Today's Friday Bruce Fix takes its inspiration from the fact that tomorrow is Halloween. I am a little too old to get dressed up and go out trick or treating, although for the right party invitation I might just dust off my legendary Christmas tree costume. Actually, tomorrow night I'll be home handing out, to the monsters that come to my front door, whichever chocolate treats I manage not to eat between now and then. Kids, you better hurry but remember, no costume, no disguise, no candy.
This week's first clip revisits a difficult period in Bruce's life when his marriage to Julianne Phillips was falling apart. Bruce has always done a nice job of keeping the juicy details of his personal life fairly private, yet all the while writing about the things going on in his life. We didn't really know why his first marriage wasn't working out, yet we knew it was happening by listening to the songs on 'Tunnel of Love'.
'Brilliant Disguise' was the first single off the album. As usual, it is full of great lines such as: "I want to know if it's you I don't trust, 'cause I damn sure don't trust myself" and "God have mercy on the man, who doubts what he's sure of". I love the live vocal track and the very slow zoom that lasts through the whole song in the official video, with Bruce looking very much like a man who doubts what he's sure of.
The second clip comes from a performance years later, in October of 2007 at New York's Madison Square Gardens, with Bruce a lot more sure of the relationship he's in, and with a lot of distance from the relationship that inspired the song. Same song, different context, and here it seems to mean something different, that perhaps while there are always going to be challenges, this relationship is and will always be much better.
This week, I'm proud to present what may be the biggest Friday Bruce Fix ever, if not in content, then certainly in spirit. My inspiration comes from last week's big news that the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined Twitter. The avid Bruce Springsteen community that exists on Twitter has happily welcomed Clarence Clemons, and since many of those fine folks have found their Friday Bruce Fix through my interactions with this community, I thought it would be a great idea to welcome Clarence through this huge blog post.
Clarence, once you find your way here, please post a comment, or say hi on Twitter. And, so long as I'm speaking to you directly, is it "Big Man" or "The Big Man"? Perhaps "Big Man" when addressing you directly, but "The Big Man" when referring to you in the third person?
This week's massive post is the perfect segue from last week's post that featured Bruce on David Letterman's show. The thread that runs from last week to this week is David Letterman, but this week I'm supersizing Your Friday Bruce Fix by featuring the man Bruce has called many things including the King of the World, the Master of Disaster, and two of my personal favorites, the Duke of Paducah and the Mayor of Half of Bayonne. I'll let Bruce handle the introductions.
Bruce frequently opened the second set of the 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' tour with this original composition called 'Paradise By The C' or perhaps 'Paradise By The Sea'. It certainly set the tone for the party that was the second set, and of course, Clarence's playing is brilliant. Bruce, we are still waiting somewhat impatiently for the 'Darkness' box set with re-mastered audio and a full concert DVD. Clarence, I'm hoping you could give Bruce a little nudge and set the whole thing in motion. Much appreciated!
Now, on to the David Letterman thread. Clarence appeared on Dave's daytime show prior to Dave's move to late night television. The timing of this seems to be 1984 near the start of the massive 'Born in the USA' tour. This was Clarence's take on Bruce's composition 'From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)'. Crank up the volume and I defy you to sit still while watching this one.
Since this is Your Friday Bruce Fix, I thought maybe I should give The (?) Big Man's sidekick a little screen time. Here's Bruce's orginal recording of the same song, an outtake from the late 1979 recording sessions for 'The River'. He would eventually release it on the bonus third disc of the 'Essentials' box set.
Perhaps Bruce felt that a song this great needed to be heard. Since it didn't make the cut to be on 'The River', he gave it to Dave Edmunds who, in 1982, released what some say is the definitive version of this song. Of course, I can't actually say that here on Your Friday Bruce Fix, where Bruce is better than everybody else, so I won't say that Dave Edmunds' is the definitive version. What I will say is that I love the arrangement, the horns and how it really cooks.
I also wanted to highlight the fact that Clarence has recently released his new book 'Big Man'. You can read more about it and order your very own copy here: http://www.bigmanthebook.com/ Since the current tour is rapidly coming to a close, the Big Man will need a significant new source of income, so please, buy a copy, in fact buy several, and tell all your friends to buy copies, too. Clarence needs our support in order to continue living the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed.
Harry Chapin died July 16, 1981, 28 years ago yesterday, in a fiery car crash on the Long Island Expressway. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest, though it was unclear whether his heart failed him before or after the crash. Whichever happened first, it led to the other.
In life, Harry's heart along with his passion for living and giving, motivated him to do something to make a difference in his world. Harry earned a substantial amount of money over his career and gave much of it away, with an emphasis on causes related to battling hunger in America. It was estimated he donated a third of the proceeds from his paid concerts to charitable causes. The following two paragraphs are directly from Wikipedia.
One report quotes his widow saying soon after his death — "only with slight exaggeration" — that "Harry was supporting 17 relatives, 14 associations, seven foundations and 82 charities. Harry wasn't interested in saving money. He always said, 'Money is for people,' so he gave it away." Despite his success as a musician, he left little money and it was difficult to maintain the causes for which he raised more than $3 million in the last six years of his life. The Harry Chapin Foundation was the result.
Chapin was interred in the Huntington Rural Cemetery, Huntington, New York. His epitaph is taken from his song "I Wonder What Would Happen to this World." It is:
Oh if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man's life could be worth
I wonder what would happen
to this world
This week's first clip features a very fine solo acoustic performance by Bruce Springsteen at the Carnegie Hall Tribute show in December of 1987 honoring Harry Chapin's life, and includes a great little story about how Bruce met and got to know Harry.
Harry's big hit was 'Cats in the Cradle', a song based on a poem his wife Sandy wrote about her first husband's relationship with his father. The birth of his son Josh inspired Harry to turn Sandy's poem into a song, and it became his only #1 hit.
This week's Friday Bruce Fix features Bruce Springsteen showing us his folksy, rootsy roots, along with social and political commentary and a little protest thrown in for good measure. These clips feature songs written by some of Bruce's key influences, Bob Dylan, John Fogerty and Woody Guthrie.
We lead off today with a double shot. This clip is from Chateau de Vincennes in Paris, France at the SOS Racism Concert, which was broadcast on French television in June of 1988. Bruce performed just 4 songs, all acoustically. These are the final two songs in the mini-set.
As the 'Born in the USA' tour wound down in late 1985, after being on the road for about a year and a half, Bruce and the band rolled into LA for their final stop. The final night of the tour was filmed and this next clip was from late in the show, sandwiched between 'Rosalita' and 'Born to Run'.
In 1940, Woody Guthrie wrote 'This Land is Your Land' as a response to Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America'. Woody felt that the America he knew was a lot different from the one Irving wrote about. Woody's America was suffering from Dust Bowl conditions and the Great Depression, while emigrant and blue collar workers battled racism and classism as they roamed around looking for work. Woody's lyrics addressed liberty, individual rights and property ownership.
I suspect that a song like this has been a source of inspiration for Bruce in taking up the cause in fighting for the disadvantaged and for what he believes is right. His spoken intro provides some insight into how Bruce interprets Woody's lyrics.
I'm a bit surprised to find myself doing this, but this week's Bruce Fix will be a little light on Bruce, and will shine a little light on Michael Jackson, who you are all well aware (unless you've been locked up in isolation for the last week or so) left this world recently. Bruce and Michael probably couldn't have been more different, yet I'm sure when Bruce reads this he'll approve of this nod to Michael. And hey, one day when Bruce punches the clock for the last time, I hope the guy doing the Monday Michael Mashup (no one's doing it yet, but now that I've put it out there, it's just a matter of time....) will repay the respect we show today.
Bruce and Michael were both peaking in popularity around the same time in the early to mid 80s. If I remember correctly, 'Thriller' and 'Born in the USA' each spawned seven Top 10 singles. I wanted Bruce to release 'Bobby Jean' which I felt would have gone Top 10, thus besting Michael and 'Billie Jean'. I'm sure he regrets ignoring my advice.
In August of 1984, Rolling Stone wrote a pair of stories titled 'On The Road, The Jacksons, Springsteen' contrasting the tours each was in the midst of at that time. The Jacksons' tour was a complex and costly undertaking, surrounded by fan hysteria, media frenzy, security and controversy. Bruce's tour started out in arenas and would move to stadium venues later in the tour, but was always much less of a spectacle and simply the hardest working rock and roll band that could ever roll through your hometown.
In a subsequent full length Rolling Stone Interview by Kurt Loder on December 6, 1984, Bruce spoke presciently of the kind of fame that Elvis had, and that Michael was having. He pointed out the incredible pressure and isolation that such fame requires, and the pain that results. It was a price Bruce refused to pay, and he continued to live as normal a life as possible, going wherever he wanted, doing whatever he wanted to do. Instead of putting up barriers, and hiding behind layers of security, Bruce kept trying to tear down walls. The following is a direct quote from Bruce in that interview.
"The biggest gift your fans can give you is just treatin' you like a human being, because anything else dehumanizes you. And that's one of the things that has shortened the life spans, both physically and creatively, of some of the best rock and roll musicians - that cruel isolation. If the price of fame is that you have to be isolated from the people you write for, then that's too fuckin' high a price to pay."
Take Michael's fame/isolation problem and then add in the fact that Michael started out so young, and was a major celebrity before he could ever figure out how to just be a normal, happy kid, the poor guy never had much of a chance at developing the skills he was going to need to handle the challenges he'd later face.
Todays first clip features a little Bruce and a little Michael. My guess is that they first met at the recording of 'We Are The World'. In the Kurt Loder interview, Bruce also said that he had attended one of the Jacksons' performances on that same tour in 1984. and he was very complimentary about Michael. I doubt that they interacted much beyond these two events. Michael co-wrote this song with Lionel Ritchie and I believe played a pretty significant role in making this happen. It is but one example of his charitable work.
Alright, I can't resist having a little fun, after all that serious stuff above. Talk about a career defining piece of work for Andre-Phillipe Gagnon.
I stumbled upon this next clip while searching for the first clip. I didn't even know that the Jacksons had recorded an audio a cappella version of 'I'll Be There'. There really isn't much to say beyond the obvious, that for all his tragic flaws, Michael was immensely talented. Above all, I'll remember the young Michael's singing. It is pretty remarkable, how anyone so young could be so good.
Finally, it's not quite Friday without a Bruce Fix, so with a nod to our American Bruce Fixees and the 4th of July, here is a rare solo piano version of 'Independence Day', from 1978's 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' tour, a full two years before Bruce would release 'Independence Day' on 'The River'. The song actually has nothing to do with the 4th of July, and everything to do with Bruce's relationship with his father.
OK, I have to admit that this week's Friday Bruce Fix theme is a bit of a stretch. In honor of Cinco de Mayo, the day on which I'm composing this fix, I dug into the vault to come up with some Spanish flavor for you. I realize that Cinco de Mayo is not a Spanish holiday but is primarily a Mexican holiday commemorating an unlikely victory by the Mexican army over French forces on May 5, 1862. The Mexicans had already won their independence from Spain roughly 40 years earlier.
I'm thinking that our Mexican friends could use our support given their current battle with swine flu, oops sorry H1N1 flu. Bruce is HUGE in Mexico (actually, I have no idea if he is...but they love him in Spain... just check out that 'Live in Barcelona' DVD), Spanish is the main language spoken in Mexico, and Cinco de Mayo celebrations generally combine food, music and dancing. So why not put a Spanish twist on this week's fix? Now, grab some food, start dancing, and scroll down!
Our first clip this week is called 'Spanish Eyes'. It is an outtake from the 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' recording sessions, and is believed to have been recorded between June 1977 and April 1978. It is songs like this that have fans hoping Bruce Springsteen will assemble a 'Tracks II' cd box set of unreleased gems.
Next up in keeping with our theme is an early cover of 'Spanish Harlem', which was written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector and released in 1961 by Ben E. King. It was Ben E.'s first hit after leaving The Drifters. This performance is from October 19, 1974 at Union College in Schenectady, NY.
Today's Friday Bruce Fix was inspired by yesterday's announcement that Chrysler would be seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. It seemed to me that the only reasonable reaction here in Bruce Fix Land (it's really nothing much like Disney Land, in case you're wondering), would be to play a song that Bruce Springsteen was likely inspired to write by the closing of a Ford plant in Mahwah, New Jersey in 1980.
One of the goals of the Friday Bruce Fix is to celebrate Friday, the end of the week, the impending weekend, and to generally provide an uplifting experience. So, I decided to feature a song that Wikipedia describes as being "about unemployment, poverty, robbery, murder and possibly execution" and "about complete despair". That should give you plenty of momentum going into the weekend.
'Johnny 99' was released in 1982 on Bruce's first acoustic album 'Nebraska'. In keeping with the sparse instrumentation on that album, he recorded it with just guitar, harmonica and vocal. Today's first clip is fairly faithful to the original, and was recorded in Paris in 1985 on the 'Born In The USA' tour.
Fast forward to just a few weeks ago, on April 10th in Denver, with a much more uplifting arrangement and performance. This clip covers just the last half or so of the song, featuring some blazing guitar work from Little Steven. Whoo! Whoo!
In case you liked that, here's a full version of the song, 5 nights later in LA, shot by an audience member from the pit down in front of the stage. The audio is pretty lousy, but it does give you a feel for what it's like to be down there, and the performance is great. Here are Bruce and the E Street Band reveling in the joy and total exhilaration of poverty, robbery, murder, execution and complete despair! Whoo! Whoo!
And what the hell, why not have a listen to Johnny Cash covering 'Johnny 99'?
This week's Friday Bruce Fix leads off with something pretty obscure called 'Lift Me Up', which Bruce Springsteen recorded for the soundtrack of John Sayles' 1999 film 'Limbo'. It ran over the closing credits, I imagine much in the way 'The Wrestler' does at the end of 'The Wrestler' (go figure). If I remember correctly (a rare event, thus notable), John directed Bruce's video for 'I'm On Fire', as well as 'Born in the USA' and 'Glory Days'.
Bruce had started writing 'Lift Me Up' around the time of 'The Ghost of Tom Joad' album and tour, but never quite finished the song. In 1998, John needed a song for his upcoming film and asked Bruce for "something that was healing but also something that was about risk". Bruce dusted this one off, finished up the lyrics and, playing all the instruments himself he recorded and produced the track in his home studio. (Thanks to www.springsteenlyrics.com for these details.)
Speaking of John Sayles, it seems an easy segue over to the John Sayles directed video for 'I'm On Fire'.
Does anyone know who played the mostly unseen woman in the video in the role as the object of Bruce's burning desire? I've often thought that it might have been his first wife, Julianne Phillips. I think Bruce overshadowed her with his acting in this video. Perhaps that was the catalyst for the breakdown in their marriage.... professional jealousy.... "but Brucie... I'm supposed to be the actor in this family..."
Anyway, I seem to recall some buzz suggesting that Bruce's dramatic turn in this video led to his being approached for some film roles. I suppose his immense popularity at the time might have also had something to do with that. To my knowledge, his only film role so far came in a cameo role as some bit player in 'High Fidelity'. Bruce did a nice job, but generally I think it's good that Bruce wisely stuck to doing what he does best, fixing us when we need it, which is every single Friday. Here's the video.
And, what the hell, why not have a listen to Johnny Cash covering 'I'm On Fire'. This was a bonus track on 'Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska'.
Imagine that you are Bruce Springsteen. You've married a local girl and had three kids, and you live in a pretty nice house not too far from your hometown. You've had a pretty good career to this point. You're widely loved and admired. You've been around the world and all across the seven seas and been paid a king's ransom for doing what comes naturally. But now, you have a problem.
For some silly reason, you've finagled your way into this quick little gig to play a few songs for a bunch of people in a football stadium in Tampa Bay at what is called the Super Bowl . Maybe you're doing this becuase you're still angry that NBC rejected your former manager Mike Appel's attempts to have you sing prior to the 1973 Super Bowl. Maybe you think NBC owes you this, 36 years later. Anyway, you've played lots of stadiums before so it shouldn't be that big a deal, right?
Let me explain something, Mr. Springsteen. You're used to playing for 3 hours in front of tens of thosands of rabid fans of yours who've paid $100 or more per ticket and who think nothing of driving all night, following you around from town to town, to see you perform. When you're on stage, every eye is on you. You're in complete control of the building until you decide it's over. But, this little Super Bowl thing is different.
This football stadium will be jammed with tens of thosands of rabid football fans who've paid hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to see dozens of hulking, ferocious, padded, helmeted warriors beat the crap out of each other for 3 hours for the ultimate prize in the most popular sport in America. They'll likely have been drinking for several hours before the game even starts, and they'll be busting for a leak by the time you take the stage. Not only are they not there to see you play, they'll either be heading for the washroom and/or the concession stands to reload. So, if you want to hold their attention, you've got your work cut out for you.
It gets worse. Did I mention that the television audience for this thing is something like 150 million in the USA and maybe a billion or so in 230 plus countries around the world? Oh, yeah and they've only given you 12 minutes to perform and then the hook comes out. How many songs have you written? 500? 1000? If you whittle it down to the real good ones, I mean the all time classics, we're talking maybe 50 or 100. Well, I figure you've gotta pick 3. That's right, THREE. Which ones are you going to play?
OK, settle down. It's too late to back out. NBC has been making a big fuss about you being part of their broadcast and now everyone knows about it. You have to go through with it. You may as well start thinking about it. But, don't worry Brucie, I have a plan to help you.
I would like each of you imaginary Brucies to help the real Bruce, that Springsteen guy, by casting your votes for the three songs you think he should play. I have no doubt that Bruce (the real one) follows this blog closely and by the time I post the results of your votes on Friday, Jan 30th, two days before the Super Bowl, Your Friday Bruce Fix will have fixed Bruce's problem. Two days is plenty of time to get the always in mid-season form E-Street Band ready to play three songs. Hell, Bruce could call an audible and they'd be fine.
Alright, so before you watch today's clip, go to the link below and cast your votes. I've added a few extra questions for fun. When you're done, come on back and I'll let you watch the clip. By the way, it's my vote for song number three, but don't let that influence your vote in any way. Of course, that won't happen because you're going to vote first.
Please send the link to this blog around to everyone you know who likes Bruce, even just a little. We need lots of votes. He really needs our help this time.
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