When Bruce Springsteen was putting together his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973), Columbia Records President Clive Davis said that the album needed a hit single.  In response, Bruce wrote “Blinded by the Light" and “Spirit in the Night”; the two songs, particularly "Blinded by the Light" feature a host of characters and cryptic lyrics whose meaning is hard to follow. 

Quoting Bruce Springsteen about “Blinded by the Light” in Wikipedia (it is not hard to understand how these meanings would escape nearly all listeners):  “According to Springsteen, the song came about from going through a rhyming dictionary and looking for rhymes.  The first line of the song, ‘Madman drummers, bummers, and Indians in the summers with a teenage diplomat’ is autobiographical – ‘Madman drummers’ is a reference to drummer Vini Lopez, known as ‘Mad Man’ (later changed to ‘Mad Dog’); ‘Indians in the summers’ refers to the name of Springsteen’s old Little League team; ‘teenage diplomat’ refers to himself.  The remainder of the song tells of many unrelated events, with the refrain of ‘Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night’.”  

(June 2014)