Springsteen does have a bit of a mush mouth, so no surprise on the misunderstood lyrics...except if they don't make sense, one ought to try to figure it out. Took a friend and me a good week to figure out Dylan's "Mellow Yellow". I think we would have figured it out sooner if we had seen an album with the title, but that tinny transistor mono radio was contributing to the problem.
If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.