This week's Friday Bruce Fix resulted from a browse through the archives that uncovered three great songs that I had inexplicably not yet featured, not even once, in nearly five years of fixes. I apologize profusely for such an embarrassing oversight, which I can only explain as being the result of the embarrassment of riches that is the Bruce Springsteen songbook.
I quickly realized there is a common thread running through these songs related to guns and bullets, metaphorically or otherwise, and so it made sense to feature them together in one fix. The first three make their Friday Bruce Fix debut today, and it just made sense to me bring 'American Skin' back for a return appearance with its 41 Shots.
So, keep your wits about you on this most dangerous Friday Bruce Fix. Remember, one false move and baby the lights go out.
One of my favourite things to do is sift through Bruce Springsteen's garbage can to dig out some of the great songs he threw away. To be fair, he generally doesn't throw songs away, it's just that some songs don't quite fit the concept of the album he might be creating at the time.
For the longest time, these four rejects from the recording sessions for 'The River' only saw the light of day due to the dedicated efforts of a relatively small number of bootleggers. Bruce has since given us official releases of these on the 'Tracks' box set and there are also a number of unofficial videos to watch. Here are a few for you.
Well, Halloween is now a couple of weeks in the rear view mirror and I've finished off the last of the chocolatey treats that I held back from all those little monsters that came to the door. I'll miss that candy until next year, but in the meantime, I thought I'd share another type of candy with you today.
'Candy's Boy' is an early, work-in-progress version of what would eventually become 'Candy's Room', one of the 10 songs that made the final cut, out of the 70 or so songs that Bruce Springsteen recorded for 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'. As always, it's interesting to see how the song evolved.
More than a week has passed since Sandy came ashore and I find myself still thinking of Asbury Park, The Stone Pony, and the Jersey Shore. So, today's Friday Bruce Fix will feature a few videos that draw on the sights and sounds of the scene that we know from the songs of Bruce Springsteen.
Here's a video of Bruce helping out his long-time Asbury Park buddy, Stevie Van Zandt, who at the time was fronting his Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. Bruce joins Steve on stage at the Stone Pony.
This video features film shot in 1988 of key Asbury Park locations the figure prominently in Bruce's songs and story.
Here's a piece that Matt Lauer of NBC did while driving around Asbury Park with Bruce.
Finally, this video of the three Asbury Amigos, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Van Zandt and Southside Johnny, shot at the Stone Pony, nicely captures the essence of their friendship, their story and the Jersey Shore sound that they helped to create.
Shameless Self-Promotion Alert:
For those of you in Toronto this weekend, Nov 10th & 11th, I'm showing my photography in this Art Show & Sale. A sample of one of my images is below. If you're kicking around this weekend and enjoy art, drop by any time between 1pm and 7pm.
The focus of this week's Friday Bruce Fix must seem an obvious choice, perhaps even too obvious, but I felt it would have been wrong to go in any other direction this week. Many people have lost and suffered so much this week, and the end of that suffering must seem a very long way off. Our hearts go out to you.
Tonight at 8:00 pm EDT, NBC will host a one hour telethon to raise money for the Hurricane Sandy relief effort featuring New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, and Long Island'sBilly Joel. I don't know whether Bruce will get enough screen time to perform more than one song, but I thought I'd engage in some speculation about what he might play.
I don't think he will play '4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)' although it has been hard to get this song out of my head this week. Many Springsteen fans have noted the irony of a storm named Sandy slamming into the New Jersey shore. From what I've seen on line, the boardwalk in Asbury Park did sustain some damage but was not wiped out like some other boardwalks along the shore. I wondered about Madame Marie's, which I gather had its glass door blown off, but is still standing, as is the Stone Pony. In any case, this is a great song about a place that readers of this blog love, so I'll play it here:
I think two more likely candidates are 'My City of Ruins' and 'Atlantic City'. The former immediately leaps to mind as Bruce wrote it about Asbury Park, and then gave it new meaning when he performed it for the 9/11 benefit, and he has again given it new meaning on his current tour. Perhaps he'll put it to work again tonight. Which song(s) do you think Bruce will play?
Atlantic City also took a pounding from Sandy. While the song really doesn't suit the occasion, there is one lyric that does: "Everything dies baby that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies some day comes back".
Watching this performance, in light of the events of this week, as Bruce repeats "meet me tonight in Atlantic City', it feels like an attempt to rally his community to rebuild and try to take back what can be taken back. As we hear so often in Bruce's songs, I hear strength, faith and hope in the face of despair.
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