Bruce Springsteen's manager finally settles 'Thunder Road' lyric debate

Before the gold/blue dress debate, there was the hotly contested line in Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road." For years, fans have been torn about whether it's "Mary's dress sways" or "Mary's dress waves," and the boss's manager finally cleared it up recently.

Once and for all, it's "sways," Jon Landau told The New Yorker.

"That's the way he wrote it in his original notebooks, that's the way he sang it on Born to Run in 1975, that's the way he has always sung it at thousands of shows, and that's the way he sings it right now on Broadway," added Landau, who co-produced the album Born to Run.

The debate was partly due to Springsteen's own materials writing the lyrics both ways. The New Yorker reports the rocker's own website and songbook say the word is "waves" (it appears to have since been changed on the site to "sways"), while his memoir uses "sways."

In June, Springsteen announced that his self-titled Broadway residency would return for a limited run of 31 performances beginning that month and ending in September. The show, which first debuted in 2017, won a special Tony Award the following year.

"Sways" vs. "waves" is far from the first case of contested lyrics in music history. A similar situation played out years ago when A Tribe Called Quest's Ali Shaheed Muhammad ended the dispute over the chorus to "Electric Relaxation." Despite fans thinking it was "relax yourself, girl, peace at hand/plan," he set the record straight that it's actually "relax yourself, girl, please settle down."

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