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From his home to Yours.. 8 avril
Citation de Fabrice le 17 juillet 2020, 16 h 55 minGrâce aux news de Backstreets, le "verbatim" et le "tracklist" :
Our host doesn't pretend shit isn't what it is right now —
And how is your summer going, this summer unlike any other? The beaches are open here at the Shore, may God save us all, so let's carry on into the breach.…
— and later cues up H.E.R.'s "I Can't Breathe"
because this is the summer of 2020, the summer of Black Lives Matter, the summer of bringing down that bastard in the White House…
— but rather than exploring Corona Summer, Episode 8 is mainly inspired by a lifetime of summers, as Springsteen takes us back to his childhood with descriptive memories and aching nostalgia. Along the way you'll find seeds of songs like "Working on the Highway" and "No Surrender" and more.
I loved and love summer. As a child I became summer. I melted into the hot tarmac, I rolled myself into a sand ball at the beach. I slid beneath the murky water, ducking summer dragonflies at the Freehold pond. I sat in the tops of trees, feeling the summer breeze prickle over my freshly cut Saturday-afternoon flat-top.
I'd stand with my bike 'neath the August sun by the roadside, watching the locals on the road crew lay down the steaming blacktop, that beneath their rakes and shovels and heavy equipment curled and flattened like hot licorice. And when the big men and the machinery moved away, I waited, and I wanted my wheels to be the first to touch that steaming, virgin roadway.
In the evening twilight, I sat glued to the curb with a Pinky rubber ball in my hand, waiting for my best friend Bobby Duncan to finish his dinner so we could engage in epic gutterball tournaments into the night. And then later with scissors we'd poke holes into the lids of glass mason jars and invade the vacant lot across from my grandmother's front porch to capture our nightly quota of the evening's fireflies, just to leave them twinkling til dawn on our night tables. May they rest in peace.
We'd play Home Free, running from pool of light to pool of light from our neighborhood street lamps, until we were called in, as the neighborhood's porch lights went dark, by my grandmother's voice. And there, my sister and I would sleep on opposite sides of the bed, wrapped between hot, sticky sheets, on pre-air-conditioning, humid, Jersey summer nights.
There were evenings that, if it got hot enough, my Dad showed mercy on us, and he'd pack us into the Olds and set off in the darkness on Route 33 for the 20-mile ride to Manasquan, where on those nights the heat and the humidity of inland Freehold became too much to bear. We'd sleep in our pajamas, our bed blankets stretched out on the cool sand, enjoying the ocean air of the Manasquan Inlet.
Then at early light, like magic, we'd be carried back into the house, into our bedrooms, sandy-haired from our beach sleep, and I'd watch the sun splash its morning gold over the western wall of my room. And soon I'd smell my mother's coffee drifting up through the floor grate that opened to my room. I'd lie awake and listen to my parents leave for work.
Then I'd dress, skip breakfast, walk out onto our side porch where the bare bones of the sun's rays cut through the green latticework and warmed the wooden steps of our porch. There I'd sit, barely human, a creature of the earth, and the rain, and the sun, and summer.
Already, it's some of his loveliest writing.
A couple of novelty songs up top evoke the era, a reflection of the pop sounds his ears were soaking in as a kid, and the sounds of particular summers for young Bruce. The Jamies record that gives this episode its name, "Summertime Summertime," as Springsteen recalls, "was a hit twice: in 1958, when I was eight years old, and again in 1962 when I was 12. It was a basic novelty song, but it always signaled the beginning of summer for me in its baroque joy. And I always loved hearing it for the first time each summer — it meant summer was on."
As Episode 8 goes along, we gather that the theme is less Summertime in general than Bruce's own Summer memories and associations, a highly personal recollection of the season. Following the War on Drugs song "Up All Night," he riffed on its title:
As a teenager, I would stay up all night — as a crucible to pass for three or four nights of the summer, as the house sank into a midsummer-evening silence. I'd be camping out in my room. I'd have my flashlight, I'd have my Japanese transistor AM radio that I was listening to. I would take 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. walks around the town of Freehold, when the streets were mine!
At night and only at night was I king of the streets of Freehold, New Jersey, unhassled by the day's rednecks. Any time they'd see some longhair pass the barbershop they'd come running out, shaving cream half on their face: "Hey! Are you a girl?"
That was bullshit I didn't need in those days.
So in the middle of the evening, I'd return home — 3:30 a.m., I'd arrive into the kitchen, I would build myself an almighty peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, pouring it on. I would then retire to my room to wait for my favorite song to be broadcast by the WMCA Good Guys. One summer, my favorite song was Lonnie Donegan's "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (on the Bedpost Overnight?)"!
The writing continues to be so evocative, you can easily imagine these passages as outtakes from his Born to Run memoir — is there an extended Director's Cut we might read someday? — the whole episode a summertime supplement to the autobiography and the Springsteen on Broadway show.
After injecting his own summer song into the mix, the "hot sun beating on the blacktop" in "Sherry Darling," Bruce gets back to his youth.
In my bed, in the summer I'd be reading all my old copies of Surfer magazine. Did I surf? No. But the magazine held two very essential elements, surf or not. I was deeply interested in the perfectly tanned surfer girls in bikinis, and in the advertisements for Fender guitars.
There they were, in the fresh ads, the true objects of my desire: three white Fenders — a bass, a Stratocaster, and a Jaguar, each as white as the Hawaiian sand, lined up next to one another, each more desirable than the next… but taken as a group? My god. The perfect trifecta.
Now, I spent relatively short quality time with the pictures of the surfer girls. But I spent hours in my bunk, in my room, salivating over those guitars. I'd drift off to sleep with the magazine open on my chest, and then riding the summer breeze from the west came slipping through my open bedroom window, a sound I swear that was coming from some perfect beach thousands of miles away…
Those sounds, of course, the strains of the Beach Boys' "California Girls."
Calling it "a song is so beautiful it kills me," Springsteen places Ren Harvieu's "Summer Romance" in a lineage of "heartbreak summer songs: 'Sealed With a Kiss,' "See You in September'… ouch!"
It lets you know just how long a summer can feel if you've ever spent one in Heartbreak City.… It was the longing, the longing… from the spring, late-school-year breakup. I'd cheated on a fabulous girlfriend I'd had, with one of my exes. One of the dumbest things I'd ever done, and I immediately had buyer's remorse.
That summer — the summer of '67, the summer of Sgt. Pepper — I chased my girl from beach town to beach town to beach town. Thank god I was aided by a big ol' '60s ragtop black Cadillac, and a car of good friends. My running pack, Jay, Sunrise, Bird — you guys saved my life that summer. I don't know where you are now, but I've never forgotten you and the solid that you did me in the summer of '67.
"I am a Lana Del Rey fan," Bruce says as he cues up "Video Games," her 2011 summer single, and his striking introduction is pure poetry in a very real sense:
This is a singer and a song
That reminds me of the hot, humid, sultry summer nights
And the girls that went with them.
Nights so hot and still
Fields of fireflies
Leaves so still on neighborhood trees
That they did not whisper
No rumor of a breeze
In sight.You'd sit on your porch
You were dressed
Waiting either for her
Or the end of the world.An R&B section brings into the mix James Brown with the apropos "The Boss" — "regardless of my sobriquet, nobody knows better than he does about paying the cost to be the boss" — and Sly Stone, with 1969's "Hot Fun in the Summertime": "I remember this song from a dead midsummer day coming out of a car radio as we were on our way to the beach, and all I remember thinking is, I'm gonna find out where those guys are... and I'm going there."
Soon enough Bruce was taking us there too, putting together a killer suite of his own tales of hot summertime fun, the musical heart of Episode 8: "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," "County Fair," and "Backstreets."
He sets it up with Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick's "Under the Boardwalk." Calling the song "just about perfect," Springsteen introduces the 1964 classic by pointing out that it's an answer song, as he sings the first line:
"When the sun beats down and melts the tar up on the roof..." referred to The Drifters' great "Up on the Roof," which made this kind of an answer record, and it presented itself as the perfect alternative paradise to "Up on the Roof" once the weather turns to steam — you go under the boardwalk.
Now, I can testify to this firsthand, because I spent a summer tarring — in 95 degree heat — Mrs. Ladd's, my neighbor's, roof for 50 cents an hour! As a young teenager. And it was hell on Earth. It sent me running to the beach, and under the boardwalk to wash the sticky tar off me and take a break, underneath Convention Hall and the Casino.
This song was a real perfectly drawn beauty. Every line is beautifully crafted, and the change to minor in the chorus was something musically unique. Now this was made a hit in the definitive version by The Drifters, but today I chose the Stones' somewhat punkier version.
Of Springsteen's brilliant pairings and juxtapositions in his From His Home to Yours series, few have been so perfect as segueing from "Under the Boardwalk" right into "Sandy," his own tale of boardwalk life. But rather than the start of a one-two punch, "Under the Boardwalk" would really prove to be a prologue for this majestic trio of Bruce's own summertime songs that followed.
With those oh-so-sweet accordion strains from Danny Federici, the tilt-a-whirl and carnival life of "Sandy" gives way to the roller coaster and merry-go-round of "County Fair." Springsteen recalls the time in his life that inspired the long-lost fan favorite (eventually released on 2003's Essential), and also drops a tantalizing suggestion of more in this vein to come:
A studio outtake from 1983 — of which there are many more, and one of these days all of this work I did between Nebraska and The River [sic] will show up magically.
I lived up on Telegraph Hill, on an old 165-acre farm that I rented for $700 a month. I had my '60 Vette, from the cover of Born to Run, and I would take my girl to the Monmouth County Fair — which was a lot of fun, but a funkier proposition in those days. A lot of 4H farm animals… and there was a car you could bust up with a sledgehammer, for two bucks… oh, the simple joys… a dunk tank.
After the fair, we'd ride back to the farm, the roof down, we'd sit out in front of the big ol' white farmhouse, lean back, listen to the music down below, just talk and look up at the stars.
And then it's "Backstreets" for the trifecta, illuminated by more visions of his youth as he vividly describes a summer day in worn-out Converses, towel in tow, hitchhiking to Manasaquan and dodging beach cops. Backgrounding Western Stars' "Hitch Hikin'" too, this magnificent "Backstreets" prelude paints a picture of what a "soft infested summer" might have looked like:
As a teenager, my bedroom window faced south when we lived on 68 South Street. So I got light but not much sun in the morning. I'd wake, I'd put on my uniform for a '60s midsummer's day — it was a white T-shirt, a pair of washed-out cut-off blue jeans slightly stiff with the salt of daily ocean swimming, bare legs shredded at the thighs with grains and grains of sand in each pocket, and a pair of faded Converse sneakers.
I had just finished — and barely survived — summer school. Had Mr. De Tomaso, along with my Italian cousin Alfonse, Mr. De Tomaso's assistant. And he was a Spanish whiz. Together, we had all striven to understand the nuances of español— a musical language as it is; and as musical as I am, unfortunately we remained a hopeless match. With Alfonse's sly assistance, I passed.
Well now all I know is, the rest of this summer is mine: my mornings, my afternoons, my evenings belong to me. So I make my way down to the silent morning kitchen, last night's dinner plates shiny in their drying holders compliments of no one, of course, but my mom. There's a five-dollar bill on the table, next to a box of Corn Chex and a bowl. It's her daily summer greeting to me. But the five is gonna have to last me all week. And the house is mine for a moment: my pop at work (or, having bailed, still in bed sleeping), my sister's still in bed, the house is mine. And I love the quiet. I love the quiet of the house in the morning.
So I have a quick bowl of cereal, and I scoop up the five, and I'm out the door, striding down South Street towards Route 33. I carry nothing but a folded beach towel under my arm. I make sure not to stick my thumb out until I reach 33, as that would bad-voodoo and jinx my chance of a quick ride east. At the stoplight, I settle into formation at the intersection. Highway 33 and Shore Points. Where they meet, I take my hitchhiker's stance: one hip slung low, the knees slightly bent, thumb out, an air of nonchalance, like I could give a shit if you gave me a ride or not. I take the occasional few steps backward toward my destination — the beaches and bikinis of Manasquan, New Jersey — and I wait for the magic to begin.
Now, I'm confident that shortly a bored trucker, nascent hot-rodder, traveling businessman, or a concerned mom will pick me up. I'll hear car wheels squeal on gravel, and the passenger side door will open and soon make that beautiful slamming sound of victory in the morning.
Small talk will ensue, which you must be good at, and then an hour and three or four rides later, I will be deposited at Manasquan main beach. I will dodge the badge-counters, though it is un-American — in New Jersey we must pay to go to the beach! I do not, however, plan to have my arcade or lunch money eaten up by stinkin' beach badges. So I head for a plot of sand, I scan thoroughly for the beach cops and the nearest crowd of pretty girls, and I settle in.
After a few moments in the sun, I head for my morning baptismal in the wonderful, God-given Atlantic Ocean. Summer's on.
And it's hard to think of a better prelude to Roy Bittan's opening notes of "Backstreets."
Though Bruce himself has notoriously steered clear of recreational drugs, he cues up Victoria Williams' "Summer of Drugs" to recall how they led to the end of his first band:
In 1965 Freehold, there were no visible drugs to be seen. The high school principal was still concerned with you hiding out behind the gym swigging beer. But that started in to change around 1967, and one evening there was the first drug bust that had ever occurred, in history, as far as we knew, in Freehold, NJ.
And: bass player for The Castiles? Goodbye. Organ player for The Castiles? Goodbye. Drummer for The Castiles? Goodbye. All ripped out of mamas' and daddies' arms at 3am.
I was standing on the corner of Throckmorton and Main, standing guard at my phone booth, waiting for a late-night call from my girlfriend — this was one of my permanent positions throughout the years of my high school because we had no phone at home, and I was there at all hours of the evening and morning — standing with a friend of mine, Bruce Nelson.
Bruce Nelson says, "I just saw Mrs. Bots go by in the cop car with baby Bots!"
"Mrs. Bots" was [Castiles drummer] Vinnie "Skeebots" Manniello's better half.
I said, "Get outta here!"
He said, "She was in the cop car with the baby Bots, on the way to the police station!"
I said, "Nobody gets arrested with their baby!"
But sure enough, the Bots family went down to the police station, victim of the new Freehold Borough war on drugs. So that spelled the final chapter in my first band, the fabulous Castiles.
As the episode nears its close, Springsteen looks back at the summertime pleasures of drive-in movies and skinny dipping, offering a recollection and endorsement of "nightswimming" that's just as lovely as the R.E.M. song he's introducing — a very high bar.
There is nothing like the sea at night. When the water is slightly warmer than the air, even though the air is humid after a 95-degree day. God, I love swimming at night. It is all darkness and mystery. It is the void.
And it must be done naked. Clothes at the waterline, please. Do this, and my pilgrim, you will become cleansed. Never will the evening air, or a kiss on the beach, or a dry towel ever feel so good again. The walk to the car will be filled with starlit grace, and you will never forget it.
And once you hit the water, you will be covered in the blossoming beauty of your youth, no matter how old you are. And whoever you're with, you will always remember them.
Springsteen wraps with a modern masterstroke from an old friend, the title track from Little Steven's latest Summer of Sorcery evoking Van Morrison's "And the Healing Has Begun" and capturing up the romance, transformative power, and "unlimited possibility" of summer as well as you could ask of a record.
And from there it's "Until we meet again, stay strong, stay smart, stay safe, stay healthy, mask up… and go in peace" as the DJ drifts away beyond the sea until next time.
Visit the SiriusXM blog for the schedule of repeat broadcasts for the coming week on E Street Radio, beginning today at 5pm Eastern.
Playlist:
- Instrumental Intro: Noveller - "Canyons" / "Pre-fabled"
- The Jamies - "Summertime Summertime"
- War on Drugs - "Up All Night"
- Lonnie Donegan - "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (on the Bedpost Overnight?)"
- Bruce Springsteen - "Sherry Darling"
- Beach Boys - "California Girls"
- Ren Harvieu - "Summer Romance"
- Lana Del Rey - "Video Games"
- H.E.R. - "I Can't Breathe"
- James Brown - "The Boss"
- Sly & The Family Stone - "Hot Fun in the Summertime"
- The Rolling Stones - "Under the Boardwalk"
- Bruce Springsteen - "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)"
- Bruce Springsteen - "County Fair"
- Instrumental interlude: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks - "Lullaby"
- Bruce Springsteen - "Backstreets"
- Kendrick Lamar (ft. Zacari) - "LOVE."
- Victoria Williams - "Summer of Drugs"
- Instrumental interlude: Noble Oak - "Hypersleep"
- R.E.M. - "Nightswimming"
- Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul - "Summer of Sorcery"
- Bobby Darin - "Beyond the Sea"
Grâce aux news de Backstreets, le "verbatim" et le "tracklist" :
Our host doesn't pretend shit isn't what it is right now —
And how is your summer going, this summer unlike any other? The beaches are open here at the Shore, may God save us all, so let's carry on into the breach.…
— and later cues up H.E.R.'s "I Can't Breathe"
because this is the summer of 2020, the summer of Black Lives Matter, the summer of bringing down that bastard in the White House…
— but rather than exploring Corona Summer, Episode 8 is mainly inspired by a lifetime of summers, as Springsteen takes us back to his childhood with descriptive memories and aching nostalgia. Along the way you'll find seeds of songs like "Working on the Highway" and "No Surrender" and more.
I loved and love summer. As a child I became summer. I melted into the hot tarmac, I rolled myself into a sand ball at the beach. I slid beneath the murky water, ducking summer dragonflies at the Freehold pond. I sat in the tops of trees, feeling the summer breeze prickle over my freshly cut Saturday-afternoon flat-top.
I'd stand with my bike 'neath the August sun by the roadside, watching the locals on the road crew lay down the steaming blacktop, that beneath their rakes and shovels and heavy equipment curled and flattened like hot licorice. And when the big men and the machinery moved away, I waited, and I wanted my wheels to be the first to touch that steaming, virgin roadway.
In the evening twilight, I sat glued to the curb with a Pinky rubber ball in my hand, waiting for my best friend Bobby Duncan to finish his dinner so we could engage in epic gutterball tournaments into the night. And then later with scissors we'd poke holes into the lids of glass mason jars and invade the vacant lot across from my grandmother's front porch to capture our nightly quota of the evening's fireflies, just to leave them twinkling til dawn on our night tables. May they rest in peace.
We'd play Home Free, running from pool of light to pool of light from our neighborhood street lamps, until we were called in, as the neighborhood's porch lights went dark, by my grandmother's voice. And there, my sister and I would sleep on opposite sides of the bed, wrapped between hot, sticky sheets, on pre-air-conditioning, humid, Jersey summer nights.
There were evenings that, if it got hot enough, my Dad showed mercy on us, and he'd pack us into the Olds and set off in the darkness on Route 33 for the 20-mile ride to Manasquan, where on those nights the heat and the humidity of inland Freehold became too much to bear. We'd sleep in our pajamas, our bed blankets stretched out on the cool sand, enjoying the ocean air of the Manasquan Inlet.
Then at early light, like magic, we'd be carried back into the house, into our bedrooms, sandy-haired from our beach sleep, and I'd watch the sun splash its morning gold over the western wall of my room. And soon I'd smell my mother's coffee drifting up through the floor grate that opened to my room. I'd lie awake and listen to my parents leave for work.
Then I'd dress, skip breakfast, walk out onto our side porch where the bare bones of the sun's rays cut through the green latticework and warmed the wooden steps of our porch. There I'd sit, barely human, a creature of the earth, and the rain, and the sun, and summer.
Already, it's some of his loveliest writing.
A couple of novelty songs up top evoke the era, a reflection of the pop sounds his ears were soaking in as a kid, and the sounds of particular summers for young Bruce. The Jamies record that gives this episode its name, "Summertime Summertime," as Springsteen recalls, "was a hit twice: in 1958, when I was eight years old, and again in 1962 when I was 12. It was a basic novelty song, but it always signaled the beginning of summer for me in its baroque joy. And I always loved hearing it for the first time each summer — it meant summer was on."
As Episode 8 goes along, we gather that the theme is less Summertime in general than Bruce's own Summer memories and associations, a highly personal recollection of the season. Following the War on Drugs song "Up All Night," he riffed on its title:
As a teenager, I would stay up all night — as a crucible to pass for three or four nights of the summer, as the house sank into a midsummer-evening silence. I'd be camping out in my room. I'd have my flashlight, I'd have my Japanese transistor AM radio that I was listening to. I would take 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. walks around the town of Freehold, when the streets were mine!
At night and only at night was I king of the streets of Freehold, New Jersey, unhassled by the day's rednecks. Any time they'd see some longhair pass the barbershop they'd come running out, shaving cream half on their face: "Hey! Are you a girl?"
That was bullshit I didn't need in those days.
So in the middle of the evening, I'd return home — 3:30 a.m., I'd arrive into the kitchen, I would build myself an almighty peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, pouring it on. I would then retire to my room to wait for my favorite song to be broadcast by the WMCA Good Guys. One summer, my favorite song was Lonnie Donegan's "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (on the Bedpost Overnight?)"!
The writing continues to be so evocative, you can easily imagine these passages as outtakes from his Born to Run memoir — is there an extended Director's Cut we might read someday? — the whole episode a summertime supplement to the autobiography and the Springsteen on Broadway show.
After injecting his own summer song into the mix, the "hot sun beating on the blacktop" in "Sherry Darling," Bruce gets back to his youth.
In my bed, in the summer I'd be reading all my old copies of Surfer magazine. Did I surf? No. But the magazine held two very essential elements, surf or not. I was deeply interested in the perfectly tanned surfer girls in bikinis, and in the advertisements for Fender guitars.
There they were, in the fresh ads, the true objects of my desire: three white Fenders — a bass, a Stratocaster, and a Jaguar, each as white as the Hawaiian sand, lined up next to one another, each more desirable than the next… but taken as a group? My god. The perfect trifecta.
Now, I spent relatively short quality time with the pictures of the surfer girls. But I spent hours in my bunk, in my room, salivating over those guitars. I'd drift off to sleep with the magazine open on my chest, and then riding the summer breeze from the west came slipping through my open bedroom window, a sound I swear that was coming from some perfect beach thousands of miles away…
Those sounds, of course, the strains of the Beach Boys' "California Girls."
Calling it "a song is so beautiful it kills me," Springsteen places Ren Harvieu's "Summer Romance" in a lineage of "heartbreak summer songs: 'Sealed With a Kiss,' "See You in September'… ouch!"
It lets you know just how long a summer can feel if you've ever spent one in Heartbreak City.… It was the longing, the longing… from the spring, late-school-year breakup. I'd cheated on a fabulous girlfriend I'd had, with one of my exes. One of the dumbest things I'd ever done, and I immediately had buyer's remorse.
That summer — the summer of '67, the summer of Sgt. Pepper — I chased my girl from beach town to beach town to beach town. Thank god I was aided by a big ol' '60s ragtop black Cadillac, and a car of good friends. My running pack, Jay, Sunrise, Bird — you guys saved my life that summer. I don't know where you are now, but I've never forgotten you and the solid that you did me in the summer of '67.
"I am a Lana Del Rey fan," Bruce says as he cues up "Video Games," her 2011 summer single, and his striking introduction is pure poetry in a very real sense:
This is a singer and a song
That reminds me of the hot, humid, sultry summer nights
And the girls that went with them.
Nights so hot and still
Fields of fireflies
Leaves so still on neighborhood trees
That they did not whisper
No rumor of a breeze
In sight.You'd sit on your porch
You were dressed
Waiting either for her
Or the end of the world.
An R&B section brings into the mix James Brown with the apropos "The Boss" — "regardless of my sobriquet, nobody knows better than he does about paying the cost to be the boss" — and Sly Stone, with 1969's "Hot Fun in the Summertime": "I remember this song from a dead midsummer day coming out of a car radio as we were on our way to the beach, and all I remember thinking is, I'm gonna find out where those guys are... and I'm going there."
Soon enough Bruce was taking us there too, putting together a killer suite of his own tales of hot summertime fun, the musical heart of Episode 8: "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," "County Fair," and "Backstreets."
He sets it up with Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick's "Under the Boardwalk." Calling the song "just about perfect," Springsteen introduces the 1964 classic by pointing out that it's an answer song, as he sings the first line:
"When the sun beats down and melts the tar up on the roof..." referred to The Drifters' great "Up on the Roof," which made this kind of an answer record, and it presented itself as the perfect alternative paradise to "Up on the Roof" once the weather turns to steam — you go under the boardwalk.
Now, I can testify to this firsthand, because I spent a summer tarring — in 95 degree heat — Mrs. Ladd's, my neighbor's, roof for 50 cents an hour! As a young teenager. And it was hell on Earth. It sent me running to the beach, and under the boardwalk to wash the sticky tar off me and take a break, underneath Convention Hall and the Casino.
This song was a real perfectly drawn beauty. Every line is beautifully crafted, and the change to minor in the chorus was something musically unique. Now this was made a hit in the definitive version by The Drifters, but today I chose the Stones' somewhat punkier version.
Of Springsteen's brilliant pairings and juxtapositions in his From His Home to Yours series, few have been so perfect as segueing from "Under the Boardwalk" right into "Sandy," his own tale of boardwalk life. But rather than the start of a one-two punch, "Under the Boardwalk" would really prove to be a prologue for this majestic trio of Bruce's own summertime songs that followed.
With those oh-so-sweet accordion strains from Danny Federici, the tilt-a-whirl and carnival life of "Sandy" gives way to the roller coaster and merry-go-round of "County Fair." Springsteen recalls the time in his life that inspired the long-lost fan favorite (eventually released on 2003's Essential), and also drops a tantalizing suggestion of more in this vein to come:
A studio outtake from 1983 — of which there are many more, and one of these days all of this work I did between Nebraska and The River [sic] will show up magically.
I lived up on Telegraph Hill, on an old 165-acre farm that I rented for $700 a month. I had my '60 Vette, from the cover of Born to Run, and I would take my girl to the Monmouth County Fair — which was a lot of fun, but a funkier proposition in those days. A lot of 4H farm animals… and there was a car you could bust up with a sledgehammer, for two bucks… oh, the simple joys… a dunk tank.
After the fair, we'd ride back to the farm, the roof down, we'd sit out in front of the big ol' white farmhouse, lean back, listen to the music down below, just talk and look up at the stars.
And then it's "Backstreets" for the trifecta, illuminated by more visions of his youth as he vividly describes a summer day in worn-out Converses, towel in tow, hitchhiking to Manasaquan and dodging beach cops. Backgrounding Western Stars' "Hitch Hikin'" too, this magnificent "Backstreets" prelude paints a picture of what a "soft infested summer" might have looked like:
As a teenager, my bedroom window faced south when we lived on 68 South Street. So I got light but not much sun in the morning. I'd wake, I'd put on my uniform for a '60s midsummer's day — it was a white T-shirt, a pair of washed-out cut-off blue jeans slightly stiff with the salt of daily ocean swimming, bare legs shredded at the thighs with grains and grains of sand in each pocket, and a pair of faded Converse sneakers.
I had just finished — and barely survived — summer school. Had Mr. De Tomaso, along with my Italian cousin Alfonse, Mr. De Tomaso's assistant. And he was a Spanish whiz. Together, we had all striven to understand the nuances of español— a musical language as it is; and as musical as I am, unfortunately we remained a hopeless match. With Alfonse's sly assistance, I passed.
Well now all I know is, the rest of this summer is mine: my mornings, my afternoons, my evenings belong to me. So I make my way down to the silent morning kitchen, last night's dinner plates shiny in their drying holders compliments of no one, of course, but my mom. There's a five-dollar bill on the table, next to a box of Corn Chex and a bowl. It's her daily summer greeting to me. But the five is gonna have to last me all week. And the house is mine for a moment: my pop at work (or, having bailed, still in bed sleeping), my sister's still in bed, the house is mine. And I love the quiet. I love the quiet of the house in the morning.
So I have a quick bowl of cereal, and I scoop up the five, and I'm out the door, striding down South Street towards Route 33. I carry nothing but a folded beach towel under my arm. I make sure not to stick my thumb out until I reach 33, as that would bad-voodoo and jinx my chance of a quick ride east. At the stoplight, I settle into formation at the intersection. Highway 33 and Shore Points. Where they meet, I take my hitchhiker's stance: one hip slung low, the knees slightly bent, thumb out, an air of nonchalance, like I could give a shit if you gave me a ride or not. I take the occasional few steps backward toward my destination — the beaches and bikinis of Manasquan, New Jersey — and I wait for the magic to begin.
Now, I'm confident that shortly a bored trucker, nascent hot-rodder, traveling businessman, or a concerned mom will pick me up. I'll hear car wheels squeal on gravel, and the passenger side door will open and soon make that beautiful slamming sound of victory in the morning.
Small talk will ensue, which you must be good at, and then an hour and three or four rides later, I will be deposited at Manasquan main beach. I will dodge the badge-counters, though it is un-American — in New Jersey we must pay to go to the beach! I do not, however, plan to have my arcade or lunch money eaten up by stinkin' beach badges. So I head for a plot of sand, I scan thoroughly for the beach cops and the nearest crowd of pretty girls, and I settle in.
After a few moments in the sun, I head for my morning baptismal in the wonderful, God-given Atlantic Ocean. Summer's on.
And it's hard to think of a better prelude to Roy Bittan's opening notes of "Backstreets."
Though Bruce himself has notoriously steered clear of recreational drugs, he cues up Victoria Williams' "Summer of Drugs" to recall how they led to the end of his first band:
In 1965 Freehold, there were no visible drugs to be seen. The high school principal was still concerned with you hiding out behind the gym swigging beer. But that started in to change around 1967, and one evening there was the first drug bust that had ever occurred, in history, as far as we knew, in Freehold, NJ.
And: bass player for The Castiles? Goodbye. Organ player for The Castiles? Goodbye. Drummer for The Castiles? Goodbye. All ripped out of mamas' and daddies' arms at 3am.
I was standing on the corner of Throckmorton and Main, standing guard at my phone booth, waiting for a late-night call from my girlfriend — this was one of my permanent positions throughout the years of my high school because we had no phone at home, and I was there at all hours of the evening and morning — standing with a friend of mine, Bruce Nelson.
Bruce Nelson says, "I just saw Mrs. Bots go by in the cop car with baby Bots!"
"Mrs. Bots" was [Castiles drummer] Vinnie "Skeebots" Manniello's better half.
I said, "Get outta here!"
He said, "She was in the cop car with the baby Bots, on the way to the police station!"
I said, "Nobody gets arrested with their baby!"
But sure enough, the Bots family went down to the police station, victim of the new Freehold Borough war on drugs. So that spelled the final chapter in my first band, the fabulous Castiles.
As the episode nears its close, Springsteen looks back at the summertime pleasures of drive-in movies and skinny dipping, offering a recollection and endorsement of "nightswimming" that's just as lovely as the R.E.M. song he's introducing — a very high bar.
There is nothing like the sea at night. When the water is slightly warmer than the air, even though the air is humid after a 95-degree day. God, I love swimming at night. It is all darkness and mystery. It is the void.
And it must be done naked. Clothes at the waterline, please. Do this, and my pilgrim, you will become cleansed. Never will the evening air, or a kiss on the beach, or a dry towel ever feel so good again. The walk to the car will be filled with starlit grace, and you will never forget it.
And once you hit the water, you will be covered in the blossoming beauty of your youth, no matter how old you are. And whoever you're with, you will always remember them.
Springsteen wraps with a modern masterstroke from an old friend, the title track from Little Steven's latest Summer of Sorcery evoking Van Morrison's "And the Healing Has Begun" and capturing up the romance, transformative power, and "unlimited possibility" of summer as well as you could ask of a record.
And from there it's "Until we meet again, stay strong, stay smart, stay safe, stay healthy, mask up… and go in peace" as the DJ drifts away beyond the sea until next time.
Visit the SiriusXM blog for the schedule of repeat broadcasts for the coming week on E Street Radio, beginning today at 5pm Eastern.
Playlist:
- Instrumental Intro: Noveller - "Canyons" / "Pre-fabled"
- The Jamies - "Summertime Summertime"
- War on Drugs - "Up All Night"
- Lonnie Donegan - "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (on the Bedpost Overnight?)"
- Bruce Springsteen - "Sherry Darling"
- Beach Boys - "California Girls"
- Ren Harvieu - "Summer Romance"
- Lana Del Rey - "Video Games"
- H.E.R. - "I Can't Breathe"
- James Brown - "The Boss"
- Sly & The Family Stone - "Hot Fun in the Summertime"
- The Rolling Stones - "Under the Boardwalk"
- Bruce Springsteen - "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)"
- Bruce Springsteen - "County Fair"
- Instrumental interlude: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks - "Lullaby"
- Bruce Springsteen - "Backstreets"
- Kendrick Lamar (ft. Zacari) - "LOVE."
- Victoria Williams - "Summer of Drugs"
- Instrumental interlude: Noble Oak - "Hypersleep"
- R.E.M. - "Nightswimming"
- Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul - "Summer of Sorcery"
- Bobby Darin - "Beyond the Sea"
Citation de Fabrice le 12 août 2020, 0 h 35 min10ème volet demain pour une émission qui est annoncée comme "spéciale" (selon Backstreets).
10ème volet demain pour une émission qui est annoncée comme "spéciale" (selon Backstreets).
Citation de phil le 12 août 2020, 12 h 00 minCitation de Fabrice le 12 août 2020, 0 h 35 min10ème volet demain pour une émission qui est annoncée comme "spéciale" (selon Backstreets).
annonce du tracks 2?
Citation de Fabrice le 12 août 2020, 0 h 35 min10ème volet demain pour une émission qui est annoncée comme "spéciale" (selon Backstreets).
annonce du tracks 2?
Citation de phil le 12 août 2020, 13 h 44 minCitation de Marc le 12 août 2020, 13 h 15 minOu bien un extrait du nouvel album ?
C’est beau de rêver hein ?
Oui rêvons plus grand 🤗
Citation de Marc le 12 août 2020, 13 h 15 minOu bien un extrait du nouvel album ?
C’est beau de rêver hein ?
Oui rêvons plus grand 🤗
Citation de Fabrice le 12 août 2020, 14 h 55 minRectificatif : c'est l'heure et le format de l'émission qui seront annoncés à 10h (heure de NY) par Jim Rotolo.
C'est possible que ce soit un spécial BTR pour les 45 ans de la sortie de l'album.
Rectificatif : c'est l'heure et le format de l'émission qui seront annoncés à 10h (heure de NY) par Jim Rotolo.
C'est possible que ce soit un spécial BTR pour les 45 ans de la sortie de l'album.
Citation de Fabrice le 12 août 2020, 16 h 11 minBon, c'était l'annonce de l'annonce... sans blague. 🙂
Le 10ème volume sera donc une session de minuit le vendredi 14 intitulée "In Dreams".
PS : à 6 heures du matin en France.
Bon, c'était l'annonce de l'annonce... sans blague. 🙂
Le 10ème volume sera donc une session de minuit le vendredi 14 intitulée "In Dreams".
PS : à 6 heures du matin en France.
Citation de phil le 12 août 2020, 17 h 54 minCitation de Fabrice le 12 août 2020, 16 h 11 minBon, c'était l'annonce de l'annonce... sans blague.
Le 10ème volume sera donc une session de minuit le vendredi 14 intitulée "In Dreams".
PS : à 6 heures du matin en France.
Je vais te mettre un pouce rouge en bas.....
Citation de Fabrice le 12 août 2020, 16 h 11 minBon, c'était l'annonce de l'annonce... sans blague.
Le 10ème volume sera donc une session de minuit le vendredi 14 intitulée "In Dreams".
PS : à 6 heures du matin en France.
Je vais te mettre un pouce rouge en bas.....
Citation de Fabrice le 15 août 2020, 19 h 15 minEt donc pour les couche-tard et les lève-tôt.. le 10ème volet de Mister DJ..
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_WTEhRDT9gw78r2oZB2q_4HcgC5KEn9W/view
Tracklist ici : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ux6Bcgf9yexbc1nm9X5IH?si=sC3JxtGhRvS8P9SdkcwiRA
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ux6Bcgf9yexbc1nm9X5IH?si=sC3JxtGhRvS8P9SdkcwiRA
Et donc pour les couche-tard et les lève-tôt.. le 10ème volet de Mister DJ..
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_WTEhRDT9gw78r2oZB2q_4HcgC5KEn9W/view
Tracklist ici : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ux6Bcgf9yexbc1nm9X5IH?si=sC3JxtGhRvS8P9SdkcwiRA