It’s the crickets, I tell you.
The crickets are the secret ingredient that elevates “County Fair” from sublime to magical–and they started as an accident (or so the story goes).
“County Fair” was originally recorded in early 1983 in Bruce’s home studio. Following on the heels of the Nebraska sessions, “County Fair” has a similar muddy sound and rural flavor.
It also had accidental crickets on the basic track–Bruce had apparently left the window open and upon playback noticed them and decided to double down, recording them in the wild and mixing them with the accidental crickets already on the track.
The result: an already great song about a perfect day becomes a perfect song itself.
There’s no plot to “County Fair,” no character development, transformation, or revelation. It’s just a song about being young and in love, in a small town on a perfect day.
The crickets establish an immediate sense of time and place: a summer evening in a town quiet enough that you can hear them play. The production itself is muddy, intentionally so–it’s designed to evoke an older home recording (which is of course what it is)–so the presence of the crickets throughout lends an additional air of authenticity.
Bruce wastes no time establishing the scene:
Every year when summer comes around
They stretch a banner ‘cross the main street in town
You can feel somethin’ happenin’ in the air
Well from Carol’s house up on Telegraph Hill
You can see the lights goin’ up out in the soldiers’ field
Gettin’ ready for the county fair
This lyrics are also notable for their specificity. His girl’s name is Carol, and she lives on Telegraph Hill, within line of sight from Soldiers’ Field. Later in the song, Bruce namedrops a fictional band, “James Young and the Immortal Ones” (I had to Google to make sure–that’s how perfect a name he invented). Bruce is often deliberate with detail, but this seems like a focused attempt to bring a vision into reality.
County fair, county fair
Everybody in town will be there
So come on, hey, we’re goin’ down there
Hey little girl with the long blond hair
Come win your daddy one of them stuffed bears
Baby down at the county fair
That chorus shifts the song from scene-painting to first-person excitement, and the main body of the song traces the arc of the narrator’s and Carol’s day at the fair:
Now you’ll be hangin’ tight when we hit the top
And that rollercoaster’s ready to drop
And you brag, how you wasn’t even scared
Well baby you know I just love the sound
Of the pipe organ on the merry-go-round
Baby down at the county fair
Now at the north end of the field, well they set up a stand
And they got a little Rock ‘N’ Roll band
The people dancin’, yeah, out in the open air
Well it’s James Young and the Immortal Ones
Just two guitars, baby, bass and drums
Just rockin’ down at the county fair
As the day ends, magic sets in, as it often does for young lovers on summer nights:
Now it’s gettin’ late before we head back to town
We let the fortune wheel spin around
Come on mister, tell me what’s waitin’ out there
On my way out I steal a kiss in the dark
Hope I can remember where our car’s parked
Baby at the county fair
…and then the pair are home again, sitting with full hearts in the front yard as the evening descends. Max’s percussion stops–there’s no forward motion now, just the present:
Now off down the highway there’s the last stream of cars
We sit a while in my front yard
With the radio playin’ soft and low
I pull Carol close to my heart
And I lean back and stare up at the stars
Oh I wish never had to let this moment go
And then the band stops. And for a moment, we are in that moment, with the lovers and the crickets.
And then–right where we’d expect a final chorus in a traditional song–Danny’s organ gently carries us drifting off into the evening, leaving Bruce and Carol to their moment. It’s a powerful but subtle use of the band and ambient noise that elevates “County Fair” to one of Bruce’s most cinematic songs.
It didn’t start out that way: you can hear the original recording below. Instead of the band, Bruce plays all the instruments (the drums are a machine), but the vocals are identical to the released version, so it seems that for the released version, Bruce just replaced the instrumental track.
In this first version, however, the synth is way too pronounced, and with the drum machine the effect undermines the song by establishing a modern (at the time) 1980s context. The final verse isn’t as quiet (the drums never completely stop), and there’s no pause after the final line–but you can still hear what Bruce was aiming for and would hit in the final version.
For such a beautiful song, it’s surprising that Bruce didn’t release it until 20 years after it was originally recorded, and even then only on a “bonus disc” of outtakes included with The Essential Bruce Springsteen. It had long been circulating in the wild among collectors, however, and fans were pleased that the released version preserved the magic of the unofficial version.
Bruce has only ever performed “County Fair” live twice: once in 2003, with Danny Federici’s accordion replacing to much better effect the synthesizer on record, and once solo on electric piano (and a little rougher, when Bruce completely forgets a line) two years later. You can hear both performances here:
This is one of the rare instances, however, where a live Bruce Springsteen performance can’t match the recorded version of the song. “County Fair” is too delicate; it’s completely overpowered when attempted live, and that’s probably why Bruce hasn’t tried since.
County Fair
Recorded: early 1983
Released: The Essential Bruce Springsteen
First performed: September 20, 2003 (Darien, NY)
Last performed: August 6, 2005 (St. Louis, MO)
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