Roll of the Dice: Highway 29

Way back in 1982, Bruce recorded a song called “Losin’ Kind.”

Similar to (and probably inspired by, given notes Bruce wrote to Jon Landau about the song) the crime stories and films of James M. Cain, “Losin’ Kind” was the bad-luck story of Frank Davis, who picks up a femme fatale against his better judgment, and ends up robbing a Best Western, flees from the police, and ends up wrapping his car around a telephone pole.

Bruce never released the song, although a similar character named Frank turned up in “Highway Patrolman,” which starts so similarly that it forces one to wonder if it’s another perspective on the same story. But we’ll delve more into “Losin’ Kind” and “Highway Patrolman” when the dice turn up those songs.

I bring up “Losin’ Kind” here because “Highway 29” is clearly an attempt by Bruce to revisit and perfect that song. The two songs tell the same basic story–a protagonist realizing too late he has a self-destructive streak, after the match is already lit.

In the dozen-plus years between the recordings of “Losin’ Kind” and “Highway 29,” Bruce’s songwriting skills advanced considerably. Always cinematic with his lyrics, Bruce became more economical over time.

In “Losin’ Kind,” Frank spends the first verse introducing himself and telegraphing the outcome of the story. In “Highway 29,” Bruce wastes no time getting into the story:

I slipped on her shoe, she was a perfect size seven
I said “there’s no smoking in the store ma’am”
She crossed her legs and then
We made some small talk, that’s where it should have stopped
She slipped me a number, I put it in my pocket

When the protagonist succumbs to the mystery woman, Bruce learned to tighten from:

Well we had a few drinks and we danced a while, I pulled her close, she didn’t mind
And what I knew kinda slipped my mind

to

My hand slipped up her skirt, everything slipped my mind

(Bruce had already re-used the original couplet in yet another similar song, “Loose Change,” but that’s a story for another day.)

Bruce had also learned to trust the listener: in “Losin’ Kind,” Frank described the crime in considerable detail, but in “Highway 29,” Bruce invites us to co-write the song, painting the scene but asking us to tell the story.

It was a small town bank, it was a mess
Well I had a gun, you know the rest
Money on the floorboards, shirt was covered in blood and she was crying
Her and me we headed south on Highway 29

I think that verse is one of Bruce’s finest–by this point in his career, Bruce is in such command of his craft that he’s able to convey the entire story of a bank robbery gone wrong in just four short lines.

The pair take off on the run, but the nameless narrator knows that things aren’t going to end well. He also knows it’s not the woman that’s leading him astray–it’s his own inner demons.

In a little desert motel, the air was hot and clean
I slept the sleep of the dead, I didn’t dream
I woke in the morning, washed my face in the sink
We headed into the Sierra Madres ‘cross the borderline
The winter sun, shot through the black trees
I told myself it was all something in her
But as we drove I knew it was something in me
Something had been coming for a long long time
And something that was here with me now on Highway 29

(Side note: when I write these essays, I look up the lyrics so I can include them–and I just now learned that the line is “…washed my face in the sink.” I always thought it was “…washed my face in the sand,” which I thought was both a beautiful detail of life on the run in the desert as well as a metaphor for the narrator trying to scrub himself clean of his sins. Turns out I’ve always just misheard the line, and Bruce’s lyric is far more pedestrian. So I keep learning as I write these. (But I like my version better.))

Bruce uses the same trick for the final verse. In “Losin’ Kind,” Bruce details the car crash and its aftermath, with a police officer’s admonishment. In “Highway 29,” Bruce again just paints the littered landscape:

The road was filled with broken glass and gasoline
She wasn’t saying nothing, it was just a dream
Wind come silent through the windshield
All I could see was snow and sky and pines

We never find out what happens next, whether the pair lives or dies, whether they’re caught or free. The narrator simply escapes into his own mind as Bruce’s guitar takes us ever further down the road.

I closed my eyes and I was running
And I was running then I was flying

In concert, “Highway 29” was a staple on the Ghost of Tom Joad tour, and it made several appearances on the Devils and Dust Tour as well. It hasn’t been performed since, though, and it has never been performed with any band or musician.

On vinyl and on stage, “Highway 29” is always a solo Bruce Springsteen performance.

Highway 29
Recorded: 1995
Released: The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
First performed: November 21, 1995 (New Brunswick, NJ)
Last performed: November 8, 2005 (Philadelphia, PA)

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