Roll of the Dice: Jesse

Most of Bruce’s outtakes are partially-formed works-in-progress, lyrical and musical ancestors to released songs we know and love. (Bruce certainly likes to cross-pollinate his lyrics.)

Decades down the line, it seems like most of the really interesting ones have been released in box sets and compilations. Every once in a while, though, we come across a fully-formed unreleased gem that shines in its own right and deserves some love.

Enter “Jesse.”

Recorded with crystal clarity at the apartment of Jim Cretecos (Mike Appel’s business partner), “Jesse” is a superb document of Bruce’s early acoustic songwriting. (See my earlier essay on “Hollywood Kids” for another lost Springsteen original from this session. “Jesse” is much stronger, though.)

If you listen closely, you’ll hear the first evidence of what would eventually become “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).” (The meter is the same, and the third line of each verse is musically almost identical to “Sandy.”)

We don’t know exactly when Bruce wrote “Jesse,” but we know he was only 22 when he recorded it, and we can already see some trademark Springsteenian devices in play:

Oh Jesse, you better start thinking about saving your neck
Oh Jesse, you put on that leather jacket like you put on respect

Ooh, that’s a perfect line, and a great example of Bruce’s skill with metaphor. We’ll see him employ it to great effect in the first two verses.

You got cleats on your boots and a woman who shoots every time you shuffle out the stage door

This line has DNA from two songs that would end up on Bruce’s second album: musically, it’s a dead ringer for “Sandy,” and those boots with cleats would be handed down to Billy in “New York City Serenade.”

Darling Jesse, ah do you know what it’s all for

And here we have the song’s central premise established, and it’s an unsurprising one: a young musician is starting to realize that the lure of the stage and the demands of the road aren’t particularly compatible with a domestic relationship. What is surprising is that that Bruce is familiar with that–one wonders if he based the song on some of his older cohorts, an early example, perhaps, of Bruce’s empathetic abilities.

Ah Jesse, your manager brought by them eight-by-ten glossies of your band
Oh Jesse, he says you wear a cross ’round your neck and come on with nails in your hands

Check off another classic Springsteen device: the religious metaphor. Jesse feels like he can’t ever give enough to his job or to his family–he’s in a no-win situation and is being crucified by both. Jesse comes alive on stage though, feeling the narcotic hit of respect and adoration:

With your insides showing and your New York band blowing them old Chicago blues
Ah Jesse, can’t you see you’re the one, Jesse
Ah sonny, this time it’s you

Watch what Bruce does now in the next verse:

Well Jesse, your child is slobbering all over your pants
And Jesse, your wife has fallen into a trance
She’s got eyes that tell no lies, she’s seen so many wars
Ah be a good boy, Jesse, tell her she don’t have to look no more

Bruce has abruptly abandoned all metaphor, reverting to stark, plain language. At first the line “your child is slobbering all over your pants” feels crude and artless. But that’s deliberate: Bruce is stripping away all of the artifice, romanticism and illusion of life on stage in order to contrast it with the harsh reality of a struggling musician’s home life and his beleaguered wife, who is just trying to survive each day as a single parent.

Jesse knows he should be there for them.

But…

Well Jesse, he knows all the tricks to get the crowd reeling
Oh and Jesse, yeah he rocks ’em with that old soul feeling
And he walks off the stage in a self-adoring haze and gets shoved right out the door
Whoa Jesse, can’t you see now boy that that’s what it’s all about, Jesse
Not even time to do that old played out encore
Oh Jesse

Take that last verse in one more time–it’s brilliant.

We can’t be sure here whether Jesse is back on-stage or still at home, but either way: he’s performing.

He knows how to lift his family’s spirits in the moment–he lights up the room with his energy and charisma, but just like on-stage, he doesn’t hang around for long. Pretty soon he’s on his way out again–no time for an encore–off to continue his endless cycle of living on stage and performing at home.

“Jesse” is a startlingly mature and sophisticated song by a very young Springteen, and it deserves to be released. It’s certainly on par with his material on Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.  and would play well acoustically in concert, too.

Here’s hoping we’ll see this one leave the vault someday.

Jesse
Recorded: April-May 1972
Never released
Never performed

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