Columbia 38653
Producers: Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, and Steve Van Zandt
Track listing: Born in the U.S.A. / Cover Me / Darlington County / Working on the Highway / Downtown Train / I’m on Fire / No Surrender / Bobby Jean / I’m Goin’ Down / Glory Days / Dancing in the Dark / My Hometown
July 7, 1984
7 weeks (nonconsecutive)
Following the success of The River and its subsequent tour, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band reconvened to record a follow-up album. “We went in to record in the spring of 1982,” recalls E Street drummer Max Weinberg. “We got some good renditions of the songs, but what we came up with was not what Bruce had in his head. When you put the full-blown E Street Band on it, the starkness of what he wanted disappeared.” Springsteen opted to record that collection of songs solo on a four-track recorder at home. That album, Nebraska, peaked at number three.
While the E Street Band wasn’t suited to the Nebraska material, it was the perfect accompaniment for Springsteen on another set of songs he was working on. “In April 1982, Bruce started writing more material, on the spot, because the whole band was there. Over a two-week period, we recorded a bunch of songs,” says Weinberg. “It started with ‘Born in the U.S.A.,’ then we went on to ‘Glory Days,’ ‘I’m Going Down,’ ‘Darlington County,’ and ‘I’m on Fire.’ It was a tremendously prolific two or three weeks. We had eight of the 12 songs that ended up on that record recorded. The band was really playing the best we had played.”
The title track, which set the tone for the album, was initially recorded with a different arrangement. “We did it with just Garry Tallent playing bass, myself, and Bruce playing guitar with sort of a rockabilly approach, but that wasn’t working.” The final version of the song came very late one night. “We were just hacking around,” says Weinberg. “We didn’t go out to revisit the arrangement, it just sort of materialized. We started playing and the tape was running.” The second take from that session ended up as the album version. “We knew that song was very special when we recorded it that night. We had never done anything like that before in the studio. It really did blow us away.”
Weinberg says the track features his freest playing. “I was just responding to lyrics and Bruce. There was tremendous power coming off him.” The breakdown section of the song was spontaneous. “Bruce took his hand off his guitar and started playing air-drums,” Weinberg recalls. “So I did a drum solo.” In fact, the keyboard players didn’t catch Springsteen’s cue and can be heard continuing to play. “They stopped only after they realized the rhythm had stopped,” Weinberg adds. “Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bruce count, one-two-three-four, and we went back into the ending of the song. It was an incredible emotional and musical experience.”
After a break over the summer, Springsteen wrote more songs. “We probably recorded another 50, but of those tunes, ‘Bobby Jean,’ ‘No Surrender,’ and ‘Dancing in the Dark’ and one other ended up on the album.”
“Dancing in the Dark” began in a different incarnation as well. “We recorded a real rock ‘n’ roll version of it,” says Weinberg. “I remember sitting down at the drums after getting three or four takes of the rock version, and [Springsteen’s manager] Jon Landau came over to me and whispered in my ear, ‘Dance record.’ He even referenced some current songs that were on the radio at the time.”
With “Dancing in the Dark” peaking at number two on the Hot 100, Born in the U.S.A. became Springsteen’s second Number One album in its third week on the chart. The album went on to generate six other top 10 hits: “Cover Me,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” “I’m on Fire,” “Glory Days,” “I’m Going Down,” and “My Hometown.” The Boss was bigger than ever.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of July 7, 1994
1. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
2. Sports, Huey Lewis and the News
3. Footloose, Soundtrack
4. Heartbeat City, The Cars
5. Can’t Slow Down, Lionel Richie