![]() Bruce said he got the title from a neon sign proclaiming the return of a dancer from a local strip joint he parlayed it into a tune about the return of a Jersey girl who split for New York City with a rich man but winds up slinking back into town. He pays tribute to one of Asbury Park’s legends, Madame Marie, a fortune-teller who told him that he would be a success one day.Īfter that tender ballad comes “Kitty’s Back,” a jazz track loaded with energy. (“For me, this boardwalk life’s through, babe…you ought to quit this scene, too.”) The lilting melodies, his whispery approach to the vocals, and band member Danny Federici’s lyrical accordion call up an era of adolescent love/loss that millions continue to embrace. The next track is “Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” a mournful tune that bids farewell to his Asbury Park youth in the form of a love song to “Sandy” (a composite of young ladies) as he acknowledges that their beach days are coming to an end and it’s time to move into adulthood. Bruce owns his Jersey Shore roots in his shout-outs to various people from his past, such as The Boy Prophets and Little Angel. This musical marvel is The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.Į Street opens with a blast of sweet dissonance that assembles itself into pure swing on “The E Street Shuffle.” Filled with horns and a strong jazz feel, it celebrates a dance without official steps, but according to Springsteen, “…was just the dance you did every day and every night to get by.” An engaging opener, it makes listeners want to get up and form a line. While it was written by Bruce as he approached his mid-twenties, it contains the wisdom and soul of someone infinitely older. But it was preceded by a 1973 offering that remains a masterful display of musicianship and poetry, jazz and rock, tragedy and hope. ![]() Album DescriptionNo one disputes that Bruce Springsteen joined the upper reaches of the musical stratosphere with 1975’s Born to Run. See more Your browser does not support the audio element. The truth is, The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is one of the greatest albums in the history of rock & roll. He would later make different albums, but he never made a better one. ![]() And the album's songs contain the best realization of Springsteen's poetic vision, which soon enough would be tarnished by disillusionment. Lopez's busy Keith Moon style is appropriate to the arrangements in a way his replacement, Max Weinberg, never could have been. Following the personnel changes in the E Street Band in 1974, there is a conventional wisdom that this album is marred by production lapses and performance problems, specifically the drumming of Vini Lopez. Musically and lyrically, Springsteen had brought an unruly muse under control and used it to make a mature statement that synthesized popular musical styles into complicated, well-executed arrangements and absorbing suites it evoked a world precisely even as that world seemed to disappear. The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle represented an astonishing advance even from the remarkable promise of Greetings the unbanded three-song second side in particular was a flawless piece of music. Though Springsteen expressed endless affection and much nostalgia, his message was clear: this was a goodbye-to-all-that from a man who was moving on. With his help, Springsteen created a street-life mosaic of suburban society that owed much in its outlook to Van Morrison's romanticization of Belfast in Astral Weeks. His chief musical lieutenant was keyboard player David Sancious, who lived on the E Street that gave the album and Springsteen's backup group its name. ![]() Buy the album Starting at $6.09īruce Springsteen expanded the folk-rock approach of his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., to strains of jazz, among other styles, on its ambitious follow-up, released only eight months later. Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.
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