It only references Utah once, in the opening line (“On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert”), but the song was based on an actual road trip taken by Springsteen, Stevie Van Zandt, and photographer Eric Meola in 1977. Most of that trip actually covered the deserts of Nevada, but they started out in the Bonneville salt flats west of Salt Lake City.
Springsteen had vaulted into rock and roll stardom two years prior, and was looking for something to reset his artistic equilibrium. The desolate flats seemed ideal. And so they headed out. Bizarrely, the day before the trip began, they got word that Elvis Presley had just died, putting an even stranger capstone on the experience. For an artist whose whole career has been built around engines and movement—the freedom of the road, but also the way that the dream of freedom could become its own trap—I can hardly think of a more perfect vision: Bruce and Stevie, in a 1965 Ford Galaxy, setting off into the desert, telling stories about the de facto godfather of their entire musical world. They slept in the car, weathered thunder storms, and the whole time Springsteen was putting together this song.
It’s a song about the limitless potential of the human spirit, but also about being so beaten down you can’t quite picture what it would mean to fulfill them. You create dreams for yourself, and you follow them to the end of the line, only to discover that somehow there’s nothing left there for you. And yet, somewhere beyond, you still can picture the promised land. What is it, exactly? And where can it be? He’s not actually sure. But that’s not the important thing. No, the important thing is: he believes in it.