Twenty years ago, Bruce turned on the outtake faucet, first releasing Tracks, a four-disc box set of ones that got away, and following that up in subsequent years with a full disc of bonus songs on The Essential Bruce Springsteen, an album-that-never-was (The Promise), and even more outtakes in The Ties That Bind box set.
And if there’s one thing these last two decades of revealing outtakes have taught us, it’s that Bruce cross-pollinates his lyrics and melodies until he finds a combination that brings to life the message he’s trying to express.
Case in point: “Bring on the Night,” a Darkness/River-era outtake that has some very familiar lyrics:
Yes, “Bring on the Night” is a kissing cousin to “My Love Will Not Let You Down.” The two songs share more than some common lines–they’re both restless, urgent, lonely cries for connection from an isolated introvert. (“Dancing in the Dark” is another example of that theme–Bruce would mine this ground often during his early stardom years.)
But while the protagonist of “My Love” is fiercely defiant and determined to make that connection and conquer his shyness, the narrator of “Bring on the Night” accepts and relishes his inability to connect.
I lie in bed but baby I can’t sleep no matter how hard I try
There’s something bad, baby, wrong with me whenever I close my eyes
The dreams of Mary keep me awake with every little curve in place
When I walk home in the daybreak, I pray come back home, baby, won’t you give me
Darling bring on the night
I walk the street, I’m looking for romance
I end up stumbling in some stupid half-trance
As I watch the lovers mix with circumstance
We watch the disco dancers dance
I look for connection in some new eyes
But for protection they’re tranquilized
Forbidding close inspection of who’s telling who
Forbidding close inspection of who’s telling who lies
Those bold lines are pretty darn close to “My Love Will Not Let You Down,” but the latter takes a significant turn at the end of those lines:
At night I walk the streets looking for romance
But I always end up stumbling in a half-trance
I search for connection in some new eyes
that hardly protect you from too many dreams passed by
I see you standing across the room, watching me without a sound
I’m gonna push my way through that crowd
I’m gonna tear all your walls down
See what I mean? “Bring on the Night” accepts the walls we build to protect ourselves, the walls that “My Love Will Not Let You Down” promises to break through.
Because the two songs take a central idea and go off in opposite directions, it’s tempting to assume that Bruce set out to do that–that he wanted to tell two different but related stories. But the more I listen to “Bring on the Night,” the more I believe that it’s simply a primitive version of “My Love Will Not Let You Down,” a work in progress that Bruce never meant to release and that ultimately led to another finished product.
There’s evidence to support this theory: first, “Bring on the Night” pre-dates “My Love” by about three years, so the two were not contemporaries. Second, “Bring on the Night” is, to be frank, clumsy: The lyrics don’t quite fit the meter of the song (“forbidding close inspection of who’s telling who lies” is just a mouthful), Bruce trips over them from time to time, and there’s lazy imagery (“disco dancers dance”). It sounds like a polished beta of a song–the melody is down pat, the sax solo is sublime, but the lyrics and the vocals just aren’t smoothed out yet. And then there’s the fact that Bruce has never performed “Bring on the Night,” whereas “My Love” is a fan favorite on every tour.
If we listen to the existing outtakes (can outtakes have outtakes?) of “Bring on the Night,” we can trace the origin and evolution of both its theme and melody. Here’s an early version, recorded at home. The melody is very different (until about 2:25, when suddenly and inexplicably the melody shifts to the one we’re familiar with), but the theme is already there, even though most of the lyrics aren’t:
(I actually like this arrangement a lot–I’d love to have heard this one with more polish.)
The few lyrics that are intelligible establish that the narrator is restless, unable to sleep, and craving for nightfall “to make everything all right.”
In this next version, Bruce has started to develop the idea of the narrator walking the streets, unable to connect:
By 1979, Bruce had almost settled on the final lyrics. He seized the late transitional melody from the first outtake above, and called the band together to rehearse the song:
On June 13, 1979, the band recorded the final take, but it would sit in the vault for 19 years before being remixed and released on Tracks. Sandwiched on Disc One right after “Give the Girl a Kiss” and “Iceman,” and just before “So Young and in Love” and “Hearts of Stone,” “Bring on the Night” sticks out prominently, weak in comparison to the polished classics that surround it.
Nevertheless, it offers a fascinating peek into Bruce’s songwriting process, and some insight into what would become one of my favorite Springsteen songs. For those reasons at least, I’m glad Bruce released “Bring on the Night.”
Bonus: Here’s another early outtake–I suspect this one is earlier than the others, as it has almost nothing in common with them other than the title and theme. This version is full of violent imagery, with a narrator who call for night because he wants to black out all of the crime and pain that comes during the day. It’s an interesting conceit to use night to combat the paradoxical darkness of day, but clearly, Bruce wanted to take the song in a different direction.
Bring on the Night
Recorded: June 13, 1979
Released: Tracks (1998)
Never performed
Looking for your favorite Bruce song? Check our full index. New entries every week!
