Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

A Cop Who Never Smoked Pop.

he's never going to get home

It's almost as if he went out for a ride and he never went back.

Rhonda let's drive this chevy out into the switchblade night
let's take all our shattered dreams and toss em out into the creek
that runs behind the pollution factory where the drunks all
sing about the prom queen that they almost married

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 10 October 2019 15:45 (one hour ago) link

Rhonda I know there's still magic somewhere out in those stars
and I think we can find it if you have sex with me tonight in my caaaaaaaaaaarrrr!!!!

<Big Man takes a sax solo>

lol

Re: Bruce never smoking pot - yeah, and then there's this performance of "Wild Billy" where he a.) seems super stoned and b.) introduces the song by offering to trade a song dedication for weed? (I think - he's mumbling so much it's hard to tell.) Great performance, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAUrofM9DDs

To man alive: good, but it needs more road references or some place names, like

You're not sure if you should put out or wait
The answer is somewhere on the interstate
Baby don't make me read between the lines
All the wisdom I need is beneath these Jersey pines

I feel like someone needs to either code an auto-Brucenator, or start a crowdsourced Boss-imitation thread called "Sprilxsteen" or something

Well I thought I saw the Jersey Devil out behind the WaWa last night
Carly calls taylor ham pork roll but I don't mind
So let's ride this jughandle til the wheels fall off this '87 pontiac
I'm heading out to Six Flags and I don't know if I'm comin' back

how's that YMP?

First-rate!

Just make sure you get a Steinbeck character into the chorus and it's done.

"Last night" is the touch that really makes it.

You might need to add a dream sequence and some father issues, though. And a gypsy curse.

<Big Man takes a sax solo>

this is killing me rn

Out from under the shadows of the pulasky skyway
Speeding past the Sbarro sign at the Walt Whitman rest area
We can ride this turnpike all night but the ride ain't free
just tell me what exit and I'll punch your ticket baby

Never knew my daddy, but he was a union man
Gypsy woman told him "do all that you can"
I walked in a dream past the boardwalk sights
Saw John Steinbeck in those neon lights

We're almost there. Just need some chugging Roy Bittan chords through a Leslie speaker.

Not so fast - if you want to beat Dylan at this game, you'll need crime, a character of indeterminate gender, and some sisters.

wait so this song opened with sex in the caaaaarrrr?

Lily Dale, you could be helping here - at least sketch out a verse, sheesh.

I am the Jon Landau of this song. I don't help, I just provide highbrow criticism.

I think sex in the caaaaaaarrrr was a false ending? (To be followed by ONE TWO THREE FOUR! and the verse about the Jersey Devil.)

ok.

A figure in green haunted my dream
Maybe a man, maybe a lady
My sister heard a siren scream
Gypsy said "that was your maybe"

Rhonda was stuck in between
Blood in the mist out by the beach
Vanished behind a smokestack screen
The cops arrived, she was out of reach

[unintelligible moaning]

AND THEN WE HAD SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR! <sax solo>

SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!

All right!

Keep it rockin' boys!

How are you all doing these without using the word "sir"?

Sex In The Car, Sir

<Nils does a dance on a trampoline>

Out from under the shadows of the pulasky skyway
Speeding past the Sbarro sign at the Walt Whitman rest area
We can ride this turnpike all night but the ride ain't free
just tell me what exit and I'll punch your ticket baby

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, October 10, 2019 12:42 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like it should actually be "Burnin' past the Sbarro sign..."

Fair point, it's not really Springsteen unless something's on fire.

or he gave away the g's

I put those g's in Sir Sbarro's sign, honey, and then I torched it

And she said "Honey you should know by now that pizza's no good!"
as she lit a cigarette and flicked the ashes on my hood

Another American job lost to high tech outsourcing

Saw her in the Sbarro's by the dynamo
Just a-twirlin' that pizza dough

The bar band there was hopping
I got lost in Rhonda's world
Redemption was the topping
As the pizza slowly twirled

They closed down the Sbarro's 'cross the railroad track
Ralph went out looking for pizza and never came back

Everybody knows a hungry Ralph

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E17/509675.jpg?b64lines=V2VsbCB0aGV5IGJsZXcgdXAgdGhlIApjaGlja2VuIG1hbiBpbiBQaGlsbHkgbGFzdCAKbmlnaHQKCgoKCgoKCi4uLm1tbW1tLi4uY2hpY2tlbi4uLg==

Meet me tonight at Panera Bread

no dude that's mark kozelek

his songs are even easier to parody because he pretty much writes them as parodies of their own style to begin with

I had to listen to "The Promise" earlier - Bruce's most self-referential song? That 2-disc lost album sort of thing they put out with the Darkness box is nice, but the 3 year gap (lawsuit-imposed?) between Born to Run and Darkness probably did him a lot of good in the long run.

IS THERE SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR?
YES THERE"S SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!

That killed me because Bruce has never directly sang about sex, eh?

--

https://the-niche.blog/2018/04/16/the-top-ten-horniest-bruce-springsteen-songs/

On Badlands: "Any given lyric in this song could be about overthrowing American capitalism or getting gloriously, generously rawed. Or both!"

Because The Night Belongs To Fuckers

that list of horny springsteen songs is glaringly missing "candy's room."

and the ILM springsteen song is glaringly missing a river. or lake. or some body of water.

good point.

We kiss, my heart's pumpin' to my brain
And the blood rushes in my veins, the fire rushes towards the skies
I go driving, driving deep into the night
I go driving deep into the light, in Candy's eyes
...

i'm gonna take a shower

There's that song on "Devils & Dust" about a prostitute in Reno that's about as explicit as Bruce has ever gotten, or for that matter could be.

my. goodness.