I know what you’re thinking: the dice must be loaded today.
But I’m not sure whether “I’ll Work For Your Love” is truly Valentine’s Day appropriate, love themed-or not.
There’s a lot of worship going on here, but it’s not clear to me whether the narrator even knows the object of his idolatry. Give a listen:
Seriously, there must be almost as much religious imagery here as in “Jesus Was an Only Son,” and at least there it was all literal. In “I’ll Work For Your Love,” the metaphor starts in the second line and never stops.
The setting is pure Springsteen: a nameless bar where an anonymous patron fantasizes about Theresa, who is presumably the bartender, judging from the opening line:
Pour me a drink, Theresa, in one of those glasses you dust off
No coincidence that Theresa is also the name of a Catholic saint, though:
I’ll watch the bones in your back like the Stations of the Cross
‘Round your hair the sun lifts a halo, at your lips a crown of thorns
Whatever other deal’s gone down, to this one I’m sworn
The verses are heavy and anchored with Catholic imagery–so much so that as a non-Catholic, I have a hard time grasping the significance of some of it. I’m sure that there’s a significance to the “seven drops of blood” that fall as Teresa smooths the front of her blouse, but danged if I grok it.
(Interestingly, the extended piano introduction evokes (for me at least) the introduction to “Thunder Road” another example of a biblically-named leading lady).
Only the chorus shakes us from the narrator’s reverie as he promises:
I’ll work for your love, dear.
I’ll work for your love.
What others may want for free, I’ll work for your love.
Given the start-to-finish St. Theresa metaphor, I’m forced to wonder whether the narrator is promising to be a different kind of suitor for the barmaid, or whether perhaps this truly is a devout song–perhaps this is a rejoinder to those who expect their version of God to look out for them without earning that love by living a pious life.
Either way, the song works, I suppose, but it doesn’t resonate with me as a particularly devotional: the lyrics compare Theresa’s physical attributes only:
the bones in your back like the Stations of the Cross…
‘Round your hair the sun lifts a halo
At your lips a crown of thorns…
The pages of Revelation lie open in your empty eyes of blue…
The rosary at your feet, my temple of bones…
If Theresa is a real woman, there’s no hint of personality to be found here. By the most generous interpretation, this is a song about infatuation–who among us hasn’t put the object of our unspoken affection on a ridiculously high pedestal at one point or another?
But working for her love is gonna take a lot more (or a lot less) than driving all night just to buy her some shoes… it’s going to take getting to know her and helping her down off that pedestal.
Am I a Valentine’s buzzkill? Well, let me fix that:
When Bruce performs this song live, there’s no question that he delivers it as a love song–in fact, he dedicates it specifically to the lovers in the room almost every time he plays it. In true Springsteen fashion, the chorus of the song has more power than the verses, but Bruce seems happier to embrace that here than he does for, say, “Born in the U.S.A.”
But there was one particular performance that I bore witness to that made this song resonate in a way I never expected. It came at the very end of the Working on a Dream Tour, at a show that many of us at the time feared might be the very last E Street Band show.
As the final encore set of the tour began, Bruce pulled this song out by his own request. It hadn’t been played at all on the tour, and Bruce made it explicitly clear that this song was also his promise to his audience–that he would never stop working for our love.
He did it again at the end of the High Hopes Tour five years later, this time more tenderly:
I was lucky enough to be at both of those shows, and ever since then, I hear this song as a love note from Bruce to his fans. It may be completely belied by the lyrics, but hey: at least I’m aware of the contradiction.
In music, as with all great art, we receive the way need to. So maybe it’s Valentine’s Day-appropriate after all.
I’ll Work For Your Love
Recorded: March-May, 2007
Released: Magic (2007)
First performed: November 5, 2007 (Auburn Hill, MI)
Last performed: November 7, 2022 (New York, NY)
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