Johnny works in a factory and billy works downtown   Terry works in a rock'n'roll band   Looking for that million-dollar sound   Me I don't do nothing much,   I spend a lot of time alone   Some nights I go to the drive-in,   And some night I stay home   I followed that dream   Just like those guys do way up on the screen   Drove a chopped up challenger   Down route 9   Through the dead ends and all the bad scenes   And when the promise was broken   I cashed in a few of my dream      Well, I built that challenger by myself   But I needed money and so I sold it   I lived a secret I should've kept to myself   But I got drunk one night and I told it   All my life I fought that fight   The one that no man can never win   And every day it just gets harder   To live the dream I'm believing in      Thunder road ...   I stay up every morning until it turns light   Thunder road ...   There's something dying out on the highway tonight      Well now I won big once and I hit the coast,   Oh but somehow I paid the big cost   Inside I felt like I was carrying   The broken spirits of all the other ones who lost   When the promise is broken you go on living   But man it takes something from down in your soul   Like when the truth is spoken, it don't make no   Difference   Finally something in your heart turns cold   Yeah I followed that dream, me and some guysin the dead ends and all the   Two-bit bars   The night the promise was broken   I was drunk and far away from home,   Sleeping with a stranger   In the back seat of a borrowed car      Thunder road ...   Here's one for the lost lovers and all the fixed games   Thunder road ...   Here's one for the tires rushing by in the rain   Thunder road ...   I remember when me and billy, we'd always say   Thunder road ...   We were gonna take it all, and throw it all away