One of Bruce Springsteen’s simplest compositions is also his most frequently covered — well over 100 versions are out there. The Staves — the stage name of the Staveley-Taylor sisters from Watford, Hertfordshire — give it a three-part harmony that IMO puts their version in a class by itself.
Here’s the most intriguing thing about that pile of cover versions — they don’t all use the same lyrics. On the last line of the bridge, some have that edgy and dull knife cutting “a six-inch valley in the middle of my skull.” Others have it cutting that valley in their soul.
The original sounds pretty clear — Springsteen sings “skull.” That’s how it reads on the lyric sheet of his “Live 1975-85” album, too.
You would think that settles the question — but in “Songs,” the book of lyrics put out under his name, it reads “soul,” which might explain why so many artists sing it that way.
Covers that stuck to the high-lonesome treatment of the original tend to use skull. Johnny Cash, who inspired the song in the first place, sang “skull” for “Badlands,” the Springsteen tribute album, and so does John Mayer.
More interpretive versions tend to favor “soul,” as in this treatment by the late Portland electronic band Chromatics. Then again, traditionalists Mumford and Sons do, too.
For the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soundtrack, Awolnation went with soul, perhaps ironically, as the characters in the movie reportedly were too shallow to have souls.
Personally, I think it’s mixing a metaphor to cut a specifically six-inch valley specifically in the middle of something intangible, like a soul. On the other hand, getting cut with a dull knife seems a little off-topic when the singer is already on fire, so maybe it’s not worth analyzing too deeply.