The one song Bruce Springsteen will never reveal the secret to:

Songwriting is a fairly miraculous art form. You could read all the books, study all the greatest artists, and dedicate yourself endlessly to writing a decent song, but the simple fact seems to be that some folks are naturally better suited to writing songs than others. Bruce Springsteen is certainly one of those people, having penned a seemingly endless range of iconic songs over the course of his long and illustrious career. Many of those compositions remain a mystery to the lamen, but The Boss isn’t about to reveal the secrets of his songwriting.

Springsteen has explored countless different themes throughout his songwriting journey, finding success with tales of working-class reality before expanding his repertoire into something much more expansive. Along the way, the New Jersey songwriter has often been the victim of misinterpretation. Famously, his smash-hit single ‘Born In the USA’ was wrongly heralded as a patriotic anthem celebrating the United States rather than the critical anti-war anthem its lyrics reveal it to be.

That 1984 single is far from being the only Springsteen track to raise questions. Although the songwriter has repeatedly attempted to set the record straight about the chronically misunderstood ‘Born In the USA’, he has been keen to keep other tracks awash with mystery. One such song is ‘Candy’s Room’, from his seminal 1978 record Darkness on the Edge of Town.

In essence, the song is a love song dedicated to a woman by the name of Candy. In opposition to Springsteen’s other romantic efforts – the likes of ‘4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)’, ‘Born To Run’, or ‘Sherry Darling’ – ‘Candy’s Room’ has a much darker undercurrent to its narrative. As the track progresses, the narrator becomes delusional, harbouring an unhealthy obsession for Candy that is clearly unreciprocated.