Songoftheday 9/5/15 - I'm just a lonely pilgrim I walk this world in wealth, I want to know if it's you I don't trust 'cause I damn sure don't trust myself...

"Brilliant Disguise" - Bruce Springsteen
from the album Tunnel Of Love (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's SOTD comes from "The Boss", Bruce Springsteen, who followed his landmark album Born In The U.S.A. with a live box set that debuted at #1 and scored him a top-10 pop hit with a cover of Edwin Starr's "War". But after a tour that crested his career so far, his personal life wasn't exactly up to par, with his marriage to Julianne Phillips in shatters, preceding his divorce in 1988. Bruce poured his emotional state into his next album, Tunnel Of Love. The first single from the record, "Brilliant Disguise", didn't carry the E Street billing, though Max Weinberg, Danny Federici, and Roy Bittan played in. The reserved yet mournful lyrics were such an adult reflection on relations that contrasted with the playful and naive takes on love he's released in the past. And to top it off was his music video, which had him not lipsyncing but singing direct, which chills you with the directness, especially as his voice cracks midway through...

"Brilliant Disguise" became Bruce's tenth top-10 pop hit in November of 1987. It was his second to top the Mainstream Rock radio chart in Billboard (after "Dancing In The Dark"), while reaching #5 on their Adult Contemporary list. Internationally, the song topped the singles chart in Norway, went top-10 in Ireland, Sweden, and Canada, and #20 in the UK.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's Bruce in concert in 1993...

...and again in 2007...

Country husband-and-wife duo Thompson Square took on the song for the interwebs in 2014...

Finally, here's the Boss in 2014....

Up tomorrow: Don't put two veteran singers in a corner.