“Well I chased him through them county roads / Till a sign said Canadian border five miles from here / I pulled over to the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear.”

Why is it great? This is the first lyric to feature on “One Great Sentence,” and of course it had to be Springsteen. I chose this not because it’s my favorite lyric by him, but because this song is Springsteen at his storytelling best. It’s a screenplay in a five-minute song, a Rust Belt Cain and Abel story with a narrative arc to make longform writers jealous. Love, loyalty, loss, laughter — it’s all there. I always picture the scene from “The Deer Hunter” with DeNiro and Walken at the pool hall when Springsteen sings “Me and Frankie laughing and drinking/Nothing feels better than blood on blood/Taking turns dancing with Maria/As the band played ‘Night of the Johnstown Flood.'” (Oh, and if this whets your appetite, Springsteen gets the Storyboard treatment here.)