Songoftheday 8/23/13 - I get up in the evening and I ain't got nothing to say, I come home in the morming I go to bed feeling the same way...

Bruce Springsteen - "Dancing In The Dark"
from the album Born In The USA (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's Song of the Day is by New Jersey's pride Bruce Springsteen, who became part of the pop pantheon in 1984 with his album Born In The USA. After gigging in a string of bands, one of which earned his the nickname of "The Boss", Bruce was signed to Columbia Records and released his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park in 1973. But despite his devoted local fanbase, there was nothing of a stir nationally for his first two albums. All that changed with Bruce's "Spector moment".

Taking over a year to record Born To Run, the wall-of-sound epic glory of the title track was totally worth it, and gave Bruce his first top-40 pop hit, while landing his famously on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week. But while the growing amount of album rock stations were playing his songs religiously, mainstream pop radio was leaving him alone as an artist in the late 70s (as disco ruled), though his songs were becoming big hits for artists like the Pointer Sisters ("Fire"), Patti Smith ("Because The Night"), and most impressively, 60s British Invasion holdovers Manfred Mann, who topped the chart with his "Blinded By The Light". All this gave Bruce the exposure that his lack of radio exposure as a singer wasn't.

But all things come in a circle, and as disco "died" in the beginning of the 80s, and rock radio became a juggernaut of a presence on music culture, Springsteen found himself with a renewed career, as his The River double-album in 1980 scored him a top-10 hit with "Hungry Heart", and the album was his first to go to #1 in Billboard. Bruce could have built on this straight away and had another pop mega hit, but instead he took a left turn and released the acoustic folk-rock missive of Nebraska, one with no "hits" but tons of amazing imagery and emotional storylines. I was a huge fan of this decision, and the risk involved, which still delivered a top-10 album, though not as widely remembered as his "bigger" works, it remains in my opinion probably his most influential individual work to date.

Which brings us to 1984. With a few songs left over from the Nebraska sessions (including future hits "Cover Me", "I'm On Fire", and the future title track), Bruce readied his next album, Born In The USA. But after his manager Jon Landau insisted he include a "big hit record" in the mix, he went and hastily wrote what would be the first single, "Dancing In The Dark". With a danceable backbeat and a video showing off his newly buffed body (and doing what would eventually be the Carlton Shuffle with a pre-Friends Courtney Cox), the song would unwillingly (for him) become his big breakout to pop radio...

"Dancing In The Dark" spent a month in the #2 spot in June of 1984 (kept from the top but two other huge acts, Duran Duran and Prince the latter with his own "breakthrough" single). It did reign on the rock radio chart as expected for six weeks. Internationally, the single went top-10 practically everywhere, though it took a re-release for it to reach #4 in the UK.

I have to say that I hated the song when it was released. Loathed it. As a long-standing fan of the "Boss", it seemed against everything his music was about. The bouncy "pop anthem" chords. The seemingly inane chorus. Most especially the body. Yes, the body. I just couldn't get past the Rambo-lite transformation Bruce took in this video. It was like he went from the moody pre-emo kid (without the makeup) to being the frat guy. And apparently Bruce didn't like the song as well (eschewing it from concerts for a long time). But underneath the visuals and the chorus/production is a biting lyric in the verses that does sync with the outcast that he's always been. So I can reconcile with the song at this point (though it'll never be on my list of favorites).

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Adding to the promotion of the song was the remix by Arthur Baker that took Bruce to #7 on Billboard's Club Play chart...

..and here's a live version from 1988...

..and a more recent take from 2009...

...and finally, a clip from a thankfully scuttled non-concert cut of Springsteen doing "Dancing In The Dark" for a video that would've killed this song.

Ooofdah.

Up tomorrow: More dancing, nostaglic-style.