[brucemas day 1]
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
"Sandy" is a song from the early days; according to online performance histories, it kind of went on hiatus circa 1981 and was just revived on this most recent tour, which was nostalgia-ville and pan-canon and ohsowonderful. I posted about it a few years ago, using it as part of Poetry Month, and I said this about it:
I disliked the song at first, but it's really grown on me, particularly the details and imagery and the way it may actually be a filk of Grease! I imagine this is a song Bruce probably doesn't sing anymore, both because a middle-aged man projecting the emotional state embodied in these lyrics would look and feel ridiculous, and also for the purely practical reason that he would probably SOUND ridiculous as well. I mean, literally, I doubt his voice could handle it. The live performance on the Live 75/85 set was recorded minimum 22 years ago and maybe 32, and he's straining for the high range at some points of that.
I am happy to have been proven wrong on that; the last tour proved that he can still sing this beautifully. It also added a kind of painful layer of bittersweet to the song, because it was really a Danny Federici showcase, and now he's gone. Bruce explicitly made that statement more than once, that it was Danny's song, and at the last concert Danny came back for, he got to feature on it, and...excuse me, I'm listening to that recording of that last performance right now and THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY EYE.
On the subject of being Grease! filk...ah, the song came out five years before the movie, so no, but whatever, I like to pretend, okay? Just like I like to pretend that "Incident On 57th Street" is West Side Story filk. These things make me happy, because I think they're useful symbols of Bruce's inherent dorkiness.
This is one of the lovely, slightly overwrought story-songs of the early albums, where he had so much to say he couldn't cram it into a standard structure and it just spilled out everywhere in a rush of words. I think that tells you a lot about Bruce's career in general, actually, the idea that he just has so much to say and no idea how or if he'll get to tell it all. He's calmed down a lot since the early days, and crafts each story into a more pointed instrument, but oh, the early, frantic, wild word-paintings are beautiful. This song, especially, is so packed full of detail, dense and rich with references to real things, this real place where he spent his time, it gives it a texture and weight that demands you listen again, and just one more time, and try to catch it all if you can.
This song was also going to be highly featured in my hypothetical media studies thesis "Homoerotic Subtext In The Works of Bruce Springsteen." The casino boys with their shirts open, and them boys in thier spiked high heels, and bangin' them pleasure machines indeed, and how Joey might not ever get him off. ::cough:: Oh, right, the song's about a girl; whatever, the protypical Springsteen narrator is always a little bit bi.
Sandy the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight
Forcin' a light into all those stoned-out faces
Left stranded on this Fourth of July
Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers
So fast so shiny so sharp
The boy knows his way around a metaphor. A bit obvious? Maybe. But doesn't it work? Also, stoned-out faces, heh. Like your band, Bruce. Whatever, saying you never did drugs on Behind The Music, we've *seen* the pictures.
And the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark
And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open
Like Latin lovers along the shore
Chasin' all them silly New York girls...
Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Love me tonight for I may never see you again
Hey Sandy girl
Now the greasers they tramp the streets or get busted for trying to sleep on the beach all night
*Greasers*. What. Were people really still using that phrase in 1973?
Them boys in their spiked high heels
Ah Sandy their skins are so white
And me I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades bangin' them pleasure machines
That's what she said.
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk
Where they promise to unsnap their jeans
Dear Sandy, I have been whoring around and it kind of burns when I urinate. DON'T WORRY, THOUGH. Clarence knows a guy who knows a guy. He'll take care of it.
And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night and my shirt got caught
And that Joey kept me spinnin'
I didn't think I'd ever get off
That's also what she said.
Oh Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life on the water
Runnin' down the beach at night with my boss's daughter
Well he ain't my boss no more Sandy
I still don't quite see how that's relevant, Bruce, my friend. Unless you mean he fired your ass? But, then, why does Sandy care? Why emphasize to her that you're broke? POOR PLANNING.
Sandy, the angels have lost our desire for us
I spoke to 'em just last night and they said
They won't set themselves on fire for us anymore
Every summer when the weather gets hot they ride that road down from heaven on their Harleys
They come and they go
And you can see 'em dressed like stars
In all the cheap little seashore bars parked making love with their babies out on the Kokomo
That verse has alternate versions; The waitress I've been seeing lost her desire for me is the first one to come to mind. I love the angels one best. The one about the waitress has the same puzzling element of "WHY ARE YOU TELLING THIS GIRL THAT IF YOU WANT TO GET IN HER PANTS" as the factory-girls bit above.
Well the cops finally busted Madame Marie
For tellin' fortunes better than they do
This boardwalk life for me is through
You know you ought to quit this scene too
Sandy the aurora's rising behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh love me tonight and I promise I'll love you forever
Oh Sandy girl
Oh, you smooth-talking, lying bastard. <3 I bet you try to get Patti to dress up in the leather bondage getup from the very end of Grease! sometimes, and sing this to her, and she laughs at you.
"Sandy" is a song from the early days; according to online performance histories, it kind of went on hiatus circa 1981 and was just revived on this most recent tour, which was nostalgia-ville and pan-canon and ohsowonderful. I posted about it a few years ago, using it as part of Poetry Month, and I said this about it:
I disliked the song at first, but it's really grown on me, particularly the details and imagery and the way it may actually be a filk of Grease! I imagine this is a song Bruce probably doesn't sing anymore, both because a middle-aged man projecting the emotional state embodied in these lyrics would look and feel ridiculous, and also for the purely practical reason that he would probably SOUND ridiculous as well. I mean, literally, I doubt his voice could handle it. The live performance on the Live 75/85 set was recorded minimum 22 years ago and maybe 32, and he's straining for the high range at some points of that.
I am happy to have been proven wrong on that; the last tour proved that he can still sing this beautifully. It also added a kind of painful layer of bittersweet to the song, because it was really a Danny Federici showcase, and now he's gone. Bruce explicitly made that statement more than once, that it was Danny's song, and at the last concert Danny came back for, he got to feature on it, and...excuse me, I'm listening to that recording of that last performance right now and THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY EYE.
On the subject of being Grease! filk...ah, the song came out five years before the movie, so no, but whatever, I like to pretend, okay? Just like I like to pretend that "Incident On 57th Street" is West Side Story filk. These things make me happy, because I think they're useful symbols of Bruce's inherent dorkiness.
This is one of the lovely, slightly overwrought story-songs of the early albums, where he had so much to say he couldn't cram it into a standard structure and it just spilled out everywhere in a rush of words. I think that tells you a lot about Bruce's career in general, actually, the idea that he just has so much to say and no idea how or if he'll get to tell it all. He's calmed down a lot since the early days, and crafts each story into a more pointed instrument, but oh, the early, frantic, wild word-paintings are beautiful. This song, especially, is so packed full of detail, dense and rich with references to real things, this real place where he spent his time, it gives it a texture and weight that demands you listen again, and just one more time, and try to catch it all if you can.
This song was also going to be highly featured in my hypothetical media studies thesis "Homoerotic Subtext In The Works of Bruce Springsteen." The casino boys with their shirts open, and them boys in thier spiked high heels, and bangin' them pleasure machines indeed, and how Joey might not ever get him off. ::cough:: Oh, right, the song's about a girl; whatever, the protypical Springsteen narrator is always a little bit bi.
Sandy the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight
Forcin' a light into all those stoned-out faces
Left stranded on this Fourth of July
Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers
So fast so shiny so sharp
The boy knows his way around a metaphor. A bit obvious? Maybe. But doesn't it work? Also, stoned-out faces, heh. Like your band, Bruce. Whatever, saying you never did drugs on Behind The Music, we've *seen* the pictures.
And the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark
And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open
Like Latin lovers along the shore
Chasin' all them silly New York girls...
Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Love me tonight for I may never see you again
Hey Sandy girl
Now the greasers they tramp the streets or get busted for trying to sleep on the beach all night
*Greasers*. What. Were people really still using that phrase in 1973?
Them boys in their spiked high heels
Ah Sandy their skins are so white
And me I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades bangin' them pleasure machines
That's what she said.
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk
Where they promise to unsnap their jeans
Dear Sandy, I have been whoring around and it kind of burns when I urinate. DON'T WORRY, THOUGH. Clarence knows a guy who knows a guy. He'll take care of it.
And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night and my shirt got caught
And that Joey kept me spinnin'
I didn't think I'd ever get off
That's also what she said.
Oh Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life on the water
Runnin' down the beach at night with my boss's daughter
Well he ain't my boss no more Sandy
I still don't quite see how that's relevant, Bruce, my friend. Unless you mean he fired your ass? But, then, why does Sandy care? Why emphasize to her that you're broke? POOR PLANNING.
Sandy, the angels have lost our desire for us
I spoke to 'em just last night and they said
They won't set themselves on fire for us anymore
Every summer when the weather gets hot they ride that road down from heaven on their Harleys
They come and they go
And you can see 'em dressed like stars
In all the cheap little seashore bars parked making love with their babies out on the Kokomo
That verse has alternate versions; The waitress I've been seeing lost her desire for me is the first one to come to mind. I love the angels one best. The one about the waitress has the same puzzling element of "WHY ARE YOU TELLING THIS GIRL THAT IF YOU WANT TO GET IN HER PANTS" as the factory-girls bit above.
Well the cops finally busted Madame Marie
For tellin' fortunes better than they do
This boardwalk life for me is through
You know you ought to quit this scene too
Sandy the aurora's rising behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh love me tonight and I promise I'll love you forever
Oh Sandy girl
Oh, you smooth-talking, lying bastard. <3 I bet you try to get Patti to dress up in the leather bondage getup from the very end of Grease! sometimes, and sing this to her, and she laughs at you.