Songfacts®:

• This is about Springsteen's relationship with his dad, who worked at the Nescafé plant in Freehold, New Jersey. They didn't get along, but later in life Bruce realized his father worked very hard to support his family and came to appreciate his efforts. Bruce can also thank his dad for inspiring the rebellious spirit that led him to follow his dreams. Determined not to work a typical factory job like his dad, Springsteen followed his dreams and made music for a living.
• Springsteen wrote this song and recorded an early version in 1977 for the Darkness on the Edge of Town album (1978), but he left it off the tracklist. He and the E Street Band played it live from time to time on the Darkness tour, and the song made the cut for Springsteen's next album, The River.
• Introducing this song at a New Jersey show in 1981, Springsteen said: "I could never talk to my old man, he could never talk to me, my mother couldn't talk to him. So I was glad when I finally got old enough and I started to live alone. Then for about ten years I never saw my folks that much. And just recently we came back from Europe and I got a phone call a night or two later that my father had gotten sick.
  
  I went out to California where he was in the hospital there. I started thinkin' on the way about all the things that I always wanted to say to him and I never said and I always figured, well, someday we'll sit down and we'll talk about why it was the way it was when I was young, talk about why he felt the way he did. But the years go by and it never comes up. I guess it feels like a dangerous subject or something. But he got sick and I realized that he was gettin' old and that if I had somethin' to say to him, I should say it now."
• Don't play this song on the 4th of July - it has nothing to do with the holiday. The Independence Day Springsteen sings about is his personal independence when he left home and set out on his own.
• There's a line in "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers that references this song:
  
  It's cold, it feels like Independence Day
  
  The Wallflowers are fronted by Jakob Dylan (son of Bob), who is a huge Springsteen fan. Many listeners didn't pick up on the reference and wondered why it would be cold on the 4th of July.