The curious tale of how an ad-libbed in-joke turned a throwaway outtake into a concert crowd-pleaser.
Author:
Ken Rosen (2080)
Bruce quoted it in “Born to Run” and imitated its sound, and in 1976 he finally had the chance to perform it with its original artist: Listen to Bruce Springsteen and Ronnie Spector play Spector’s signature “Be My Baby.”
Queen’s Roger Taylor picks up the pace in his cover of Bruce’s “Racing in the Street.” It moves faster, but is it still moving?
“Secret Garden” is one of Bruce’s best love songs. It’s also one of his least romantic.
One time only: Bruce joins The Wallflowers on their 1996 deep cut, “God Don’t Make Lonely Girls,” when the band’s 1997 tour brings them to Bruce’s neck of the woods.
Scottish band Camera Obscura makes a subtle change to Bruce’s enduring, romantic “Tougher Than the Rest,” to powerful effect.
One night only: Bruce sits in with The Patti Smith Group on guitar for Patti’s improvisational “You Can Dig It.”
One of the last songs Buckwheat Zydeco recorded in the studio was a reggae reinvention of Bruce’s torch song, “Back in Your Arms.” And it works.
The biggest mystery about “Mystery Train” (besides why it’s called that): why’d it take so long for Bruce to cover it?
I’m not sure where it came from, but Sarah Hepburn’s brooding cover of “Adam Raised a Cain” is wonderful regardless.