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Certain Songs

Certain Songs #142: Bruce Springsteen – “Born in the U.S.A”

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Album: Born in the U.S.A.

Year: 1984.

It was weird, loving this album and loving Bruce Springsteen in the mid-1980s. At that time, of course, I was fully ensconced with the alt/indie-rock aesthetic of KFSR, which automatically looked upon anything as massively popular as Springsteen (or Prince) (or Madonna) (or Michael Jackson) as suspicious. I got that: a lot of time what was popular was crap.

On the other hand, it was impossible for me to hate somebody simply because they were popular. That made no fucking sense: quality and popularity are not diametrically opposed. Not everything that is popular is crap. Never has been, never will be. It would be insane to ignore somebody simply because a lot of other folks whom maybe aren’t as snobby as I am like them.

I mean, the fact that The Kinks weren’t as popular as The Rolling Stones in 1969 didn’t mean that The Kinks were great and the Stones sucked, it meant that circumstances and market forces beyond either band’s control meant that Let it Bleed resonated while Arthur didn’t. In an ideal world, of course, both albums (to say nothing of The Velvet Underground) would have been massively popular.

In my ideal word, as a matter of fact, quality and popularity aren’t so much diametrically opposed as they are in lockstep.  Which is, of course, equally insane. But I truly want as many people to hear as much great music as I can foist at them. What I consider great music, of course, heh-heh. Your mileage will vary.

Of course, in the mid-1980s, there was no need whatsoever for me to play Bruce Springsteen on the radio as a DJ at KFSR. At least not anything from Born in the U.S.A., which had seven Top Ten singles, and certainly didn’t need my help. Clearly Bruce had figured out how to take his music to the next level commercially while not sacrificing his artistic soul.

Which was fine: as far as I was concerned, it meant that I could instead play Husker Du and R.E.M. and The Replacements etc. while still totally enjoying Springsteen’s success.  In fact, I even saw him in concert for the second time on that tour – at the Oakland Coliseum with Tim & Larry & Debbie (Tim & I also saw The Church put on a performance for the ages at Wolfgang’s in SF on that road trip) – where he always added extra heft to “Born in the U.S.A. by adding a killer guitar solo at the end.

Not that “Born in the U.S.A.” needed that extra heft. It sounded amazing. I have a simple rule: if a song sounds good enough, I really don’t give a fuck what the lyrics are. So even if the folks who have been willfully mishearing this song for 30 years happened to be correct – and they’re not, as even a cursory look at the verses would confirm – I’d still love it. I’d love it that big dumb beat. I’d love it for the even bigger and dumber keyboard hook. I’d love it for the utter passion that Bruce invests every single shout-sung “Born in the U.S.A.” 

“Born in the U.S.A”. performed live in Paris, 1985

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #141: Bruce Springstone – “(Meet The) Flintstones”

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Single: “Live at Bedrock.”

Year: 1982.

There’s a reason that only Weird Al has been able to make a career doing musical parody: it’s really really tough.

For example, it’s one thing for Jimmy Fallon to don a wig and sing in a high-pitched voice as “Neil Young,” – he’s letting the visuals do all of the work – and it’s quite another thing to do a full-blown takedown / homage like National Lampoon’s immortal “Southern California Brings Me Down.”

The best musical parody songs sound like they could actually be that artist, especially to the casual fan, while to the serious fan, they have to incorporate enough of that artist’s tropes or tics to play as a bit of an inside joke. It’s a tough line to walk, and I’m not sure that anybody has ever walked it better than the guys who put together 1982?s Bruce Springstone song “(Meet The) Flintstones.”

According to the internet, Bruce Springstone was the brainchild of a cartoonist named Tom Chalkey, who enlisted some other musicians – including Tommy Keene!! – to play on it.  Somewhat inspired – sez me – by Little Roger & The Goosebumps’ “Stairway to Gilligan’s Island,” the genius of “(Meet The) Flintstones” was all of the specific parody points.

The opening section is pure genius, not so far off from a story that Bruce would use to introduce something like “Racing in the Street” or “The River:”

I remember, I remember when I was just a kid
Growin’ up on them backstreets, in an old stone-age town
I used to come home at night from my job, I had a job flippin’ dino burgers
I see the quarry, it’d be just closing down by then

Little bird up on the pole, he’s screaming out how the working day’s over

And I’d see them dinosaurs, they’d be herding out through the gates
And the workers, they’d be giving them cars a running start with their fat little feet
Now, so, so one night I’m crossing the alley and I see this one worker coming home to his little stone hut

And I seen the lady’s lunch pail by the door, and he calls out to his wife, “hey Wilma! I’m home, honey”

Willllmaaa!!

Then, of course he segues into the familiar “Flintstones” theme exactly as you would imagine Springsteen doing it, with cries of “Willlmaaaa!,” and of course a sax solo over a big stop-time part to close it all out.

Naturally, Bruce Springsteen reportedly loved it, and even more naturally, the humourless lawyer types at Hanna-Barbera put the kibosh any showings of a video that they had made, as well as slapping a cease-and-desist on the single itself, because they felt somehow the loving parody of the cover art somehow desecrated a brand that had been culturally ubiquitous for two decades.

“Meet The Flintstones”

Certain Songs #140: Bruce Springsteen –  “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) (Live 1980)”

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Album: Live 1975-1985

Year: 1980.

The River was a schizophrenic album, combining some of Springsteen’s deepest story songs with some of his stoopidest party anthems. Guess which ones I loved the most?

As played by the E Street Band, the party anthems are all forward momentum, and everywhere you listen you can hear a cool guitar lead or a backing vocal or a new organ sound or an awesome piano run, capturing the visceral thrill of great rock music, So if some of them weren’t tied to the greatest of lyrics, it didn’t really matter. 

The reason I love “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)” – especially the live version – most of all is Steven Van Zant’s backing vocals.  Sure, they’re barely on tune, but that’s not even the point. His natural “aaaaahhhhhhh” adds a degree of extra grit and authenticity, so when he chimes in on “telephoooaaaonnnnnnnee” and “ahhhhhhlonnnnnnne”, in the last verse it makes the entire song for me.

I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for the very first time on this tour, in 1981, with Larry and Tim. Road trip! And, in fact I think it may have been one of those deals where we drove home after the show, because we were young and had unlimited time and energy. I have a vivid memory of listening to a cassette of Cosmos Factory on one of those trips – let’s just say it was this one – and just as “Ramble Tamble” hit its glorious midsection, the sun came up.

Or I could totally be mis-remembering that.

What I do remember that we were sitting at the very back of the Los Angeles Sports Arena, about as far back as you could possibly get from the band, and it was still utterly overpowering.  To felt, it felt like Bruce cared about entertaining the back of the house as much as he cared about the front rows.

The thing I remember the most was the instrumental build-up that climaxes “Racing in the Street,” which was long, slow and utterly majestic. It completely changed how I thought about that song. 

The rest of it is just a blur all these years later, but I do remember walking out and being fully and utterly convinced that I was going to follow what Bruce Springsteen did for the rest of our lives.

“You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)” performed live in 1980

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #139: Bruce Springsteen – “Growin’ Up (The Agora, Cleveland 1978)”

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Album: The Agora, Cleveland 1978.

Year: 1978.

There was no doubt that Bruce Springsteen understood the power he was unleashing every single night on his 1978 tour. Compared to the relative dourness of Darkness on the Edge of Town, those 1978 shows were a celebration of everything great about rock ‘n’ roll, and maybe only Dylan’s UK ‘66 tour ranks higher in my personal pantheon.

I know that because Bruce was smart enough to allow several radio broadcasts of that tour, knowing that the resulting bootlegs would only increase his fanbase and – subsequently – his future sales. Those radio shows were what you kids today call “viral marketing.”

And I know damn sure it worked on me, via Larry’s tape of the Agora show in Cleveland.

As near was we can piece it together, Larry recorded the Cleveland show from the mighty KMET in Los Angeles while he was at UCLA. What I do remember is that he labeled “Bruce Springsteen Live in CLEVELAND?!?” because it somehow seemed so weird that something so potent came from Cleveland. 

(Please note that I fact-checked the circumstances of that recording with Larry, because the 10 or so of you who will actually read this deserve to be told the truth. As does Larry. Though it’s actually a better story if I said he was there and bribed the soundboard guy with a bag of weed or something.)

That cassette was a key text in my burgeoning love of Bruce Springsteen, and we spent quite a lot of time over the next couple of years listening to it while driving around in his Dodge Colt, visiting other people we’d met on my first form of social media – the CB radio. And my favorite part of the whole cassette was the long story Bruce told in the middle of “Growin’ Up.”

On Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., “Growin’ Up” was a nice song, but a bit bloodless. In concert on the 1978 tour, while the details would change from show to show, it was essentially Bruce telling his own mythological origins. It’s keyed around his parents telling them that he need to stop playing music and do something with his life, and when they decide to consult a priest, they warn him:

“You tell him you want to be a lawyer. You tell him you want to be a author. But don’t you tell him nuthin about that god damn guitar!”

But the priest thinks it’s too big of a decision, and sends Bruce to talk to God. At that point, Bruce convinces Clarence to go see God with him. And so they do, after the priest gives him the same advice: “Don’t you tell him nuthin’ about this god damn guitar!”

It probably would have been insufferable had it not been so hilarious. All the way through, Bruce works in jokes, local references, self-mocking asides. So when he finally gets to talk to God, you’re fully invested in the outcome.

SPOILER ALERT For a 38-year-old song

“God, my father wants me to be a lawyer. My mother wants me to be an author. But I got this guitar, you see? And all of a sudden, I hear this thunder … I seen this lightning coming out of the sky. 


It was real quiet for awhile. And then I heard just three words:


LET IT ROCK!!!!”

And led by Roy Bittan, the E Street Band comes crashing in and it is truly thrilling. Or at least it was for me.

Oh, and BTW, that bootleg is now – finally – available as an actual legit live album.

Certain Songs #138: Bruce Springsteen – “Candy’s Room”

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Album: Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Year: 1978.

It seems ridiculous nowadays since bands like The Arcade Fire waste their youth and influence by taking three years between albums, but the three-year gap between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town felt like a big deal. So much time! Especially as the scruffy bohemian dude grinning holding his guitar on the former album was replaced by the clean-shaven dude staring you down.

When I first saw the magazine ads for Darkness, I couldn’t even believe it was the same guy. Which made thematic sense: if: Born to Run often felt like a huge party, then Darkness on the Edge of Town felt like the reason that people needed that party. And as such, it took a long time for me – a couple of decades, really – to fully grok how great it was.

The one Darkness song that I loved unreservedly from the start is easily the most unconventional song on the entire album. Neither a straight-out anthemic rocker nor a slowly-burning ballad, “Candy’s Room” starts quietly, and then suddenly explodes into a big Max Weinberg snare drum hook. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, it gets ripped in half by one of Bruce’s most out-front guitar solos, stopping the whole thing dead.

After that, everybody’s jostling each other trying to get to Candy’s room first. In the end,  Max Weinberg wins by virtue of sliding on his snare drum hook while Bruce slows himself down by bouncing back-and-forth between the speakers.

“Candy’s Room” performed live circa 2010

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #137: Bruce Springsteen – “She’s The One”

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Album: Born to Run.

Year: 1975.

Wiih its killer organ and secret basslines and big-ass drum fills, the Phil Spector-by-way-of Bo Diddley “She’s The One” packs a universe of epic grandness into just four-and-a-half minutes. And if the Born to Run version was all that we ever got, dayneu. 

But it was just a fucking trailer compared to the live version. On that 1978 tour, over Max Weinberg’s kick drum, Bruce would reference other classic songs with the Bo Diddley beat: “Not Fade Away,” “Mona,” “Gloria” – whatever came to mind – setting up what was always an absolutely monster version of “She’s The One”

The the density of the sound of the E Street Band is absolutely breathtaking: how Roy Bittan’s piano & Danny Federici’s organ intertwine, how Garry Tallent’s bass and Max Weinberg’s drums drive everything, and oh yeah, here comes Clarence Clemons kicking out a  sax solo while everybody is joyfully shouting “Whoa, she’s the one!”

And after that, they’re off to the races, pretty much leaving every other band ever in the dust. 

The last two minutes of any live 1978 version of “She’s The One,” with all of the building and building and stopping and starting and crashing and moving ever forward with ever single member of the band playing within an inch of their lives, ranks with the greatest rock ‘n’ roll music by anybody in any context. It’s utterly thrilling every single time.

“She’s the One” performed live in Landover, MD, 1978

“She’s The One” performed live in Passiac, NJ, 1978

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #136: Bruce Springsteen – “Born to Run”

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Album: Born to Run.

Year: 1975.

Back in the mid-1980s, when Bruce Springsteen was the biggest music artist in the world not named “Michael Jackson,” I used to give a post-closing-shift ride home to one of my Video Zone co-workers, Mindy. She lived at the edge of Clovis, near where Tollhouse made its weird diagonal run towards the Sierra Nevadas.

That was, you know, 30 years ago, before suburban sprawl brought the mountains ever closer, and way before they built the 168 to help formalize that closeness. So Tollhouse past midnight – seemingly lit only by the lights of three radio towers – was one of those roads that represented “getting the hell out of Fresno.” 

Many nights after dropping Mindy off at the house where she was staying, I would linger at the stop sign at Tollhouse and Fowler, and look up Tollhouse and those radio towers, thinking “man, if my life was a Bruce Springsteen song,  I could just get on this road and never come back. I could escape everything and everyone.”

1,2,3,4!

Of course, my life wasn’t a Bruce Springsteen song. And it especially wasn’t “Born to Run.” My youthful wildness didn’t manifest itself in screaming down boulevards in hemi-powered drones. My youthful wildness manifested itself in drinking too much and not graduating college in a timely manner. But man, did riding through mansions of glory in suicide machines seem like it was way more fun that ditching class to go see a movie with Jay.

Right? Discovering if love was wild or real by dying on the street in an everlasting kiss with a girl named Wendy sounded like the most exciting thing that could ever possibly happen. Let’s go! But, of course, it wasn’t ever going to happen. Not to me, not to anyone, probably. But, man, who could hear this song and not want to live it, even for a little while? 

In concert – because with Bruce, the phrase “in concert” always seems to come up – they would turn on the house lights for “Born to Run.” That way you could sing along with thousands of other strangers who were also – for a few minutes – escaping their perfectly unexciting normal lives because we gotta get out while we’re young because tramps like us baby we were born to run!

“Born to Run” performed live in the mid-1980s

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #135: Bruce Springsteen – “Backstreets”

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Album: Born to Run.

Year: 1975.

I know that Bruce posed with Clarence Clemons for the famous cover of what is probably the greatest transition record ever made, but it shoulda been Roy Bittan. I mean, of course it wouldn’t have worked visually in a nice gatefold cover, but let’s face it: Roy Bittan owns Born to Run. 

There isn’t a single song on this record without a perfect, memorable piano part. Roy’s piano is practically the first thing you hear in “Thunder Road” and the last thing you hear on “Jungleland.”  

And of course, Bittan is all over “Backstreets,” which may not be the greatest Bruce Springsteen song, but is definitely the most Bruce Springsteen song. 

One soft infested summer
Me and Terry became friends
Trying in vain to breathe
The fire we born in
Catching rides to the outskirts
Tying faith between our teeth
Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house
Getting wasted in the heat 
And hiding on the backstreets 
Hiding on the backstreets

It may not profound, but you can see it in your mind’s eye. More than that, you want to live it: that summer where everything changes. That summer which has since become so mythologized in your mind that you replay it for the rest of your life. You know, your glory days. 

And, besides, over the hard-rocking Blonde on Blonde sound of of the E Street Band, it becomes profound, because they make hiding on the backstreets sound like simultaneously the beginning and end of the world.

So in the end, when Bruce sings:

Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets

approximately 568,921,364 times, it becomes a catharsis, a cry for help, and a prayer to a god that had long since abandoned him and Terry. In the end, it feels like a cleansing, and everybody involved is pretty much exhausted. Which means it’s time to flip the album over and get reinvigorated all over again.

“Backstreets” performed live in Passiac, New Jersey, 1978

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #134: Bruce Springsteen – “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”

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Album: The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle.

Year: 1973.

I honestly don’t even know what to do about Bruce Springsteen. I’m positive that all my favorite Bruce songs are the ones that you’re all sick of, and given that he’s been one of the most over-analyzed artists in history, I’m not sure I’ve got a whole lot to say about him. So I’ve been looking at these next few songs with more than a little bet of dread.

That said: for decades I’ve known where I want to be if World War III ever broke out – wherever it is that Bruce Springsteen is performing “Rosalita.” There may not be a song in recorded history with more forward momentum, especially live. Check any of the bootlegs from 1978, where the song just builds and builds and builds, where even the band introductions (often during the section where they dropped into an lightspeed instrumental of “I Can’t Turn You Loose”) somehow kept the momentum going.

Back in 1979, ABC ran a “Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll" special (narrated by Jeff Bridges!), and they showed just a couple of minutes from the below clip of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band playing “Rosalita” live in Phoenix in 1978. It just killed me.  Eventually, the whole thing showed up on MTV. It killed me even more.

During this clip – from that insanely great 1978 tour – you get the impression that they’re not only the tightest rock ‘n’ roll band that anyone’s ever seen, but that anything could happen at any time. Usually it’s one or the other, but almost never both. It’s a perfect combination of rock and roll spirit, musicianly chops and masterful showmanship. It remains in the top 5 live performances I’ve ever seen on video.

“Rosalita” performed liver than you’ll ever be in Phoenix, 1978

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #133: Broken Social Scene – “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl”

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Album: You Forgot It in People
Year: 2002.

First off, let me say that  "Broken Social Scene"  is one of my all-time favorite names for any band ever. Or, “musical collective,” I guess, though I have a helluva time envisioning BSS founder Kevin Drew sneering Lydonesquely to a late-night talk show host: “We’re not a band, we’re a collective.”

And while I recognize that their 2002 breakthrough You Forgot It In People is utterly beloved by indie fans a generation younger than me, I’ve always found it to be a very good record with two tremendous songs – “Cause = Time” & “Almost Crimes,” – and a contender for the Prettiest Song Ever Recorded (Brian Eno Division): “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl.”

At first, with singer Emily Haines’ voice altered into a pitch so high the words she is singing are almost totally unintelligible, “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” is a bit off-putting. They’re so alien, you don’t even notice that she’s not singing over a synth, but rather a slowly picked banjo, strummed guitar and bowed violin.

Then, when the song gets to about 1:10, she sings:

Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under my window 

And right then, the whole world changes.

Suddenly, the banjo and violin take center stage, along with one of the most simply perfect guitar leads I’ve ever heard. It’s sheer elegance in its simplicity. 

Then, and over a slow build with the banjo, guitar & violin getting more powerful as it goes on and on the part that makes this song one of my Top 10 – hell, maybe even Top 5 – of the new millennium, Hanes chants over and over again:

Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me

Now I know that some people get driven crazy by this kind of repetition, but to me, this is like Doug Yule’s organ solo in the live “What Goes On” or Pete Shelley’s screams of “There is no love in this world anymore” in “I Believe,” No matter how long it goes on, it isn’t long enough. 

“Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl”