[3] The lyrics describe a man who witnesses a hit-and-run auto accident on a rainy, isolated highway, and is subsequently haunted by the vision and unable to sleep.
[6] Springsteen has explained the theme by stating that after seeing the crash, the singer "realizes that you have a limited number of opportunities to love someone, to do your work, to be part of something, to parent your children, to do something good.
[9] "Wreck on the Highway" and a few other songs on The River, such as the title track and "Stolen Car", mark a new direction in Bruce Springsteen's songwriting: these ballads imbued with a sense of hopelessness anticipate his next album, Nebraska,[10] as well as a turn towards pessimism in his overall artistic and personal world-view.
[14] Author Patrick Humphries describes the song as distilling "the essence of what makes Bruce Springsteen great: a looping, loping and involving melody, heartfelt vocal and acutely visual lyrics.
"[2] Music critic Dave Marsh describes the song as an appropriate closer for The River as it "pares down the situation from 'Drive All Night'" of the singer and his lover trying to ignore the distractions around them down "to one man facing the world again.