Roll of the Dice: All I’m Thinkin’ About

Welcome to another installment of Graphically (But Secretly) Sexual Springsteen Songs.

“All I’m Thinkin’ About” is about what we do when all we’re thinkin’ about is sex, and especially when we’ve lost that one partner we can’t stop thinkin’ about.

But unless you listen closely, you might never realize that “All I’m Thinkin’ About” is a cousin to songs like “Pink Cadillac” and “Red Headed Woman.” Bruce sings with such a deliberately innocent falsetto and fills his verses with such pastoral imagery that we’re lulled into receiving his song as a country lark.

It doesn’t help that “All I’m Thinkin’ About” is an obvious homage to Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country” road trip, from the rhythm to the melody to the lyrical “wine” reference in the first verse.

But if Canned Heat hides just a bit of countercultural protest if you listen for it, Bruce positively packs “All I’m Thinkin’ About” with sexual innuendo, with varying degrees of subtlety.

Let’s break it down; I’ll do my best to maintain a sense of propriety and decorum as we go.

We begin with our narrator parked in his truck by the side of the road.

Blind man wavin’ by the side of the road
In a flat bed Ford carrying a heavy load

Needless to say, our narrator is not literally blind, nor is he literally wavin’. However, there is an adult activity that involves repetitive hand motion and that by (thankfully) inaccurate legend can cause blindness. “Wavin'” is a pretty clever euphemism for it.

As for “heavy load,” its graphic meaning doesn’t become clear until we realize that it’s the blind man who’s carrying it, not the Ford.

Sweet thing sippin’ on a blueberry wine
On a flat black highway down in Carolina
Black bird slippin’ in a sky of blue

These lines are among the few that we can take literally. Our narrator slips into his, um, reverie and mentally summons the object of his desire. He leans back, uses the sky as a bluescreen, and…

All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
Ain’t nothin’ in this world I can do about it
All I’m thinkin’ about is you

The rest of the song is nothing but a parade of passers-by while our driver self-engages in the privacy of his truck. But each image is delightfully lewd:

Little boy carryin’ a fishin’ pole

Self explanatory, once we realize “fishin’ pole” is a euphemism.

Side note: when performing “All I’m Thinkin’ About” in concert, Bruce was pretty good at playing it straight. Once in a while, though, his giggling inner twelve-year-old got the better of him, like at this show in Milan.

But I digress. Moving on:

Little girl pickin’ berries off of the vine

“Berries” is a common euphemism for testicles; complete the metaphor on your own.

Brown bag filled with a little green toad
We hook ’em through the lip and throw ’em off of the line

Okay, I’m gonna admit to being stumped by this one. Feel free to enlighten me; y’all may be more experienced than I am.

Your sweet brown legs got me feeling so blue

Here, I will simply point out that Bruce uses the word “blue” as a rhyme three times in this song, and we know that Bruce certainly is never at a loss for rhymes. There’s a dual meaning at work here.

All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
There ain’t nothin’ in this world I can do about it
All I’m thinkin’ about is you

Black car shinin’ on a Sunday morn
Mama go to church now, Mama go to church now
Friday night, daddy’s shirt is torn
Daddy’s goin’ downtown, Daddy’s goin’ downtown
Ain’t no one understand this sweet thing we do

Oh yes we do, Bruce, because we’re paying attention. We’re pretty sure we know what Mama does at church; it likely involves invoking the name of the Almighty.  We know where Daddy’s goin’ down, too.

Still, that last line functions as a pretty neat triple entendre, one of which is the songwriter’s self-congratulation at slipping one risque reference after another over the head of the casual listener.

Let’s move on. We’re deep into it now, and the song is reaching its climax. We’re just about at the moment of truth…

Field turned up, the seed is sowed
Rain comin’ in from over ‘cross the road

…and now here it comes, enveloping us like a curtain as Bruce’s vocal builds to a moment of intense release:

Big black curtain coming ‘cross the field
Blind’ll see, the lame will be healed

Oh, the mystical power of the orgasm. It’s powerful in effect, but it fades oh so quickly. Momentarily, our narrator is returned to the real world, where he realizes he’s still alone–and now we finally learn why:

Brown eyed girl, I turned my back on you, now it’s lonely

It’s the last original line of the song, and its the one that grounds the song in tragedy after soaring in whimsy. It’s the classic Springsteenian trope: he had a girl, he screwed up and lost her, and now he can’t get his mind off her.

All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you
All I’m thinkin’ about is you

Bruce gets in one last joke, though: our narrator may have temporarily relieved himself of one level of blueness, but there’s another that refuses to budge.

Ain’t nothin’ in this world take away these blues
All I’m thinkin’ about is you

We know that Bruce wrote “All I’m Thinkin’ About” in 1997, during the Ghost of Tom Joad era, and we know that at the very least, Brendan O’Brien’s bass was recorded in 2004.

The core recording, though, is an all-Springsteen production–he plays three guitars, keyboards, tambourine, and a light brush on the drums. That recording very likely dates back to the 1997-98 era (and possibly the backing vocals by Patti, Soozie, and Lisa Lowell as well), but Bruce has yet to definitively pin that down for us.

Curiously, though, there’s an alternate version of “All I’m Thinkin’ About” that was captured by Danny Clinch and included on the DVD/CD “dual disc” release of Devils & Dust. It’s still a solo acoustic Springsteen arrangement, but there are some unseen backing vocalists we haven’t heard from before.

That was the debut of backing vocalists Evan Springsteen, Jessica Springsteen, and Sam Springsteen in their first official contribution to one of their father’s albums. (Yes, this strikes me as kind of an odd song to have your kids cameo on, but I’m not gonna judge.)

Bruce played “All I’m Thinkin’ About” semi-regularly (at about one out of every three shows) on his 2005 solo acoustic tour. He also performed it once on television, at a Today appearance on NBC in April to promote his new album.

It’s been fifteen years since Bruce played it last, however; he seems to be thinkin’ about other things these days.

I guess he’s worked “All I’m Thinkin’ About” out of his system.

All I’m Thinkin’ About
Recorded: 1997-2004
Released: Devils & Dust (2005)
First performed: April 30, 2005 (Glendale, AZ)
Last performed: November 19, 2005 (Hollywood, FL)

Looking for your favorite Bruce song? Check our full index. New entries every week!