Road House ends to the tune of “When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky,” the Jeff Healey Band’s cover of a song from Bob Dylan’s 1985 album Empire Burlesque. As you might expect, Healey peels the song away from the sound of the Big 80s Arthur Baker–produced original and moves it comfortably back into the bar rock sound Dylan favored when playing the song live with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers as his backup band. Healey’s version is a bit less hard-charging though. It takes you more slowly and steadily through the song, which exists in Dylan’s “talking about romance with the voice of a prophet of doom” mode. In point of fact its structure and sound are close enough to “All Along the Watchtower,” especially in Healey’s version, that Dylan could have wound up with one of a hideous “self-plagiarism” lawsuit, John Fogerty–style, if things had worked out differently than they did.
Fortunately that never happened, and we can consider the song on the merits. It’s a minor-key track, kind of a down note to end the movie on, especially so soon after the whole “a polar bear fell on me” thing. But it’s a smokin’ performance by Healey—and, more importantly, a fitting sendoff for the romance of Dalton and Doc, two people who are going to have to learn to accept one another for who they are if their relationship is to survive.
Dylan/Healey sing of returning from a journey of hundreds of miles at the end of a chase. They hint at past traumas, narrowly escaped disasters. They say they’ve got no easy answers and shouldn’t be expected to lie to make up for that. They talk of protecting someone, and of not asking one another to do something they’re not ready to do. They sing of finding one another “in the wasteland of your mind.” As a reflection on the final days of the film, the period that stretches from the fire at Red’s to the shootout in the trophy room, I think it displays the emotional stakes for our two lovers quite well. Can true love emerge from the tumult? We’ll find out…
