Manfred Springstein

[mr. piper]

Blinded by the light, Wrapped up like a douce she was a runner in the night!

If you know the song, do you know what it is about? And why i entitled it "Manfred Springstein"?

[chris-n-vick]

i know that bruce wrote it and manfred mann covered it...

however not sure what its about apart from there are lots of theories about its lyrics.

[Jeanie]

Always understood the lyrics were about taking cocaine or LSD, and the people that were involved - e.g. "silicone sister with her manager mister"

Some of the lyrics are -

"blinded by the light" - pupils dilated from drug taking

"revved up like a Deuce" - a deuce is a type of fast car, so in other words wired up after sniffing coke.

"another runner in the night" - so wired up on drugs that you keep going all night.

"tripped the merry go round" - taking a trip on LSD bright colours, circling round

"checking out the weather charts to see if it was safe outside" - making sure there are no police around. 

If you go through the song line by line in the context of drug taking it does sort of make sense.

[jenstar]

Does the question imply that mr.piper thinks he knows what it's about?

[mr. piper]

Yes i do know what it is about, only because i heard on a very early virgin radio prog one night, some bloke asked about it, another said he knew the manfred man singer and gave his phone no. The singer explained. The song is about booze running in prohibition USA times. Blinded by the light is the police at a border point shining torches at the drivers face. Wrapped up like a deuce is the car full of booze but looking like a sports car, being a (booze) runner in the night!

That is gospel, there are no references to drugs at all, also it wasn't so much covered by MFM, Bruce was in dispute with his record company and could not record his own songs, so MFM did them for him by request.

[mcmikeymike]

Written by Bruce Springsteen and covered by Manfred Mann's Earth Band .  Not the group Manfred Mann from the 60s, but one of Manfred's later groups after the 60s band had split.