The young are an alien species. They won't replace us by revolution. They will forget and ignore us out of existence. - William Burroughs1
This is the second of three posts about Bruce Springsteen's first three albums. You can read the first part here:
After the January '73 release of Greetings from Asbury Park N.J. Springsteen and his band played a load of gigs, mainly but not wholly along the east coast of America before and during the recording of this album. I think there is something to be said for bands that "pay their dues" in this way.
Gig after gig after gig, sometimes two a night, improving their craft and their knowledge. I have a bootleg from this period, Jan 31st 1973, which is an interesting set. It includes Mary Queen of Arkansas, Spirit in the Night and Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street from his recently released record, but also unreleased (until Tracks) Thundercrack and Bishop Danced, as well as Circus Song, which became Wild Billy's Circus Story. I've not seen a lot of set lists but it doesn't feel like he was touring the album. Sometime in May, Bruce and the band entered the studio to record The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.
The album
I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard this record. Convinced to give it a go by my friend Clarke, I was sat in my room - a house share in a little town called Timperley. I was suspicious, but I also trusted Clarke. I didn't know much about Springsteen at the time, and was certainly one of those people who misinterpreted stuff like Born in the USA. And so I was not prepared for what hit me. I've used the word 'joyous' a few times in my writing, but this was a funky, danceable, communal, utterly joyous opening track, and I was hooked. This was an invitation to a jam session hosted one of the greatest bands of all time. I was in. The E Street Shuffle was on my stereo.
This album takes a big step forward from his previous one. The songs have more coherence and, whilst he is still in his more loquacious period, the lyrics have a tighter, more focused feel, although internal rhymes are still a feature Bruce clearly enjoyed at this time:
Them schoolboy pops pull out all the stops on a Friday night
Them teenage tramps in skin-tight pants do the E Street dance and everything's all right.
This opening track is an absolute party song and I still get a chill from remembering that first listen.
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy), famously chosen by Tony Blair as one of his Desert Island Discs, is a big fan favourite and a track that lets Bruce build that picture of his home town, the fairs, the people. A “goodbye to my adopted hometown and the life I'd lived there before I recorded” he wrote in Songs. It always makes me think of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, which must have been an influence. There’s a beauty in the acoustic guitars and Danny Federici’s marvellous accordion. An underrated instrument in rock.
It sets up the next song perfectly. Kitty’s Back is an improvisational, rolling, thundering piece of work with some of Springsteen’s best guitar playing. It’s not really like anything else he recorded, I feel, with ninths and other jazz styled chords (perhaps there are some on Meeting Across the River) and at times a walking bass.
The side ends with the harrumphing horn sound of Wild Billy’s Circus Story. Bruce is in great voice here, on this folk song that is transformed, as many were at the time, by more of Danny Federici’s accordion and a cocky style that runs through the track. It’s slight and silly, but that makes it superb.
For me this album comes alive on side 2.
The storyteller
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. - Walt Whitman2
If side 1 was a joy, side 2 is a step into pure eccentric greatness. One of the unsurpassed slices of music recorded by anyone. Springsteen the storyteller is reborn and refashioned on these tracks.
Incident on 57th Street is a cinematic masterpiece, pulling me into the city streets of East coast USA from my little North-West town. You can hear the leather jacket of Spanish Johnny in every line. And Johnny may have driven “in from the underworld last night… dressed just like dynamite” but to me he’s just a kid, not a criminal. He’s not setting up scams or even going with the boys who want him to “make a little easy money” but just trying to show his girl the sights of the world. At least I hope so, I don’t think he goes with the boys. It’s Springsteen experimenting with storytelling but it’s vague enough to be almost surreal. It’s more of a poem than a story - the right words in the right order.
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) - a masterpiece in the key of F. There’s not much more I can write about this that hasn’t already been written, but to me it is the archetypal pre-’75 Bruce song, making the most of drummer Vini ‘Mad Dog’ Lopez and sidekick saxophonist Clarence Clemons. It is a song that drives from the first moment the guitars ring out. The organ swirls around as the rest of the band join in and we are just going… This songs would be a beauty just having the first two verses that swing along with such confidence, such cool, that you can’t help but have a good time (“I ain't here on business, baby, I'm only here for fun”) but after the singalong chorus it really starts to mean business with great lines like “Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor”.
Everything is revving along like a souped-up Chevy but like any car journey there comes a moment to change down a gear. There’s a wonderful chiming guitar and keyboard part that is suddenly punctuated by guitar and horn in perfect sync around a bluesy little riff which then steps down even further as the band drop in the autobiographical interlude of “I know your mama, she don't like me 'cause I play in a rock and roll band” which is suddenly broken by a wonderful call and response moment. The pleasure this gave me on first (and let’s be honest subsequent) listen still sits with me now.
I think most bands would be done by now, sweat dripping from every musical pore but this song hits another joyful height with this fantastic pair of lines that are amongst some of my very favourite by anyone:
And my tires were slashed and I almost crashed, but the Lord had mercy
And my machine, she's a dud, out stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey
It’s nice that this song can take me back to the aforementioned friend, Clarke, as I remember listening to this driving back from Cornwall as we punched the air along with the chanting “Hey hey hey hey”. I mean… seriously, what can top this?
Bruce can. New York City Serenade is just remarkable. It starts with the sound of piano strings being strummed with a guitar pick, moving into a Gershwin-like piano piece played by David Sancious (who would leave the E Street Band after recording the Born to Run single). The song is then built around an opening that features more of Bruce’s Van Morrison inspired guitar as it settles down into four simple strummed chords over and over, tweaked by little, clever variations, Vini Lopez’s conga drum padding alongside.
More storytime, as Billy, with his cleated boots, and Jackie “boogaloo down Broadway”. Bruce builds up a midnight image of New York City that slowly grows, carefully, to the first big change, the magical call and response of “No, she won't take the train”.
There’s another beautiful moment as everything gets hushed, Bruce whispering “listen to your junk man”, as the songs seems to creep to a finish before he comes back in “He's singing, singing” climbing and climbing, Clarence’s sax snaking in and out against the Mellotron strings, as the song stretches out and away. I don’t know if any of Bruce’s long-form songs reached the height of this. I have a couple of live versions that clock in at around 19 minutes, as he stretches and improvises as a form of entropy, slowing and building, dying out and exploding back into life.
BruceBase gives a 25 year gap in performing this song, between 1975 and 1999. I’ve never heard it live - in fact he’s never performed it in England - but it’s a song that needs to be listened to, cherished and remembered.
Fish lady, oh, Fish lady, Fish lady
She baits them tenement walls
We’ll see a phasing out of epic tracks like this as Bruce created a different version of “epic” over the next few years. This album stil stand the test of time and is a remarkable piece of art.
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The Wild Boys, William Burroughs [1971]
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman [1855]
I think Bruce has said they were aiming for Astral Weeks with the second album, but didn't quite make it. If you haven't heard it, try to check out the February 5, 1975 live version of "NYC Serenade." It's an over 20 minute masterful bridge between the earlier jazz based band and the more rock oriented Born to Run sound that features violinist Suki Lahav. Nice review!
This album was the first that got me into Springsteen. One of my sisters had Asbury Park which is also a great album, but no matter what he’s done this one is still occupies a special place in my musical consciousness and heart. For me anyway, sometimes the first album I hear from a band/artist—especially if it’s mind blowing—is forever the best. Some many great albums and music it’s hard to choose…..