Kitty’s Back—Bruce Springsteen
#365Songs: February 25
It’s not easy to say you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan. The man has been around so long that his name conjures up VERY different things for different people of different generations.
Mention his name, and you can expect wildly different reactions.
Some will howl “Bruce” on command and then begin to sing you something from The River — likely about cars.
Others will put fists in the air and start chanting, “Born in the USA.”
Still others will become reflective as they think about “Tunnel of Love” and wonder where their marriages went wrong.
These days, there are at least 200,000+ people who will immediately tell you about Springsteen on Broadway — those lucky enough to have gotten a ticket to one of the record-breaking 236 sold-out shows.
And, of course, there are countless po-faced Americana musicians around the globe who will become expansively expository as they explain to you why Nebraska is such an important album. (Full disclosure, I should probably be counted among them).
Whether they’re Born to Runners, Backstreeters, Glory Daysers, or even The Risingers, one thing they all seem to share in common is that none of them are Kitty’s Backers.
For whatever reason, there just don’t seem to be that many self-proclaimed fans of Springsteen’s early masterpiece The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle hanging around. Which is strange, given that most of them have probably sung along to “Rosalita” at a concert — maybe they just thought that song was actually from The River?
Well, it’s not.
It’s from Springsteen’s second album (which is a rarity in the rock and roll album world in that it is both greasily funky and deeply poetic), and despite its concert omnipresence, “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is really not the singalong people clearly want it to be.
Though, if you can sing along with this, I suppose you get some credit:
Jack the Rabbit and Weak Knee Willie,
don’t you know they’re gonna be there
Ah Sloppy Sue and Big Bone Billy,
they’ll be coming up for air
We’re gonna play some pool, skip some school
Act real cool, stay out all night, it’s gonna feel alright
So Rosie, come out tonight, little baby, come out tonight
Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor
Oh, closets are for hangers, winners use the door
So use it, Rosie, that’s what it’s there for
Recipe-wise, Springsteen’s The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle retains his debut album’s Dylanesque lyrical kineticism while swapping out the folk-rock forms in favor of some good ol’ greasy Jersey shore 70’s funk. The result is an East-Coast-of-America gumbo that tastes something like pub rock seasoned with soul and served alongside a plate of buttery poetry biscuits.
At least, that’s what happens on the titular lead track: “The E Street Shuffle.”
As to the rest of the album, it’s remarkably textured and diverse. “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” is a beautiful ballad that could have easily come off of Tupelo Honey. “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” is proto Tom Waits, beating LA’s beatnik bard to the tuba-driven punch by several years. “Incident on 57th Street” is like a Jim Thompson novel in song:
Johnny was sittin’ on the fire escape
Watchin’ the kids playin’ down the street
He called down, “Hey little heroes, summer’s long
But I guess it ain’t very sweet around here anymore”
Janey sleeps in sheets damp with sweat
Johnny sits up alone and watches her dream on, dream on
And the sister prays for lost souls
Then breaks down in the chapel after everyone’s gone
Honestly, all the songs are pretty brilliant, but the cut I love above them all is “Kitty’s Back”:
Well, Jack Knife cries ’cause baby’s in a bundle
She goes running nightly, lightly through the jungle
And them tin cans are exploding out in the ninety-degree heat
Cat somehow lost his baby down on Bleecker Street
It’s sad, but it sure is true
Cat shrugs his shoulders, sits back and sighs
Ooh, ooh, what can I do?
With a groove that just swings so hard and a melody line that’s straight out of the Great American songbook, Springsteen makes a major contribution to the canon of The Old, Weird America with “Kitty’s Back.” And he does so with the last version of the E Street Band that would have anything resembling the funk.
By the time his third album (Born to Run) came down the pipe, Bruce had put together the final pieces of what would become his signature sound for decades to come. Anchored by Max Weinberg’s hopelessly, painfully, awkwardly stiff, clumsy, and lumbering drums, the new E Street Band virtually guaranteed Springsteen’s future heartland appeal, where everyone still dances like John Cougar.
Add to that mix Roy Bittan’s cringingly dated synthesizer arrangements, and you have the ingredients for what would become one of the worst-sounding versions of a great song ever put to wax. I am talking, of course, about “Born in the USA.” Comparing the starkly heartbreaking original acoustic demo of the song (which was almost included on Nebraska) with the high-sheen 80’s grostesqueries of the final released album version is like comparing Blind Willie Johnson to Animotion.
Meanwhile, back at The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, the drum seat belonged to Vini Lopez, and the organ and piano happened under the hands of the deservedly legendary David Sancious. In other words, it was a WHOLE different sound.
And you can hear it all to incredible effect on “Kitty’s Back,” a song that is every bit the equal of Springsteen’s early storytelling epics (“Blinded by the Light,” “Spirits in the Night,” “It’s So Hard to be a Saint in the City,” etc.), even as it hits new heights as a healthy slab of east coast 70’s hipster shore funk.
You may be a Bruce fan. You may not be a Bruce fan.
But after hearing “Kitty’s Back,” I guarantee you’ll have a different perspective on the man and his music.
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