Bob Seger recently joined Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on stage in Detroit during Springsteen’s current The River tour, which is promoting the release of The Ties That Bind: The River Collection. After playing some joyous tambourine on “10th Avenue Freeze-Out,” Seger also joined in on a performance of The Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” Although Seger-Springsteen collaborations are rare, it was not the first time Seger and Springsteen have performed together.
Seger had first performed with Springsteen during the opening night of the original The River tour back in 1980, when Seger helped out on “Thunder Road.” Below is the audio of that performance.
Although Rolling Stone reports that the two are good friends, after the 1980 concert Seger and Springsteen did not appear onstage together until December 2011 when Springsteen joined Seger’s concert for Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll.” Check it out.
That brings us to the most recent collaboration on April 14, 2016. From the energy of the performance this week, it was worth the four-and-a-half-year wait to see the two together on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and “Shout.” Hopefully we will see them together again soon.
Although Bob Seger’s Ride Out Tour with the Silver Bullet Band ended in March 2015, Springsteen still has work to do. The current U.S. leg of The River tour ends April 25 in Brooklyn before heading overseas to Europe for the summer.
What song would you like Seger and Springsteen to do together? Leave your two cents in the comments.
During Bruce Springsteen‘s current The River tour with the E Street Band, Springsteen celebrates the 1980 album each night by playing all of the songs from the album in order. While one may debate which song on The River is the best, it is hard to dismiss the popularity of Springsteen’s first top-ten hit, “Hungry Heart,” which went to number five on the Billboard charts at the time of its release.
The current tour also promotes the new release of The River along with outtakes and the album Springsteen almost released instead of The River in 1979. The box set The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (2015) is a fun exploration of a road not taken even as it affirms The Boss for the most part made the correct choices.
“Hungry Heart” always has been one of my favorite Springsteen songs, even though its production — including speeded up lead vocals — sounds different from many of the other E Street Band songs I love. The original also features amazing backing vocals from Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (aka Flo & Eddie) of The Turtles.
Perhaps another reason “Hungry Heart” sounds a little different from other Springsteen songs is that Springsteen initially wrote the song for The Ramones. But after writing the song, Springsteen decided to keep it. Joey Ramone explains the genesis of the song in this video, and Springsteen more recently told the story to Jimmy Fallon too.
Another way the song is somewhat unusual is the uplifting music combined with what otherwise would be a depressing tale of heartbreak. The song begins with the singer telling us he left his wife and kids in Baltimore. Similarly, in Arizona, I once met a man who had run away from his wife and kids back East somewhere to start a new life. I always recall him being from Baltimore, but I suspect I conflated his story with the song. Anyway, he did not seem to regret his choice at the time we spoke, but I later heard that he eventually went back East.
The singer in “Hungry Heart,” however, makes no return. He keeps looking for home and a place to rest, similar to the hero in the poem that inspired the title of the song: Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (“For always roaming with a hungry heart / Much have I seen and known”).
Yet, despite the sad story of the lyrics, “Hungry Heart” is still a joyous song. Like Bob Dylan’s great “Like a Rolling Stone,” Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” gains a new meaning from the band. The uplifting music and the singer’s joy in singing about his quest defines the song. Although the singer never finds a new family or enduring love, his recognition that we are all looking for the same thing provides some comfort.
The singer never declares he is alone with his hungry heart, and the chorus does not exclaim “I’ve got a hungry heart.” Through his travels he joyously realizes that while in many ways each person must walk one’s life alone, we are bound to all other humans who also must do the same. Everybody’s got a hungry heart.
I like the following recent E Street Band performance of “Hungry Heart” that took place in Toronto on February 2, 2016. It is a nice quality fan video, and I love how Jake Clemons (Clarence’s nephew) is able to keep playing his saxophone as he helps the crowd-surfing Springsteen back to his feet. Check it out.
Bruce Springsteen has yet to have a number one song on the Billboard charts, but he did surpass the number five position achieved by “Hungry Heart” four years later. In 1984, another song about loneliness, “Dancing in the Dark” went to number two on the charts.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. — Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
The long-awaited special edition of Bruce Springsteen’s 1980 classic double-album The River will hit stores on December 4. The Ties That Bind: The River Collection will include the original album, outtakes, a documentary, a never-before seen concert, and more. The project sets out to document an important era in Springsteen’s career with 52 tracks on four CDs and four hours of never-before-seen video on three DVDs.
In advance of the box set, Springsteen has released one of the songs, “Meet Me In The City.” Check it out.
One of the CDs in the set will be The River: Single Album, which is is the ten-track album that Springsteen recorded in 1979 but never released. At the time, Springsteen believed that the album lacked “unity and conceptual intensity,” so he took the band back into the recording studio. Seven of the tracks did end up on the official release of The River, some in alternate versions. But it will be cool to hear the album first conceptualized as the follow-up to Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978).
Will you purchase the new box set? Leave your two cents in the comments.
One of the many depressing songs on Bruce Springsteen’s 1980 double album The River, is the title track. The song ends with the singer haunted by memories, wondering “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / Or is it something worse?” The story is based on real life, but the real-life inspirations for the song did not have the ending foreseen in the lyrics.
“The River”
The singer of “The River” tells the story of meeting Mary in high school. The singer first recounts how the high school kids would go down to dive in the river. While the image is one of teenage joy, the music and earlier lines about growing up “to do like your daddy done” hint at something sadder. By the time the singer is nineteen, Mary is pregnant, and the couple find themselves getting married at the courthouse “with no wedding day smiles.”
In the song, more troubles come. The singer faces hard times and acts like he no longer remembers the past. Meanwhile, Mary “acts like she don’t care.” But the singer does remember the past. And it is those good times at the river that haunt his days.
The Inspiration for “The River”
Springsteen based his song on his sister Virginia (“Ginny”), who during her senior year of high school became pregnant. Ginny married her boyfriend, Michael “Mickey” Shave, who was a rodeo rider, in a small ceremony. The two then began their young family life together.
In this video from one of his performances during the the No Nukes: The Muse Concerts For a Non-Nuclear Future on September 19-23, 1979 at Madison Square Garden, you can hear Springsteen introducing the new song with, “this is my brother-in-law and my sister.”
The Real-Life Story
Although Springsteen imagined a sad life resulting from such a start, things worked out better for Ginny and Mickey than they did for the singer and Mary. Ginny and Mickey have been married for more than forty years, and they had three children and several grandchildren.
While, like everyone, Ginny and Mickey may wonder some days about what might have been, the real-life people who inspired “The River” do not seem as haunted as the characters in the song.
Not only did things work out for the couple, but their wedding gave Ginny’s brother what Rolling Stone Magazine calls his fifth greatest song. It sounds like everyone’s dreams came true after all.
What do you think of “The River”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In popular culture, most references to Moses focus on the high points of his life. These include him leading the Israelites to freedom by parting the Red Sea and his trip to Mount Sinai to bring forth the ten commandments. But in the final scene of the film The Ten Commandments (1956), the film ends with a less celebratory scene. The movie ends with Charlton Heston’s Moses left behind, paying for what seems like a minor transgression.
I remember watching the movie as a kid, seeing the low-key ending as a letdown after the excitement of the action of the parting of the Red Sea. I also found it confusing because the entire movie shows Moses as special to God and then all of a sudden God is punishing him.
Perhaps my confusion about the ending of the movie is one of the reasons I immediately fell in love with Bruce Springsteen’s “The Price You Pay.” Springsteen captures the tragic sadness of that moment in his song from The River (1980).
Little girl down on the strand, With that pretty little baby in your hands, Do you remember the story of the Promised Land? How he crossed the desert sands, And could not enter the chosen land, On the banks of the river he stayed, To face the price you pay.
Similarly, in “Adam Raised a Cain,” he explains that the notion of sin and punishment is so deep that paying for our own sins is not enough: “You’re born into this life paying / For the sins of somebody else’s past.”
But Springsteen, who both embraces and rebels against his Catholic upbringing in his songs, does not let the story of “The Price You Pay” end there. Although there is nothing Springsteen can do about the story of Moses (or Cain and Able), in “The Price You Pay” the singer rebels against the rules that say we must always be paying for sins. But just across the county line, a stranger passing through put up a sign That counts the men fallen away to the price you pay; And girl before the end of the day, I’m gonna tear it down and throw it away.
In some ways, “The Price You Pay” is a sequel to Springsteen’s “The Promised Land” from Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). In that song, the singer sang of faith in a promised land and a coming twister that will “blow away the dreams that break your heart.”
The idea of escape from punishment for sin is present in much of Springsteen’s music. In “The Price You Pay,” though, he connects the past and present in a way where the present-day hero is not crushed by old rules. Instead, he rises up and rebel not only for himself, but for the sinners of the past, including Moses. It may be nothing more than tearing down a sign, but he rejects the notion that life is about paying for sin.
Whether or not you celebrate one of the holidays this month, may you have a year free from the haunting of past sins. And at the same time may you tear down the sign and forgive others for their burdens.
What do you think is the meaning behind “The Price You Pay”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(2015) is a fun exploration of a road not taken even as it affirms The Boss for the most part made the correct choices.
, is the title track. The song ends with the singer haunted by memories, wondering “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / Or is it something worse?” The story is based on real life, but the real-life inspirations for the song did not have the ending foreseen in the lyrics.
