What does Meeting Across the River mean?

Bruce Springsteen: Meeting Across the River Meaning

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Album cover for Meeting Across the River album cover

Meeting Across the River Lyrics

Hey, Eddie, can you lend me a few bucks
And tonight can you get us a ride
Gotta make it through the tunnel
Got a meeting with a man on the other side

Hey Eddie, this guy, he's the real thing
So if you want to come along
You gotta promise you...

  1. anonymous
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    Jun 19th !⃝

    A drug deal doesn't make sense to me because the few bucks he gets from Eddie and pawning a radio wouldn't be enough. The guy he's meeting may be giving him drugs to sell, but it doesn't seem likely. It also seems to be a one time thing. He knows the amount is exactly 2 grand and he'll have it in his pocket. It sounds more like payment for a job. Maybe the guy will pay him to transport drugs. Except he doesn't have a car and he only asks Eddie for a lift. A 2 grand payment also seems too much for that. But it's implied the meeting is about something illegal that has serious consequences. If it is about drugs, my guess is he's being hired to help in a theft.

  2. anonymous
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    Dec 3rd 2023 !⃝

    Bullshit. It's about a guy going to score dope to bring back and sell in Jersey. You idiots always try to overanalyze everything. If you'd been in Jersey in the 70's you'd know.

  3. kooljohn176
    click a star to vote
    Oct 4th 2013 !⃝

    when you are a young teenager in the mid 70's listening to this song couple of thousand times as a hopeful dreamer can give you, as it did for me, the feeling of hope against the odds. in meeting across the river song many times felt like in going through the tunnel to meet a godly or Christ-like encounter with somebody. trying to understand this song today in meaning according to my theory is about a person when he is down and out on his luck and feels that he is going to die of the shame in needing to hock cherrie's radio for money and the faith that she does not have in him. so he is conjuring up a plan and talking to himself in his mind, pushing himself to the point in talking to death to become his friend in thinking that he can con death some way. ''eddie'' represents death that is him, or his shadow, when he is saying hey eddie can you lend me a few bucks, he is asking himself that. he is trying to convince eddie just as much as himself in going along, asking him to promise not to say anything, cause''this guy don't dance'' - another words this guy is real, not a phony, and does not change to the dance of death. in their last chance he is '' telling themselves'' to stay cool,like a slow death on that line and if they blow it than the man and death will be looking for the next in line. so then he say's, here stuff this in your pocket looks like your carring a friend, here he is telling eddie, who is himself in death's pocket with two grand practically in his pocket to throw on the bed, but he does not have it yet until he makes a meeting deal on the other side,but his broke to death. hey eddie can you catch us a ride.


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