razor in his hand
With blood on his shirt back to Mary he did run
She sighed “Billy, oh Billy, what have you done?”
He ran to his ma’s trailer but the lights were dim
He pounded on the door, she wouldn’t let him in
Up the road to a neighbor’s house he drew near
They said “Billy go away, we don’t want no trouble ’round here”
Billy stole a car and headed out on the road
Pocketful of pills and his brain on overload
Seen some lights in his rearview mirror, panicked and gave her the gun
Wrapped himself ’round a telephone pole way out on 101
Well Billy got cut out by the highway patrol
Just lay there with the cars passing on slow
Sheriff told Billy’s ma that Billy died
She buried his body by the riverside, alright
Rockaway the days, rockaway the nights
Gimme something to last me, baby, ’til the morning light
I ain’t lookin’ for trouble, I ain’t looking for a fight
Honey rockaway these days, rockaway these nights
Well rich man want the power and the seat on the top
Poor man want the money that the rich man got
Honey tonight I’m feeling so tired and unsure
Come on in Mary, shut the light, close the door
Rockaway the days, rockaway the nights
Gimme something to last me, baby, ’til the morning light
I ain’t lookin’ for trouble, I ain’t looking for a fight
Honey rockaway these days, rockaway these nights
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 