Fans have long debated one word in the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run opener “Thunder Road”: some think the words are “Mary’s dress sways” and others have been certain that it’s “Mary’s dress waves.” Official Springsteen material has actually printed it both ways, broadening the debate into meme territory. 

Finally, the debate has been settled, as The New Yorker’s David Remnick got Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau on the record: “The word is ‘sways,’” Landau said. “That’s the way he wrote it in his original notebooks, that’s the way he sang it on Born To Run in 1975, that’s the way he has always sung it at thousands of shows, and that’s the way he sings it right now on Broadway.”

Read “Bruce Springsteen’s Broadway Show Is the Loneliest Thing He’s Ever Done.”