10. “Kitty’s Back”
Many songs from Bruce Springsteen deal with serious topics. The emergency of the American worker. Abuse of Vietnam War veterans. And the broken relationship between the singer and his own father. Then there is a song like “Kitty’s Back”. The story of a cheap girl who left her husband for a “city boy” on Bleecker Street.
Kitty is only one of the larger -than -life figures that we open The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle encounter. And her jazzy story often lasted up to 20 minutes in the concert. It is the perfect stage for every member of the E Street Band. The title was removed from the program in 1978. But revived for a Christmas show in Asbury Park in 2000. Since then he has been back in the program.
9. “Racing in the Street”
On Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ we meet a group of children from Jersey who die on their time on the beach. And don’t worry about the future. Later this year, Bruce said goodbye to the scene with “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”. And started on Born to run to write about characters who also want to break out.
In Darkness on the Edge of Town Find out that there is no place to go to. Nowhere is it clearer than in “Racing in the Street”. The story of a man in a miserable job that only finds redemption in street races with his buddy Sonny. The piece ends with a heartbreaking piano cod of Roy Bittan. Which only seems to underline the fact that they literally drive in a circle.
8. “The promise”
Bruce Springsteen wrote an incredible amount of songs for Darkness on the Edge of Townabout 70. Some of them, such as “Because The Night” and “Fire”, he gave away because they did not match the topic of the album. Then there is a song like “The Promise” that fits the topic almost too much.
The song was written in 1976 and is about a group of friends and a deep, secret betrayal, which was clearly inspired by Springsteen’s legal dispute with his manager Mike Appel. He spent countless hours working on the song. But in the end he stroked it from the LP. It was just too close to reality. However, it was listed on the stage and finally on the 2010 on the Darkness-Boxset published.
7. “Thundercrack”
Bruce Springsteen spent almost a decade to play in clubs before he Born to run finally made the breakthrough. During this time he mastered the art of the show. And wrote a number of songs that should put the audience into ecstasy.
One of the best was “Thundercrack”, an eight -minute story about a woman who likes to dance. “It ended three or four times differently. You never knew how to proceed,” said Springsteen 1999. “It should drive you crazy.” He recorded a version of it for his second album. But the CD was already packed with long songs and something had to give way. He picked up the song in 1998 when he Track-Boxset put together. And even got the original E Street band drummer Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez to record new background chants.
6. “Point Blank”
Springsteens 1980s LP “The River” Is packed with depressing songs, but only a few can compete with “Point Blank”. The song was first played live in the summer of 1978. It is about a man who is still suffering from a painful separation. “I wanted to be your Romeo, you wanted to be my Julia,” he sings. “Nowadays you are not waiting for Romeos, but for the social welfare check.”
He dreams of a reunion on the dance floor of a club. But in the end he sees her on the street and she pretends that she doesn’t even know him. The song opens the third side of the album. Then it turns directly into “Cadillac Ranch” to loosen up the mood. As a marginal remark, it should be said that “Point Blank” is a wonderful example of the talent of the bass player Garry Tallent. The man earns a lot more recognition than he gets.
5. “New York City Serenade”
Anyone who claims to fully understand the meaning of “New York City Serenade” lies or suffers from delusions. In the 1973 masterpiece we meet Billy and Diamond Jackie, who “go along Broadway Boogalooen and come home with the prey”. On the way, meet a jazz musician who serenaded you. This thin story extends to ten minutes with the help of an extensive piano intros by David Sancious and brass sets from Clarence Clemons and Albee Tellone. The title was resumed in 1999 after a long absence. And never sounded better than in July 2013, as Springsteen and the E Street Band played him with strings.
4. “Jungleland”
Imagine a cross between “West Side Story” and “Thunder Road”. You will probably still not think of “Jungleland”. But they get closer to the matter. The almost ten -minute song forms the conclusion of Born to run And brings the story from Jersey’s swamps across the river to Manhattan. The change of scene does not exactly brighten the mood. If at all, it is the most tragic song on the album. A body count is even called. The piece ends with a famous saxophone solo by Clarence Clemons. It is not just the most popular saxophone solo in a bruce song. But maybe the entire history of rock ‘n’ roll.
3. “Incident on 57th Street”
“Incident on 57th Street” was written before Springsteen had internalized the Axiom ‘Less more’ regarding lyrics. It is the sprawling story of the unfortunate in love Spaniard Johnny and the Puertorican Jane. In the end, Johnny sets off to make ‘easy money’ and most likely comes to an terrible end. The figures in this type of songs rarely happen to something good. Apart from that, the texts are hardly important. The song has a magical quality, the Springsteen fans from the first piano tones to the last scream “Goodnight, it’s all right Jane”.
2. “Trapped”
“Trapped” is an extremely obscure song by Jimmy Cliff from the 1970s to play Springsteen in 1981. His radically newly arranged interpretation immediately became the favorite of the fans. In 1985 he published a live version on the album We are the world. The song remained in the memory. And was often played on the “Born in the USA” tour, the “other band” tour 1992/93 and many, many times in the reunion era. At this point, many people don’t even know that it is a cover.
1. “Drive All Night”
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played an impressive 115 concerts in 1978. Over the months, some of the songs were getting longer and longer because the band began to improvise new parts on stage. “Backstreets” finally doubled to twelve minutes, with a long improvised section in the middle, in the Springsteen of his lover that he would “drive all night, just to buy a few shoes”.
This sentence no longer got out of his head when he started, songs for The River to write. The penultimate song on the album was born. It is the kind of song that he could hardly put on a single LP, which is why he The River made his first (and last) double album.