4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) is the second song on The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and often cited as the best song on the album. It is a powerful love ballad, dedicated to Sandy and describing the depressing atmosphere that threatens to suffocate the love between the singer and Sandy. Locals include the "stoned-out faces," "switchblade lovers" and "the greasers" who "tramp the streets or get busted for sleeping out on the boardwalk till dawn." The singer is tired of "hangin' in them dusty arcades" and "chasin' the factory girls."
