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In Song“County Fair,” officially released on The Essential Bruce Springsteen compilation 20years after it was recorded, wasn’t the first Bruce song that drew from his time in Freehold. Itwas far from the last, either. The following list highlights 10 others, including the previouslymentioned “My Hometown” and “In Freehold.”
1
Family Song
(1972): The Springsteen family’s relocation to California was the catalystfor this song, also called “California” and “California, You’re a Woman.” Bruce recorded twosolo demo versions. The first appeared on “The Unsurpassed Springsteen, Vol. 1: The EarlyYears,” a bootleg album. The second was on the semi-official “Before the Fame” and threesimilar albums, “The Early Years,” “Prodigal Son” and “Unearthed.”
2
Randolph Street (Master of Electricity)
(1972): The title of this song, also released on“Before the Fame” and other gray-market albums, refers to the street where he first lived. Themaster of electricity may have been his grandfather, an electrician.
3
Brucebase, a Springsteendatabase, says this song as “about as autobiographical as anything Bruce has ever written.”
4
Spirit in the Night
(1973): The inspiration for Greasy Lake, the setting for this song onhis debut album “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.,” is open to debate. Bruce and members of his band frequented a lake near Exit 88 on the Garden State Parkway and another off Route 88,according to Vini Lopez, his first drummer. Both were in the Ocean County town of Lakewood.Lake Topanemus, about a mile north of downtown Freehold, is another possibility.
5
The lake wasthe scene of nighttime parties, according to the Daily Register, a now-defunct local newspaper.
6
Born to Run
(1975): The characters in his signature song were “sprung from cages outon Highway 9,” Bruce’s first reference to Freehold’s main north-south route on his albums. In
“Zero and Blind Terry,” a 1973 song that was officially released 25 years later on the “Tracks”compilation boxed set, rival gangs met there.
7
The Promise
(1977): Route 9 made another appearance, as the narrator drove his DodgeChallenger down the highway “through the dead ends and all the bad scenes.” Three versions of the song were done with the E Street Band. Bruce re-recorded the song in a solo piano versionfor the “18 Tracks” compilation in 1999.
8
Mansion on the Hill
(1982): “This is a song that was set right here in town,” Bruce saidat the St. Rose of Lima benefit.
9
While concertgoers may have guessed that from his mention of a house that “rose above the factories and the fields,” the lyrics didn’t spell out his inspiration.The last verse of this song from the “Nebraska” album cited Linden, a town in North Jersey.
My Hometown
(1984): Running to the bus depot, driving around town with his father,living with racial tension, seeing Main Street’s decline, facing the rug mill’s closing -- these arethe images Bruce used to tell Freehold’s story. This song, from the “Born in the U.S.A.” album,rose to No. 6 on the Billboard magazine singles chart in 1985.
10
The Wish
(1987): “This one’s for you, ma, let me come right out and say it,” Brucewrote. He recalled her buying his first electric guitar at Caiazzo’s; getting ready to go to work atLawyers Title, where the office ladies “were all lipstick, perfume and rustling skirts”; and havinghim do the twist for his uncles and aunts. The song also was officially released on “Tracks.”
Local Hero
(1992): In the first verse of this song, released on the “Lucky Town” album,the narrator takes a drive through his hometown and sees a black velvet painting of himself in astore window. That happened to Bruce one day as he passed the J.J. Newberry department storeon Main Street, where a CVS pharmacy is now located. He parked the car, entered the store andasked the clerk who the person in the painting was. She replied: “Oh, just a local hero.”
11
In Freehold
(1996): Each verse of this song, released only on bootlegs, told a differentstory about Bruce’s years in his hometown. He named his sister Ginny, the Vinyards and MariaEspinosa along with George Theiss, his Castiles bandmate, and Mayor Michael Wilson, a friendand fellow high-school musician. After introducing the song at the St. Rose of Lima benefit, he played it on the Ghost of Tom Joad tour and the E Street Band reunion tour. For the latter, headded a verse praising Freehold’s officials for rejecting a proposed statue of him.
12
Notes
1
Lyrics come from Bruce’s official Web site <http://www.brucespringsteen.net> or Lebanese Tribute <http://www.springsteenlyrics.com>, 23 Aug. 2009,
2
Brucebase: On the Tracks.
3
Bruce Springsteen, “Randolph Street,” Lebanese Tribute. 23 Aug. 2009<http://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics/r/randolphstreet.php>.
4
Brucebase: On the Tracks.
5
Bob Crane, A Place to Stand: A Guide to Bruce Springsteen’s Sense of Place, Silver Spring, MD (Palace Books, 2002). 2-4.
6
“Freehold aims to quite lake’s ‘spirits in the night’,” The Daily Register (Shrewsbury, NJ), 7 April 1981. 22 Aug. 2009 <http://www.welcometofreehold.com>.
7
Brucebase: On the Tracks.
8
Brucebase: On the Tracks.
9
Coyne, “Faulkner of Freehold.”
10
Whitburn, Top 40 Hits.
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