50 Years Burning Down the Road: Reviewing Every Springsteen Album From Worst to Best

Coming in at #5: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

Well, here we are. We have reached the top five, and it is about time. I maintain that these rankings are merely an order for me to write these reviews, and I gently implore you to focus more on my writing than my rankings. However, I feel pretty good about the way this list has shaped out, and I am sure not many will be surprised that these are the albums that found their way into the top fourth. These albums can be shuffled around based on how I feel on a particular day—a testament to Bruce Springsteen as an artist. There are not many artists who have a body of work that is fairly equal to the sum of its parts like Bruce. When I consider Bruce’s career, I do not often think of it as organized as I do maybe The Beatles or Pink Floyd where each album represents a certain era and unique aesthetic. Not every album is such a profound landmark, they are more parts of a larger conversation—a more open form of communication. However, it is just as important to point out that I do not view Bruce’s career the way I do Neil Young or Bob Dylan, artists with classic albums that are certainly categorized in the pantheon of rock and roll, but a more sprawling discography. Bruce sits perfectly between these two rock and roll distinctions. Listening to The Wild/The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle put this in perspective for me and reminded me that while Bruce may be perceived as a songwriter in the same vein as Young and Dylan, his albums can be worlds unto themselves like The Beatles and Pink Floyd. The Wild and the Innocent is one of the best examples of that (the other is an album that will show up near the top of this list with a US state namesake).

The Wild/The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle is a special album. Listening to it always feels like a treat. Maybe it is because it is a more deep-cut die-hard Bruce album with material that stands up to his very best yet is rarely played on radio or in concert. Maybe it is also because of the specific sense of place in the setting of the songs that takes me away. While much of the appeal of Bruce’s music is that many songs can be set in Anytown, USA, the songs on The Wild and The Innocent are specifically set on the Jersey Shore and in the streets of New York City. The titles make it clear before you even listen to a note: The E STREET Shuffle, 4th of July, ASBURY PARK (Sandy), Incident on 57TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY Serenade. It adds such a visual element and feels like taking a trip. Also, as someone who grew closely around both of these places, it feels like a tribute to where I grew up and where I still love to spend a lot of my leisure.

On a personal note, The Wild and the Innocent also makes me think of my probabaly-kinda-maybe-likely my favorite Bruce concert that I have been to where he played the album in full. The two reasons that I provided likely contribute to why it was my favorite given the nature of the setlist material, but also the performance was epic. At the end of Bruce and the E Street Band’s 2009 tour, they wanted to do something special to make the last leg of the tour exciting for the band and the fans, so they performed full albums. They had done Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Born in the USA, but there was speculation that there would be something extra special for the two-night stand at Madison Square Garden in New York City. I remember my dad emailed Jay Lustig of The Star Ledger at the time and asked if he heard any rumors of what it was going to be. He replied that he would be doing The Wild and the Innocent on the first night and The River on the second. Bruce performed the album with a special guest appearance from the Miami Horns and even opened up with one of the album’s outtakes, Thundercrack. There was magic in the air that night, and I am so happy that there is an official live recording of the show so I am able to relive it in high quality.

Anyway, I am going to add to my previous point about The Wild and the Innocent being one of the best examples of how Bruce’s albums have distinct individuality while still maintaining connectivity with his other work. The Wild and the Innocent is very much a precursor to Born to Run with its urban settings, evocative characters, stories, and epic ballads. However, The Wild and the Innocent sounds nothing like anything else Bruce did musically mostly because this ensemble of musicians only played on one album. David Sancious on keyboards and Vini Lopez on drums would be replaced by Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg respectively with Born to Run. David and Vini are what makes this album so unique. Vini’s drumming can best be described as frenetic combining the feel of some of the great jazz and swing drummers with the rock and roll tenacity of Keith Moon and Ginger Baker. Max Weinberg is and was undoubtedly the best possible fit in the world for where Bruce’s sound went, but let’s not overlook how wonderful his predecessor was and the irreplicable vibe he gave to Bruce’s early music, specifically The Wild and the Innocent. David’s virtuosic keyboard playing is the most underrated part of what makes this album such a musical oasis. He plays electric piano, acoustic piano, clav, and organ, and the parts he adds are so unique and beautifully flush out the arrangements of the songs on the album. I will definitely talk about his contributions more in the rundown, but Bruce and the classic E Street lineup never even attempted to replicate some of the stuff he does.

Here’s the Rundown:

The album opens with a cacophony of horns tuning up which is a great musical indicator that something exciting is about to happen. “The E Street Shuffle” immediately presents the listener with a side of Bruce Springsteen not yet represented in his recording career. While Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ showcased Bruce’s unique songwriting ability and craftsmanship, it was missing the energy of his live performances. Van Morrison’s influence on this album is clear, and whether intentional or not (and I am sure some of it is), Bruce aspires to replicate his dynamic style on The Wild and the Innocent. “The E Street Shuffle” is Bruce hitting us with his ability to lead a band and keep the poetry at bay, just as Van proved at that time he could write something as tender as “Astral Weeks” or “Madame George” and something as fun and raucous as “Domino.” However, the lyrics are still packed with imagery as “sparks fly” on the debaucherous E Street where gangs of teenage boys fight and hustle led by Power Thirteen. Little Angel distracts them with her seduction and keeps them dancing instead of fighting. The youthful lyrics invite the audience to let their guards down and groove with the tenacity and freedom of their teenage selves. As the band has gotten older, playing the song has invited them to do the same which is why I believe it was played pretty much every night on the 2024 tour—one centered around our bodies and minds getting older but our spirits staying young.

The E Street Band brings the funk on “Shuffle.” Alongside a swinging horn riff and filling out the groovy Vini Lopez beat are tons of beautiful Latin percussion and Sancious's clavinet, which is the x-factor on this song. At the risk of sounding dorky, I am dancing in my seat just thinking about it and playing it in my head. I love the fun ask-and-answer vocals in the chorus—so fun to sing. “Woah oh oh oh” and the band answers “woah oh oh oh” and together they sing “everybody form a line.” It is one big party. By far the best part is when the final chorus breaks down into a false ending and Bruce’s funky wah guitar creeps back in followed by the percussion and Sancious’s clav and the whole band comes back in for one final romp. You rarely hear a false ending in a recording, the only other one I can think of in Bruce’s discography is “Wreck on the Highway.” I am a sucker for it.

“4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” was a staple of the set in Bruce’s early career as it paints a picture of his so-called adopted hometown better than any other song has. It is a romantic interpretation of what “boardwalk life” was like loaded with sexual innuendos and specific references to Asbury Park attractions. You have The Circuit which was a long track that young people would flock to on the weekend to meet members of the opposite sex. There is the tilt-a-whirl on the South Beach drag where Bruce keeps spinning all night thinking that he will never end up—ya know—getting off. Then there are the dusty arcades where Bruce is banging them pleasure machines, which may reference a certain group of women that he got tired of messing around with. Of course, the most notable reference is to Madame Marie—an Asbury boardwalk fortune teller whose legacy still lives on despite Bruce claiming in “Sandy” that she was busted by the cops for telling fortunes better than they do, which is the most delightfully poetic line in the whole song. Otherwise, Bruce is laughing underneath the boardwalk with his boss’s daughter and chasing the factory girls.

The album arrangement of “Sandy” is subtle and tasteful featuring some excellent acoustic and electric guitar work from Bruce which is a lot more subdued than the more aggressive style of his later work, but conveys just the same amount of emotion. However, the spotlight is on Danny Fedrici’s accordion as “Sandy” has become known as Danny’s signature song. It brings the whole carnival feel together. It was the centerpiece of his final night on the Magic Tour in 2007 in Boston, and later part of his final performance ever with E Street Band in 2008 in Indianapolis before he died of Melanoma just weeks later. It is hard to hear “Sandy” live in concert without thinking of Phantom Dan, and when Bruce returned to Asbury Park this past summer to play a headlining show at Sea Hear Now fest, he made sure to tribute Danny and the very boardwalk he sings about in the song.

I did not mention earlier that The Wild and the Innocent was not a commercial success, and in fact, Bruce was nearly dropped from Columbia Records after both of his releases failed to sell well. That is to say that none of the songs were radio hits. However, some of these songs have become legitimate classic rock classics—mainly “Sandy” and especially “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight).” I always found this interesting because it is definitely because of the flocks of people who came to see Bruce and the Band in the 70s when they were getting really popular after Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. These tunes were centerpieces of the show. Many shows were broadcasted on the radio and subsequently bootlegged, and I believe that these broadcasts and bootlegs are responsible for the popularity of “Sandy”, and how it ended up on Bruce’s most recent Best Of compilation. As a rock and roll aficionado who will die on the hill that concert bootlegs should be celebrated and preserved as important historical artifacts AND as a former General Manager and DJ for my college radio station, I feel it is important to point out.

In my early days of playing guitar, I knew mainly chords, but I wanted to play rock and roll leads so badly but hated sight-reading, so I tried to see if I could learn how to play some songs by ear. The first lead that I remember learning by ear is the intro to “Kitty’s Back” and I was so excited. I played it all the time, pretty much every time I picked up my guitar. I played it so much that I can remember my dad telling me that he wanted to hear me practicing things that I learned in my lessons instead of playing the intro to “Kitty’s Back” a thousand times.

The album starts to pick up steam with “Kitty’s Back.” The song is so electric and fun. There is no other song like it in Bruce’s catalog. In fact, I am willing to bet there are more chords in that song than the entire rest of his discography combined just like any great jazz-fusion song. The lyrics are fun and wordy detailing in thrilling ambiguity a guy who is reeling over an ex who left him and has suddenly returned to the streets of New York City. Bruce aptly references Bleeker Street, a street littered to this day with jazz and blues clubs and a cultural and musical centerpiece of New York City. The song's arrangement sounds like you just stumbled into one of those clubs and heard the greatest bar house band you have ever heard; the type of group where you think these guys deserve to have the fame of some undeserving chart-toppers. “Kitty’s Back” explores the power of the E Street Band. It is a song influenced by other brassy, jazz-infused classic rock staples like Van Morrison and Chicago, but far more lively than anything they were ever able to put to tape. It showcases the years of Bruce and the group of musicians’ experience playing all different types of American music in bars years before Bruce signed his record deal. They are all spotlighted with solos that come in the middle passage between the second and third verse. It is fascinating to me that this type of songwriting never stuck or was something Bruce was particularly interested in replicating at any other point in his career. I think it works to “Kitty’s Back’s” advantage and the excitement of hearing it live; it’s like a special treat.

That brings me to the one issue with the studio version of “Kitty’s Back”—it does not compare to the sprawling, energetic, and jammy live versions the band has done throughout the years. The album version comes in at seven minutes and four seconds which does not feel long enough compared to versions that could stretch to 18 minutes on the Born to Run tour in 1975. My family and I joke that any sub 12-minute “Kitty” is too short. “Kitty’s Back” was meant to play live because even the lyrics are interactive. During the end verse Bruce looks out into the distance and sings “Who’s that down at the end of the alley?” and whispers “Here she comes” louder and louder until the whole band is singing and explodes into “KITTY’S BACK IN TOWN!” The fact that Bruce and the band can remotely capture that energy on a studio recording is incredible and something even the best bands fail to do; especially those with as little studio experience as this ensemble. However, the rambunctious live versions in 1975, the modern versions with a full horn section, and Roy Bittan’s solo are what make this song a favorite of mine.

If there is a song that is most overlooked on The Wild and the Innocent, it is “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” which is a true deep cut in every sense of the word. It is an evolved version of the writing he was doing at the time he was recording Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ where many of his songs were descriptive dramatic pieces with acoustic instrumentation like “Mary Queen of Arkansas”, “The Angel”, “Two Hearts in True Waltz Time” “Arabian Nights” and “Henry Boy”. “Wild Billy” is night and day from some of those songs lyrically and melodically exhibiting how drastically Bruce’s songwriting had improved within just the first two or three years of his label-era career. “Wild Billy’s” imagery is clearer; its narrative is more tangible and digestible enough for an audience to not lose interest halfway through the song. Bruce writes about all the characters in a traveling circus illustrating how behind-the-scenes is just as strange and surreal as the show. There is a darkness to it because these people are all outsiders viscerally struggling to find any place in society. However, it is interspersed with tongue-in-cheekiness and there are lines in there that Bruce had to know were funny like “fat lady, big mama, missy bimbo”.

Half of what makes this song intriguing is Danny Federici’s accordion and Garry Tallent’s triumphant tuba. That is what makes the song sound like a circus despite having little instrumentation. It is not overkill or extraneous at any point, they tastefully accent Bruce's lyrics and melody. My favorite part is when Bruce sings “The flying zambinis watch Margarita do their neck twist” and Danny’s accordion sounds like it is hyperventilating. It is followed by a drumroll that explodes into a cymbal crash as Bruce sings “The ringmaster gets the crowd to count along, 95, 96, 97.” It is a great musical detour from the rest of the album and a good preamble to the absolutely epic shit that goes down after it.

Now, we have come to the holy grail. I will listen to any argument that “Incident on 57th Street” is Bruce’s best song and it is certainly among my top five favorites. Ask most die-hard Bruce Springsteen fans and they will agree unanimously that “Incident” is Bruce hitting his storytelling stride and that if they can see any song performed live in concert, this would be close to the top of their lists. The recorded version on The Wild and the Innocent is captivating because Bruce realizes what he has created as each line unfolds, as evident in his vocal delivery. Performance is a critical aspect of being a singer-songwriter that separates the names you know from the names you don’t know. It is like a comedian’s delivery; it takes confidence, charisma, authenticity, and maybe a little bit of magic despite many comedians’ and singer-songwriters’ inherent awkwardness. The way Bruce’s vocal ebbs and flows from whispering to full-throated belting to emphasize certain lines convinces you that Bruce believes in this story that he has written and you should too. Songwriting and performing require a healthy amount of ego, Bruce will be the first to tell you that, but the art is channeling it in a way that engages people and makes them feel part of what the artist is doing. If one part of this equation is off—either the artist has doubt or the artist is arrogant—the whole thing does not work. It can be a song-by-song, bit-by-bit, scene-by-scene, line-by-line etc. basis and sometimes a great performance is greater than the sum of its parts. However, if for even one second something is off, the audience knows whether they realize it or not. All this to say that getting it right is difficult, and “Incident” features Bruce getting it right at a high level—the highest level he had reached up to that point—and that became the standard for the rest of his career.

Writing about a song fans and I love as much as “Incident” is difficult—like explaining a really funny joke (funny how much music parallels comedy)—it is just too perfect and no amount of explanation will make you feel much more than you would listening to it and interpreting it on your own. However, as someone as passionate about songwriting as I am about anything else in life, “Incident” is a great vehicle for explaining what makes great songwriting because it truly is the gold standard. The intro is an aspect of songwriting that I believe is often overlooked and underdeveloped in modern music as if the songwriter forgets that just as much possibility exists at the beginning of a song as it does throughout the rest of the song. “Incident”’s intro sends a flutter through my heart and brings a smile to my face because, from the first notes of the piano intro, it is screaming that something incredible is about to take place. The best comparison I can make is to Star Wars when the yellow words scroll upwards into space setting the scene for what you are about to witness with the help of John Williams’s score before the title of the episode flashes on the screen. That is the intro to “Incident.” Sancious’s piano is met with an ascending organ riff by Danny Federici and then a loud clap of the snare drum by Vini Lopez and a beautiful bass fill by Garry Tallent. Then Bruce explodes into one of the most heartwrenching guitar string bends in his catalog and a powerful solo…and then we are off.

Bruce delivers an incredible opening line that immediately paints a picture of our protagonist. When you hear him sing “Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night, with bruised arms and broken rhythm and a beat up old Buick but dressed just like dynamite” it is hard not to be invested in the character from the jump. Bruce gives you so much information about him in those two lines. We know he is Spanish, we know he is probably a drug addict hence the bruised arms, we know he drives a beat-up car. The broken rhythm part is one that is evocative but less direct which gives the listener a little something to chew on. We then learn that Spanish Johnny is a male prostitute who despite selling himself, is actually interested in a deeper connection that no one seems to be able to give him and they see him as naive for craving it. This is a lost soul. Then comes a glimmer of hope for him where “from out of the shadows came a young girl’s voice, said Johnny don’t cry.” We are introduced to Puerto Rican Jane, another prostitute, but one who shares Johnny’s desire for companionship, but together the two drive down to Shanty Lane to make some money and drive out their competitors by flashing their guns. The band matches Bruce’s storytelling talent with each member’s contributions, and the first verse features prominently the man who bears the talent name, Garry Tallent on bass. If there was one critique I had to make about this song it is that Vini Lopez is a bit too busy on the drum part, but Garry anchors it down with stellar bass playing—especially his lick on “The pimps swung their axes…”

The chorus finds Spanish Johnny and Puerto Rican Jane ready to embark on their journey as Spanish Johnny invites “the black boys in to light the soul flame.” I am not sure what that means, to be honest, but it sounds interesting and that’s the point. The two lovers are looking for something; work in a literal sense but some salvation and some escape which they will understand when they arrive at it and are prepared to walk until the sun comes up in pursuit of it. The harmonies are beautiful. I believe frequent early E Street collaborator, Suki Lahav, is doing the high part which stands out.

In the second verse, Bruce sings about the dynamic of Spanish Johnny and Puerto Rican Jane’s relationship. Jane accepts Johnny for who he is, knowing he will never be true to her and that he belongs to the streets; she does not care as long as she doesn’t feel lonely anymore. Meanwhile, those streets are scattered. A nice vocal touch that Bruce employs in “Incident” is matching the tone of his description to how the characters deliver the lines. It helps bring the story alive. Bruce sings “Johnny cries Puerto Rican Jane, word is down the cops have found the vein” and it sounds like Bruce himself is crying as he reaches the depths of his own despair when he holds out the word “vein.” There is a major drug bust that happens that clears the streets and rips away part of Johnny’s identity. He does not know who he is without that culture which creates a critical point in the song where the band drops out and Garry Tallent anchors the instrumental while Bruce sings about Spanish Johnny alone on the fire escape and deep in thought. The imagery in this verse is especially compelling as it sees Spanish Johnny sitting in a vessel between the two directions he can take his life. He watches Jane sleep while looking out at the streets as he contemplates what to do. Bruce sings my favorite lines; “Jane moves over to share a pillow but opens up her eyes to see Johnny up and putting his clothes on/She sighs those romantic young boys, all they ever wanna do is fight.” The way the band echoes “those romantic young boys” is a wonderful touch. The way Bruce delivers the line shows you that Jane is unsurprised—she expected this. Johnny answers the boys’ call to make a little easy money and once again fill the streets. However, Spanish Johnny is self-aware. He knows that a healthier and more fulfilling life exists with Jane, but he is too battered and scared to face that right now. He pleads with her, but perhaps more with himself, “Goodnight it’s all right Jane, I swear I’ll meet you tomorrow night on Lover’s Lane, we may find it out on the street tonight baby, or we may walk until the daylight maybe.” It starts as a whisper until Bruce repeats it over and over again until he is screaming it and an excellent Bruce guitar solo ensues, the emotional falling action. If the whole song was not perfect enough it ends with the greatest musical transition in Bruce’s catalog with the piano outro leading carefully into the explosion of “Rosalita”’s guitar intro.

Over the years, “Incident on 57th Street” has become a love letter to fans as well. It is a song that brings him and his audience closer because he knows the power it has and how much people enjoy it. It started in 1978 when Bruce busted it out for a run of shows at the Palladium in New York City, 2 years after a career-defining triumphant 6 night run. Then he played it two of the three next nights in Passaic, New Jersey which were shows to thank the Jersey Shore fanbase for their dedication. From then on, it began to turn up on special occasions—except for 18 years when it took a hiatus—only to return as the opening song at a Philadelphia show on 1999’s Reunion tour. Whenever Bruce busts out Incident, it immediately makes the show more special and a nod to the dedicated fans he knows will be most affected by it. He has not played it so far on the 2023 or 2024 tour so let’s hope 2025 brings its return.

What can I say about “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”? It is one of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s most classic songs—a showstopper from the very early days and one that has become another fan favorite. It is the ultimate party song and Bruce and the band did a great job capturing that on record and I am sure it was difficult to capture that energy in a studio environment. For not having much recording experience, this is another example of how good Bruce and the band were at making records at this point. “Rosalita” sounds effortless, like you put microphones around the bar band and just told them to do their thing. As Bruce’s career went on, although the quality of the music rarely dipped, his ability to make a great-sounding record was challenged at points which makes you appreciate the lightning in the bottle you hear on The Wild and the Innocent.

There is not much to break down lyrically on “Rosalita”. It is a pretty straightforward story of two young teenagers—Bruce trying to pry this girl from her protective parents and have him fall in love with her while they hit the town. However, “Rosalita” features many lyrical gems that make it such a romp in concert. As I mentioned, it is important to have an engaging beginning to a song, and following the electric intro with Bruce’s guitar riff and the band coming in on that shuffle is Bruce bursting out with “Spread out now Rosie, doctor come cut loose of mama’s reigns, you know playin’ blind man’s bluff is a little baby’s game/You pick up Little Dynamite, I’m gonna pick up Little Gun, together we’re gonna go out tonight and make that highway run.” Is there a better invite to a party? Bruce’s ability to sum up so much about characters in just their name is a fun novelty in his early writing. Hanging out with people called Little Dynamite and Little Gun sounds like it makes for a raucous evening. As the story moves on, Bruce makes some triumphant declarations showing what his character is all about. Fun lines that have become iconic—almost Springsteen bible verses like “Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor, closets are for hangers, winners use the door”, “We’re gonna play some poop, skip some school, act real cool, stay out all night its gonna be alright”, and “I ain’t here on business baby, I’m only here for fun”.

It is another ambitious piece musically on The Wild and the Innocent stretching over seven minutes long with twists and turns along the way interrupting the typical verse/chorus song structure. I wrote earlier when I was talking about “Incident” how much possibility exists within the confines of songwriting. Basically…there are no confines. I think songwriters get stuck in parameters or some structure or formula that seems streamlined enough for them to repeat over and over and curb the difficulty of writing and ideating. Whatever works works, but something I love about Bruce is his desire to go outside of the box consistently. He recognizes the possibility and the strength of his band to follow him through any avenue he leads them through, and that is why songs like “Rosalita” and “Jungleland” and many others had so many iterations before their final versions were solidified. “Rosalita”’s bridge shows Bruce’s ability to keep the listener on their toes. There is a musical break where Clarence’s saxophone acts as an ask answer to the band with an iconic riff. Then David does a keyboard solo that leads into a bridge. Bruce sings about Rosie’s parents not liking him because he plays in a rock and roll band and is strapped for cash which leads to a complete musical detour. Vini’s snare and handclaps keep the rhythm as the entire band chants “Papa says he knows that I don’t have any money” and Bruce pleads “Well tell him this is his last chance to get his daughter in a fine romance, because the record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance!” It is hard to imagine anyone else writing like this and Bruce was doing it at the ripe age of 24. As a songwriter and lifelong student of the greatest to ever do it, I can assure you that songwriting should never feel effortless. “Rosie” is a reminder that if you put a ton of effort in, you may just hit on your showstopper for 50 years to come.

As a New Jerseyan, I also appreciate “Rosie”’s ode to New Jersey. Of course, there is the classic line that has been shouted by thousands in its namesake time and time again: “Well my tires were slashed and I almost crashed but the lord have mercy, my machine she’s a dud I’m stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.” For a while after 1985, “Rosie” was rarely played. Bruce broke up the E Street Band and only performed “Rosie” once in New Jersey on the 1993 tour with the Other Band. Bruce busted out the only performance of “Rosie” played acoustically on the 1997 show in New Jersey. Even when the band got back together in 1999, Bruce only played “Rosie” once on the reunion tour in none other than New Jersey. Then he played it a few times for his New Jersey Christmas shows with a short-lived rule “Only in New Jersey!” It comes back to The Wild and the Innocent having such a concrete sense of place. “Rosalita” can be played anywhere but it’s a Jersey song, God damnit!

Earlier I described The Wild and The Innocent as a musical oasis, and “New York City Serenade” best explains what I mean by that term. It is a piece of music that truly takes you away—lifts you from your seat when you listen to it. That piano introduction is such a grand statement from David Sancious of his technical ability, his soul, the grace of his fingers, and the finesse of his playing. He uses the piano to its full extent to create an extraordinary piece of music before the main piece of music into which it effortlessly leads. He begins by strumming the strings of the piano while holding down chords before he even begins to hit any keys. When he starts hitting keys, it is a bold crescendo that descends into a weeping decrescendo and back and forth again. My favorite part is how he transitions into the main chord progression of the song, which rarely changes over the next nine or so minutes.

Bruce bursts in with an acoustic guitar solo and then begins strumming percussively bringing us to the mouth of the oasis. “Billy, he’s down by the railroad tracks/Sitting low in the backseat of his Cadillac/Diamond Jackie, she’s so intact, as she falls so softly beneath him.” Once again, Bruce is singing about a prostitute on the streets of New York City. However, this is different from the two characters in “Incident of 57th Street” and can almost play out as an epilogue to their story. Perhaps, Diamond Jackie or “Fish Lady” is a future version of Puerto Rican Jane—one who exists in a world where Spanish Johnny definitively never came back to her and she was forced to get over him and rehabilitate herself. The woman in “New York City Serenade” knows her worth literally as she “won’t take the corner boys, they got no money”, but also who she is as a person and how to preserve herself in the mad dog’s promenade. While Puerto Rican Jane latched onto Spanish Johnny because she needed companionship even though she knew he would not be faithful to her or himself, Diamond Jackie is deliberately independent. “Walk tall, or baby don’t walk at all,” is a lyrical highlight as an orchestra begins to sweep through adding to the arrangement that was only acoustic guitar, congas, piano, and bass up to that point. It introduces the idea of “New York City Serenade” as an allegory of how to survive in a cutthroat society where people and things are both out to get you and inadvertently stand in your way. Perhaps, “New York City Serenade” is an allegory of Bruce trying to survive as an artist once he took his record deal and was now even more immersed in a scene where manipulators, vices, and drugs were waiting at his discretion to use and abuse him. The beauty is that I don’t know—it’s up for interpretation.

Meanwhile, a young man comes along and tries to convince our protagonist to forget about her life and hook up to the train. The “train” in this sense, as I aim to analyze and interpret, is probably drugs, which makes the following anecdote all the more hilarious:

When I was a little toddler and could barely speak, I would ask my parents over and over again in the car to play what I called “the train song.” I was referring to “New York City Serenade.” Perfectly typical toddler music. I loved the part of the song where Bruce repeats, “No she won’t take the train, no she won’t take the train” as Sancious begins to play ragtime punctuated by finger snaps, and to Bruce’s credit, it is incredibly catchy so much so that it can stick with a toddler—even one without the psychosis that I had.

However, she knows that the “train” will only derail her and that the young addict who desires her will be gone. This section is the biggest potential callback to “Incident on 57th Street”—almost like Jane in that song was not going to go down that road again because she knows what it will bring. The arrangement once again crescendos as Bruce sings “Hey vibes man, hey jazz man, play me your serenade/any deeper blue and you’re playing in your grave.” Clarence’s saxophone is so jazzy and plays perfectly in the pocket showcasing the subtlety of his playing that became often overshadowed by the raw power he prolifically got from his horn. Bruce sings “Save your notes! Don’t spend ‘em on the blues boys” as the strings and piano do staccato hits. (This might be the most I have used these music theory terms since I learned them, by the way.) As Bruce sings “Don’t spend em on the darling yearling sharp boys”, Sancious does such a bluesy piano fill that is so subtle but adds so much to the song. The song ends with Bruce sharing another bit of wisdom, “Listen to your junkman, he’s singing.” What’s a junkman? Is it a reference to “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman”, a song made popular by the Starlets in 1962 that Bruce famously covered in Cambridge, MA in 1974 at the Jon Landau “I’ve seen rock and roll future” show? Is it a drug dealer? It doesn’t matter. Listen to him. He’s singing.

Bruce belts loud throughout the outro of the song: “Siiiiiiingin, siiiiiiiingin, siiiiingin, siiiiingin” as the orchestra plays an ascending riff and Clarence Clemons lets loose with the saxophone. Then the music fades and Bruce hums and whispers “watch out for your junkman” and The Wild/The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle takes its final bow.