Long Time Comin' Archives

cursing Although Bruce Springsteen is generally known for clean lyrics, he does occasionally use swear words. Perhaps because he rarely inserts the f-word or graphic imagery, when he does do so, the language usually has a special impact on the listener.

Some of the songs where Springsteen uses the f-word include “Long Time Comin’,”

Long Time Comin’

The first time Springsteen used the “f-word” in lyrics on an official record was in “Long Time Comin’,” which appeared on Devils & Dust (2005). “Long Time Comin'” is one of my favorite Springsteen songs and it makes effective use of one simple swear word.

Many think of Springsteen for his songs of youth and escape, but as he has aged the topics of many of his songs have matured with him. In “Long Time Comin’,” the adult singer remembers his own father not being around during the singer’s childhood as the singer reflects on his own family.

In one of Springsteen’s most beautiful lines, he notes that his one wish for his children is that they will make their own mistakes. As the Western-themed song closes, the young family is camping:

“Well there’s just a spark of a campfire left burnin’;
Two kids in a sleeping bag beside;
Reach ‘neath your shirt, put my hands across your belly
And feel another one kickin’ inside;
And I ain’t gonna fuck it up this time.”

The f-word comes out of nowhere, but it makes it all the more powerful because it is exactly how many men would describe the joy and fear of having a child. Perfect.

Queen of the Supermarket

Another recent song where Springsteen effectively drops the f-bomb is “Queen of the Supermarket,” which also may be one of Springsteen’s most hated songs. Still, others try to defend it. In the song from Working on a Dream (2009), the singer begins with the wonders of the modern grocery store:

There’s a wonderful world where all you desire,
And everything you’ve longed for is at your fingertips;
Where the bittersweet taste of life is at your lips,
Where aisles and aisles of dreams await you. . .

The opening reminds me of Don DeLillo’s great novel White Noise, where the character’s existential angst is reflected in the description of the modern supermarket, a place that takes an unusual role in modern people’s lives. Springsteen, however, goes from there into more typical Springsteen territory with the singer longing for one of the cashiers: “The way she moves behind the counter/Beneath her white apron her secret remains hers.”

While I understand why some people hate the song, it does capture a common human experience of seeing someone and for that moment feeling like you are falling in love. But what really saves the song for me, is the rare Springsteen f-bomb.

“As I lift my groceries in to my car,
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fucking place apart.”

As in “Long Time Comin’,” Springsteen saves the f-bomb for the end of the song for maximum effect, and it works here, expressing the depth of the singer’s feelings and making the song a highlight on the album. Again, if you are going to swear, you are much more effective if you save it for special occasions, and falling in love — or even obsession — is one of those occasions.

Harry’s Place

More recently, the f-word appeared in “Harry’s Place” from Springsteen’s 2014 album High Hopes. But the word in this song lacks the dramatic impact of the word’s use in other Springsteen songs and almost seems gratuitous: “You don’t fuck with Harry’s money, you don’t fuck Harry’s girls.”

There is nothing wrong with the lyrics of the song, it is just that the use of the f-word in “Harry’s Place” lacks the dramatic impact of his graphic words or imagery in other songs. But it is still a good song.

Other Dirty Springsteen Songs

Springsteen’s use of the f-bomb seems to be a more recent phenomena. But he earlier had used other swear words in “The Big Payback,” a B-side and outtake from 1982’s Nebraska album.

Perhaps he became more comfortable with using the f-word in his art when, during his acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad tour in the mid-1990s, he regularly gave a semi-serious and semi-humorous suggestion that audience members tell chatty neighbors to “shut the f-up.” His comments led some to call the Tom Joad tour, the “Shut the F-Up Tour.”

In another unreleased song, Springsteen incorporated the f-word into the mostly spoken-word song, “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love.” Like “Long Time Comin’,” Springsteen performed the song during his solo Devils & Dust tour.

“Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” recounts a Christmas Eve visit to a strip club, ending with a drunken vomiting Santa who wishes everyone, “Merry Christmas to all you assholes/ And to all a good fucking night!” Below is a December 12, 1996 performance in Cincinnati, Ohio, featuring some additional swearing in the introduction.

“Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” is played for humorous effect, so the cursing serves that purpose. Yet, because of the humor in “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love,” the swearing does not give the surprise and depth as it does in “Long Time Comin'” and “Queen of the Supermarket.”

Springsteen has described sexual acts in songs without using swear words. For example, he sang about getting on your knees to taste a “Red-Headed Woman.”

Springsteen’s song that probably has the most graphic description of sex does not actually use the f-word. In “Reno,” off of Devils & Dust, the singer sings about an encounter with a prostitute. Several lines are graphic, including where the woman explains, “‘Two hundred dollars straight in/ Two-fifty up the ass’ she smiled and said.”

But unlike “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love,” the singer’s adventure in “Reno” is not for humor. And it is one of Springsteen’s most heartbreaking and beautiful songs. As the sexual encounter begins, the singer thinks back to a lost love named Maria. By the end of the encounter with the nameless prostitute, he closes with lines so devastating, he does not need to add a curse word.

She brought me another whiskey,
Said “Here’s to the best you ever had.”
We laughed and made a toast;
It wasn’t the best I ever had;
Not even close.

Of course, a songwriter would not expect graphic songs or songs with swear words to get radio airplay. Still, a songwriter could get by with merely using symbolic wordplay as in “Born to Run” (“Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims / And strap your hands ‘cross my engines”).

Perhaps Springsteen has loosened up as he has aged. Or maybe he no longer worries about radio play due to the development of other avenues for accessing music through the Internet that do not require radio deejays or MTV.

Whatever the reason for the evolution in his lyrics, some of these songs from Springsteen’s most recent decade have revealed a songwriter’s skill continuing to explore effective ways to use language. Even if that language might get your mouth washed out with soap.

What is your favorite Springsteen lyric with a swear word? Leave your two cents in the comments. Photo via public domain.

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(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

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Phoenix For Father’s Day weekend, we discuss two of Bruce Springsteen’s songs about adult life, fatherhood, rebirth, and birth: “Long Time Comin'” and “Living Proof.” Early in his career in songs like “Independence Day,” Springsteen explored the relationship between sons and fathers with a focus on his experience as a son. But later in his life, some of his songs, like the two discussed below, focused on the joys and fears of being a father.

“Long Time Comin'” and “Living Proof” explore some similar themes connecting the singer’s rebirth to the birth of a child. But although they were written less than five years apart, the singer’s perspective changes significantly between the two songs.

“Living Proof,” which appeared on Springsteen’s 1992 Lucky Town album, is about the joy and the celebration of starting a family. The singer tells us about his own struggles in life and about “crawling deep into some kind of darkness.” Through that, he sought some type of rebirth: “I went down into the desert city / Just tryin’ so hard to shed my skin.” Ultimately, he found faith and hope in his lover and the child she gave him.

Well now on a summer night in a dusky room,
Come a little piece of the Lord’s undying light,
Crying like he swallowed the fiery moon;
In his mother’s arms it was all the beauty I could take,
Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make;
In a world so hard and dirty so fouled and confused,
Searching for a little bit of God’s mercy;
I found living proof.

“Living Proof” was written after Springsteen’s future wife Patti Scialfa gave birth to the couple’s first child, a son, on July 25, 1990. As such, it reflects the happiness Springsteen was feeling at finding a happy family life following a period that included a divorce in 1988.

“Long Time Comin'” officially first appeared on Springsteen’s 2005 solo album Devils & Dust. But Springsteen wrote the song much earlier around the time of his 1995 album, The Ghost of Tom Joad. Thus, he wrote “Long Time Comin'” within five years of the birth of his first son and around the time of the birth of his third child. Springsteen and Scialfa had a daughter born in December 1991 and a second son born in January 1994.

“Long Time Comin'” is set somewhere in the Western United States (“The wind in the mesquite comes rushin’ over the hilltops”) out under the open sky. The singer in “Long Time Comin’,” like the singer in “Living Proof” is seeking rebirth: “Tonight I’m gonna get birth naked and bury my old soul / And dance on its grave.”

Unlike “Living Proof,” the father in “Long Time Comin'” focuses more on the future of his children, and he fears what his children may face. The singer is happy, but he worries that he will transfer his own failings to his children.

Thus, with a few more years with experience being a father, the songwriter of “Long Time Comin'” creates a character who wonders about his own abilities as a father. It is a weariness earned by experience.

Well now down below and pullin’ on my shirt,
Yeah I got some kids of my own;
Well if I had one wish for you in this God forsaken world, kid,
It’d be that your mistakes will be your own,
That your sins will be your own.

The lyrics written by Springsteen-the-father contrast with the lyrics written by Springsteen-the-son in his earlier song “Adam Raised a Cain,” which appeared on Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). In the song from Springsteen’s early years, the singer concluded, “You’re born into this life paying,/ For the sins of somebody else’s past.” Additionally, recalling his father’s pain, the singer warned, “You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames.” That son’s understanding of his own father’s burdens resulted in the son’s hope not to pass on those sins and flames.

In the end, the father of “Long Time Comin'” looks at his two kids in sleeping bags, and then he looks at his pregnant wife, promising that he will do better this time around (even using the f-word for the first time on a Springsteen record). It’s one of the most touching and honest moments in the singer-songwriter’s expansive catalog of songs full of honesty and faith.