Although I love Bruce Springsteen’s work with The E Street Band, my heart also has a soft spot for the different directions Springsteen took in the 1990s. In addition to some amazing solo work that decade, he released two albums on the same day in 1992 with a band that was not the E Street Band. Subsequently, he toured with a new band.
As Springsteen sought rejuvenation by temporarily surrounding himself with (mostly) new backing musicians, he often tried different directions. For example, at a handful of stops on his tour with the band, Springteen chose an unusual cover, the Louvin Brothers’ song “Satan’s Jeweled Crown.”
Springseen has only performed “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” six times, all while touring in 1993. Below, Springsteen performs “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” backed by several vocalists.
The YouFube video states that the performance is from Stockholm Olympic Stadium in 1993, but the song is not on the setlist from that show and more likely from shows around the same time in England, Germany, or Ireland. Check it out.
The Louvin Brothers
“Satan’s Jeweled Crown” is a cover of The Louvin Brothers song that appeared on their 1959 album Satan is Real. Songwriter Edgar L. Eden wrote “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” as a religious song, where the singer rejects the temptations of Satan with the help of God.
There is not much about songwriter Edgar Eden on the Internet, with his name only coming up as the writer of “Satan’s Jeweled Crown.” So it is unclear if he wrote anything else. Yet, even if all he left us is “Satan’s Jeweled Crown,” it is a beautiful work. The chorus of the song recounts the casting off of the jeweled crown given by Satan:
Satan’s jeweled crown, I’ve worn it so long;
But God, for my soul, has reached down;
His love set me free, He made me His own
And helped me cast off Satan’s jeweled crown.
Springsteen’s Version
As most Springsteen fans know, the characters in the Boss’s songs have a complicated relationship with religion, and rarely are conflicts so clear. Perhaps that is why Springsteen made some small changes to the lyrics of his version of “Satan’s Jeweled Crown.”
For example, Springsteen begins with the first verse instead of the above chorus that begins the version by The Louvin Brothers. So, Springsteen instead begins with: “If I could be king and ruler of nations . . . I’d rather know that I have salvation. . . ” Whether intentionally or not, this opening takes a Springsteen fan back to “Badlands,” where Springsteen sang about people not finding happiness in being rich or being a king (“a king ain’t satisfied / ‘Til he rules everything”).
After the opening verse of “Satan’s Jeweled Crown,” Springsteen changes the words in the Louvin Brothers’ chorus to replace the reference to “God” with “you” (or “You”): “Then You, for my soul reached down / Your love set me free, You made me your own.”
One may then interpret that the singer is singing about a lover who saved them. Or the “You” could still be God or a reference for whatever religion one practices. It is a tweak to the words that does not undermine the song in many ways and perhaps makes it more inclusive at the same time.
Springsteen also tweaked the second verse, changing the description of the singer’s life from “reckless and evil” to “wasteful and sinful.” He also changes the Louvin Brothers’ “drinking and running around” to eliminate the drinking part: “Yeah, I just keep moving around.”
Springsteen may have learned the song from Emmylou Harris’s recording of the song, which she entitled with a slight alteration, “Satan’s Jewel Crown.” Her version appeared on her 1975 album Elite Hotel. Either way, he clearly was aware of her version.
Like Springsteen, Harris begins the song with the verse instead of the chorus (changing “if I were king” to “if I were queen”). The changes that Springsteen made to the Louvin Brothers’ second verse also are similar to changes earlier made by Harris to that verse. Still, he made some alterations to Harris’s version too, using “wasteful and sinful” versus Harris’s “sinful and needless” (in contrast to the Louvin Brothers’ “reckless and evil”).
There is one big difference between Harris’s version and Springsteen’s. Harris kept the reference specifically to “God” in the chorus. So Springsteen’s change to “You” likely was original to him.
Many Rivers to Cross
Springsteen and the same singers during the May 28, 1994 Stockholm concert did perform Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross.” (You also can see that Springsteen is in a different outfit for this performance, confirming that the “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” video is not from the same show.
Yet, it is another amazing and somewhat unusual Springsteen concert performance.
These covers show one side of the many sides of Bruce Springsteen. While his albums have gone in a variety of musical directions, he has never released a gospel album. Such a gospel album project was in the works as recently as 2008, but never released. These performances above, however, show what a treat it would be if Springsteen were to ever release an album devoted to gospel music.
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