Ninety-nine percent of the time, Bruce picks the right take of a song to officially release. With “Sherry Darling,” however, I humbly submit he got it wrong.
Listen to this outtake from the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions, recorded more than three years before the release of The River, and tell me that it’s not superior to the final release:
If that doesn’t bring a goofy grin to your face, I don’t know what will. That’s pure joy in performance form. Here’s the album version for comparison–still a great track of course, but a bit more restrained:
Whichever version you prefer, “Sherry Darling” is perhaps the epitome of “Party Bruce,” the persona he wears when he abandons all pretext of social consciousness, melodrama, and inner demons and just cuts loose.
And yes, while “Sherry Darling” first appeared on the grab bag party album that is The River, its origins date back years, earlier, to the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions.
Here’s Bruce and Stevie having a blast playing it for what must certainly be the earliest recording captured on tape, let alone video:
…and here’s the very first public performance, from early in the Darkness Tour–Charleston, West Virginia, on August 4, 1978–still more than two years before it would be released on vinyl, and with still-in-progress lyrics:
It’s easy to figure out why Bruce didn’t release it sooner–it would have been jarringly out of place on the sober Darkness on the Edge of Town album. But it’s also easy to figure out why he played it often on the Darkness Tour–and pretty much exclusively in the summer.
“Sherry Darling” is a summer song, not only in its setting (with a “hot sun beating on the black top” and the “girls melting on the beach”), but also in its spirit. “Sherry Darling” is loose, carefree, and the biggest problem on the narrator’s shoulders is the ever-present mother of his girlfriend.
In early performance, Bruce called for the audience to create lots of “party noises,” which the E Street Band would eventually supply on vinyl. That’s because “Sherry Darling” is meant to evoke the classic fraternity rock sound–or as Bruce would put it, where the audience is louder than the band.
“Sherry Darling” is raucous by design–we have too much fun to take issue with the callousness and short fuse of the protagonist, who is nearing his limit of what he’ll put up with for his girl:
Your Mamma’s yapping in the back seat
Tell her to push over and move them big feet
Every Monday morning I gotta drive her down to the unemployment agency
Well this morning I ain’t fighting, tell her I give up
Tell her she wins if she’ll just shut up
But it’s the last time that she’s gonna be riding with me
He talks a good game, doesn’t he? But listen to his tone soften toward the end of the chorus, and you can’t help but suspect he’s perhaps bluffing a bit:
And you can tell her there’s a hot sun beating on the black top
She keeps talking she’ll be walking that last block
And she can take a subway back to the ghetto tonight
Well I got some beer and the highway’s free
And I got you and baby you’ve got me
Hey, hey, hey, what you say, Sherry Darling
When you’re young, and you have nothing but time, a car, a girl, and some beer… it’s pretty clear that our hero’s frustration is less about his girl’s mom, and more about the fleetingness of summer:
Now there’s girls melting on the beach
And they’re so fine but so out of reach
‘Cause I’m stuck in traffic down here on 53rd Street
Now Sherry my love for you is real
But I didn’t count on this package deal
And baby this car just ain’t big enough for her and me
There’s just a bit of doubt here: so many girls, so little summertime! Is Sherry really worth the aggravation?
Bruce answers that in the last chorus, where the protagonist suddenly lapses into romantic rhapsody:
Well let there be sunlight, let there be rain
Let the brokenhearted love again
Sherry, we can run with our arms open wide before the tide
To all the girls down at Sacred Heart
And all you operators back in the park
Say hey, hey, hey, what you say, Sherry Darling
Sorry, girls–and enjoy your conquests, you operators–our guy has Sherry, and that’s all he needs and wants.
Don’t get suckered by the bravado and the machismo–“Sherry Darling” is as romantic as “Drive All Night.”
And can we talk about the band for a minute? It takes a lot of practice and a ton of camaraderie (and a great bandleader) to sound this loose and free-wheeling and yet still hold together. “Sherry Darling” captures not only the skill but also the spirit of the E Street Band at the top of their game.
“Sherry Darling” continues to be a summer staple–outside of both River tours (1980-81 and 2016), it pretty much only ever gets performed in the hotter months–and when she comes out, you know you’re in for a loose, fun evening.
Bonus clip:
On his 2005 solo tour stop in Grand Rapids, Bruce performed “Sherry Darling” by himself on electric piano for the first and only time. It’s novel, but far from essential. “Sherry Darling” needs a peanut gallery.
Sherry Darling
Recorded: May 1979 – April 1980
Released: The River (1980)
First performed: August 4, 1978 (Charleston, WV)
Last performed: August 30, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)
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