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‘Racing in the Street’ isn’t just Springsteen’s best song about cars, it might be his best song about anything. It’s a perfect synthesis of so many of his most common themes – love, driving, working men, depressed women, and how they all add up to a life (or fail to). The noirish ballad follows one man’s obsession over drag racing and the heartbreak it brings to his relationship. While he’s blowing ’em off in his first heat, she sits alone, staring at nothing with the “eyes of one who hates for just being born.” At least her man knows she’s depressed and attempts a compromise: He’ll keep racing, but she can come along. The song’s wordless finale, which wafts on the back of Danny Federici’s organ, gives the listener time to decide if the highway in front of them is truly bright or if it leads to a grim dead end.