by Julian Spivey
Bruce Springsteen’s sophomore release The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle was released 50 years ago today on November 5, 1973. It was his second release of 1973 with his debut Greetings from Asbury Park debuting on January 5. Much like the first release, the second album gained critical acclaim but was released to average to poor sales and many wouldn’t find their way to it until the success of Springsteen’s third album Born to Run two years later when going back to see what else was in his discography. The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle contains the kind of wordy, storytelling of Springsteen’s debut but in more of a rock and roll flavor and sound than the folky debut. It includes some of Springsteen’s most epic songs both in storytelling and in the minds of his legion of fans and classics he performs often in concert to this day. Here’s my track-by-track look at The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle … The E Street Shuffle If “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” which would come out a couple of years later on Born to Run, is the origin story of the E Street Band then “The E Street Shuffle,” the opener on The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, has to be the band’s theme song. Springsteen himself never lived on E Street in Belmar, N.J., but early key extraordinaire in the E Street Band David Sancious did and as Jim Beviglia said in his 2014 book Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs, it would become “the figurative and spiritual home of all things Springsteen.” In his own book, Bruce Springsteen: Songs, Springsteen said: “’The E Street Shuffle’ is a reflection of a community that was partly imagined and partly real. The cast of characters came vaguely from Asbury Park at the turn of [the ‘70s]. I wanted to describe a neighborhood, a way of life, and I wanted to invent a dance with no exact steps. It was just the dance you did every day and every night to get by.” There may be no specific steps but the song sure makes you want to dance with every member of the early version of the E Street Band in unison on something so funky Stevie Wonder of the same era may have recorded it. When the E Street Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, Springsteen joined members of every era of the band for a performance of this song. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy,” the second track off the album, has always been one of my favorite Springsteen story songs and one of the most vivid of his career, as you can see the entire thing play out like a movie in your mind’s eye. It’s a love song – but what is Springsteen really in love with: Sandy or the Asbury Park boardwalk scene? The nostalgia and romanticism of it all, complete with real-life characters of the time like the fortune teller Madame Marie, makes me feel I need to see Asbury Park in my lifetime, though I’m not sure if it could ever compare or even look the same a half-century later - or if it ever really felt that way in general: E Street Band drummer at the time Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez told Rolling Stone: “No one would ever go under the boardwalk. There were rats under the boardwalk!” Springsteen has called the song a “love note and a goodbye song” to his adopted home of Asbury Park and the song hits both of those feelings perfectly. Kitty’s Back This will likely be controversial but “Kitty’s Back,” the seven-minute epic that makes for the third track on the album, isn’t one that would crack my top 50 favorite Springsteen songs, even though the band sounds tight as hell with the jazzy-rock sound of the music behind Springsteen’s lyrics and the “oo-ooh, what can I do?” part is an earworm. I’ve just never really gotten into the story, which was inspired by Springsteen seeing a sign outside either a strip club or go-go dancing club welcoming a dancer back after some time away. It feels like the type of song that must’ve come out of the improvisation of a band learning to play together at a small bar scene. It sounds fantastic, and you’ll want to see it live, but as a lyrics guy first it doesn’t hit me the way a ‘Rosalita’ or ‘Sandy’ does. Wild Billy’s Circus Story The first side of The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle vinyl comes to an end with “Wild Billy’s Circus Story,” which truly has the old circus feel to it with the opening tuba part coming from bassist Garry W. Tallent melding with Danny Federici’s accordion. Springsteen told Elvis Costello on Costello’s Channel 4 U.K. show “Spectacle” that he was always enthralled with the circus as a young lad. “I was both thrilled and frightened by the sideshow. It all felt frightening, uneasy and secretly sexual.” It’s the experience of a boy sneaking off to see the behind-the-scenes of the carnival “freaks.” It’s probably the weakest track on the album, but just as cinematic as the rest of these short stories set to music. Incident on 57th Street “Incident on 57th Street” is essentially Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Romeo & Juliet, except better because it’s set to kickass music, like David Sancious’ piano and Danny Federici’s organ. In “Incident on 57th Street,” Romeo is Spanish Johnny and Juliet is Jane. Springsteen doesn’t even attempt to hide the inspiration for the characters referring to them as “cool Romeo” and “a late Juliet.” But instead of battles between rival families, Johnny is trying to make it on the streets of New York doing whatever he can to make ends meet and survive. Unlike the tragic ending of Shakespeare’s classic though, Springsteen leaves his version open-ended to let the listener decide if they think it ended in tragedy or if the lovers actually get away from this life. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is my favorite jam on The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, in its tale of a young rock and roller ready to set the world on fire but needing to steal away his girl from his hometown to truly have it all. In his book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, Brian Hiatt called it: “his first great rock song.” It’s a fever dream of a seven-minute rocker with rapid-fire lyrics that Springsteen wrote in his early 20s and having seen him perform it in Kansas City this past February in his early 70s one he still knocks out of the park. I, shockingly, haven’t mentioned the name Clarence Clemons yet in talking about this album, but his saxophone work from beginning to end in ‘Rosalita’ is among the best of his career. ‘Rosalita’ will have you wanting to dance your ass off with the biggest smile on your face every time you hear it. New York City Serenade “New York City Serenade,” the longest non-live track of Springsteen’s career, begins with a mesmerizing piano piece by Sancious, once again proving the early iteration of the E Street Band to be a jazz-rock outfit, before moving on to the story of New York City characters and their lives. It’s not one of the more interesting stories on the album, but the music – like “Kitty’s Back” – is enough to keep you moving along and vibing with the track. “New York City Serenade” actually came from Springsteen and the band melding two unused, potentially unfinished songs – “Vibes Man” and “New York City Song” – together. Overall, the musicality of “New York City Serenade” makes for a nice, easy listen to come down off the epic high of ‘Rosalita’ and play out the album to its end. What's your favorite track on The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle?
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