“Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back.”—“Hungry Heart,” written and performed by Bruce Springsteen, from The River LP (1980)
A week ago today marked the 30th anniversary of the release date of The River—and, for the life of me, I don’t know why more of a fuss hasn’t been made about it.
As I’ve written before, Born to Run made me a fan of The Boss for life. And certainly Bruce Springsteen regards Darkness on the Edge of Town as crucial for his career to date—songs shorter, tighter, less allusive, and less derivative than his first two Dylanesque LPs.
But The River has its distinctions, too. It became the only studio double album of Springsteen’s career—and, in contrast to recent works by artists who, after one catchy single, fill up the extra audio room provided by a CD with swill, it’s filled with songs covered by one artist or another over the years.
The title cut has received the most critical acclaim, with its tale of youthful lust curdling, by virtue of an unplanned pregnancy and Jimmy Carter’s recession, into a long, hollow marriage. But “Hungry Heart” has its own fascinating history and interpretations.
It came when Springsteen had come storming back on the rock scene, but still had something to prove. The double album allowed him to establish a true oeuvre (on its release, my favorite rock station of the time, WNEW-FM, had more than enough songs for a “Springsteen A-Z” special lasting several wonderful hours well into the night. These were also the days when I couldn’t bear to leave for the commute to college without the station’s morning DJ, Dave Herman, giving Boss fans a good helping of “Bruce Juice.”)
Supposedly, The Boss wrote this when Joey Ramone asked for something his own group could use. That would have been right around the time of The Ramones' insane studio sessions that ended up as End of the Century, the next-to-last full-length album produced by Phil Spector.
With its dense, bouncy production values, “Hungry Heart” would have been just the type of studio effort that the “Wall of Sound” producer—or another mad Sixties pop genius, Brian Wilson—might have come up with. (Indeed, in 2003 The Beach Boys’ Mike Love would sing a decidedly inferior cover version for a Springsteen tribute album.) It even featured, on backup vocals, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles.
Let’s linger over that sound, in juxtaposition with those lyrics, for a second. From the first notes, you feel like a giddy kid in the middle of a carnival midway. You’re too carried away to notice the very problematic protagonist, who’s pulling the irresponsible, disappearing-dad-act found in just about any Raymond Carver short story or John Updike’s Rabbit, Run.
The song marks a change in attitude on Springsteen’s part. Many prior songs, especially on the Born to Run album, celebrate escape as a means of freedom from a “town [that] rips the bones from your back.” Now, however, he begins to recognize the fundamental emptiness of being forever in motion: “Ain’t nobody like to be alone.” He goes even further on another song from The River, “Two Hearts”:
“If you think your heart is made of stone
And that you’re rough enough to lick this world
Well, alone, buddy there ain’t no peace of mind.”
“Hungry Heart,” Springsteen’s first Top 10 single, helped push The River toward five million copies sold—and took The Boss up another notch towards superstardom.
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