Born In The USA is 25 today

I disagree. I think that the album was produced and marketed to the masses. It was made and meant to sell a lot of copies. No long songs like The River or Jungleland. Very few spare arrangements like the Nebraska album. Bruce was buffed up and being sold as a clean cut sex symbol for the first time.

I think he did his penance with the far superior Tunnel of Love a few years later.

 

The problem with that theory is that Nebraska and half the stuff on Born in the USA were written around the same time. Nebraska was recorded as a home demo to help speed things up in the studio. However the more they tried getting that stuff to work with the band the more they realized there was a certain feel to the demo that couldn't be matched. So they mastered the best songs off the home demo for release as Nebraska.

Some of the home demos that were recorded at the same time as the Nebraska material were a song called Vietnam which evolved into Born in the USA; a song called Child Bride which has many of the same lyrics as Working on the Highway.

Cover Me was originally written for Donna Summer, but after hearing it Landau convinced Bruce to keep it and write something else for her - that song turned out to be Protection.

As MagicIntheNight wrote, nearly everyone believes that Bobby Jean was written as a farewell to Miami Steve/Little Steven who was leaving the band.

Story has it that Dancing in the Dark was written as the last song on the album because Landau said it was still missing a sure-fire hit.

 

that's always been my understanding, on both counts.

 

I bought the cassette the morning it came out and played it over and over again. I thought a lot of the lyrics were kind of hokey, but that's just Bruce being Bruce. I loved the record, but I kind of burnt out on it with the string of radio hits over the next year and a half. I was glad when the live record came out, and later Tunnel of Love.

 

I never expected to click on this thread and wind up with "Guitar Town" as the song playing in my head.

 

I'd forgottten all the B-sides and 12" mixes. I bought the Arthur Baker mix of "Dancing In The Dark" (did he do a BITUSA one too?) and the singles to get great stuff like "Stand On It" (love that one), "Johnny Bye Bye" and "Janey Don't You Lose Heart".

 

Arthur Baker also did 12" mixes for Cover Me and Born in the USA. I think I still have the Born in the USA in my record collection - missed out on getting the other two.
But the B-sides were the reason to be buying those 45s -- "Shut Out the Light", "Stand On It", "Janey Don't You Lose Heart" were my three favorites among those previously unreleased B-sides. Releasing previously unreleased material dated back to The River when he put "Held Up Without A Gun" out as the B-side to "Hungry Heart" and "Be True" as the B-side to "Fade Away" and continued with "Tunnel of Love" (which gave us the previously unreleased b-sides Lucky Man, Two for the Road, and Roulette).

 

Always loved the anecdote about the guy (Vietnam vet, I think) who tossed his artificial leg on stage requesting "Stand On It," and Bruce said something like "We GOTTA do that song now."

 

I don't think it went like that. An artificial leg was definitely thrown on the stage, but without a song request. Bruce picked up the leg and told the band that they had to play another song -- but what? Ultimately, or so the story goes, Bruce told the band to play "Stand On It."

Or did he?

According to Springsteenlyrics.com, Bruce played CCR's "Travelin' Band" to close out the show after the leg was thrown on stage. BruceBase.org says the same thing, and provides the exact date: Sept. 13, 1985, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

But Max Weinberg remembers it mostly the way you did, according to Rolling Stone:

At one of the last shows on the tour, Springsteen had finished the last encore when someone in the crowd threw an artificial leg onstage. "A whole leg," recalls Weinberg, marveling. "Bruce picks it up and says, 'We've got to play one more for this guy.' So we all run back to our instruments, but what the hell are we gonna play? Bruce looks at the leg and says, 'Fellas, "Stand on It."

 

DON'T MESS WITH MY ANECDOTE!!!!

I'm sure the Weinberg story is what I was (mis-) remembering.

 

Holy shit. Cover Me is one of my top 5 Bruce songs. Yeah, I know, I lose some Bruce cred when I say that. But that song live is just fucking stellar. Sometimes I wish PJ would cover it. .

 

you're b.s.-ing us, right? i'm not sure "cover me" is in the top 5 on "biusa."