Roll of the Dice: You’ll Be Comin’ Down

Someday, I’d love to see Bruce play “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” back-to-back with “Lucky Town” and see if he has the same epiphany that he had in Sunrise a few years ago…

…because it’s sure hard not to hear echoes of “Lucky Town” from 1992 when you listen to this under-the-radar track from Bruce’s 2007 Magic album, particularly the chorus:

Let’s set the musical similarities aside though, because lyrically the songs couldn’t be more extreme polar opposites. Whereas “Lucky Town” is optimistic, fueled by idealism tempered with life experience, “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” is downright cynical.

Something about Bruce’s vocal delivery keeps it from tipping over into outright bitterness, however. Instead, the singer seems at peace rather than resigned, confident rather than angry. That’s all in the delivery, because the lyrics tell a different story:

White roses and misty blue eyes
Red mornings, then nothin’ but gray skies
A cup of coffee, a heart shot clean through
The jacket you bought me gone daisy gray-blue

Bruce has a sure hand with metaphor, but he mostly restrains it in this song. Instead, he relies on color as his dominant conceit: the girl he sings about is vividly lit in vibrant colors, but everything she touches fades, from the skies above her to the gifts she bestowed.  (It’s a little lazy to use gray twice–even modified as gray-blue–but we’ll let that slide.)

You’re smiling now but you’ll find out
They’ll use you up and spit you out now
Your head’s spinnin’ in diamonds and clouds
But pretty soon it turns out

You’ll be comin’ down now baby
You’ll be coming down
What goes around, it comes around and
You’ll be comin’ down

Reading those lines, it would be easy to hear spite and bitterness, but Bruce’s delivery is that of someone who’s lived a long life and is secure in the knowledge that life is full of ups and downs–and if you don’t live the life of someone who’s going to eventually have downs, you won’t be prepared for them when they come.

Easy street, a quick buck and true lies
Smiles as thin as those dusky blue skies
A silver plate of pearls my golden child
It’s all yours at least for a little while

Back to the color wheel we go, although this time it’s in service of a monetary metaphor, “golden child” serving in both senses. And then, as is often the case with Bruce’s songs, we arrive at the one sentence that captures the essence of the entire song:

You’ll be fine long as your pretty face holds out
Then it’s gonna get pretty cold out

That’s it right there: a prediction and a warning delivered with sadness and affection. The end of the verse and the bridge are basically identical in meaning, driving home the singer’s message (in case it’s been too subtle):

An empty stream of stars shooting by
You got your hopes on high

For a while you’ll go sparklin’ by
Just another pretty thing on high

The last verse ends the song on a weak note, in my opinion:

Like a thief on a Sunday morning
It all falls apart with no warning
Your cinnamon sky’s gone candy-apple green
The crushed metal of your little flying machine

These are odd metaphors: maybe I’m just unfamiliar with a life of crime, but exactly is it about Sundays that poses a danger to thieves? And I’m not sure why a green sky would be any less alarming, concerning, or foreboding than a red one.

But with preceding context, it’s pretty clear that Bruce is saying that someday this woman will lose her beauty and vivacity, and it may happen suddenly and to severe and immediate effect. There’s no indication that the object of the song is listening or will ever hear it, however, so we’re left to just consider it a message to heed ourselves.

IMHO, “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” is the weakest song on Magic, and perhaps that’s why Bruce has only ever played it live once, in the heart of that album’s tour in Columbus. Here’s a pro-shot snippet and an audio clip of the performance in its entirety.

It’s actually a solid performance, both on stage and on record, and the song itself isn’t  bad either. It’s just not great.

Got a different opinion? Please share–when I find a Springsteen song I don’t particularly care for, I love finding reasons to change my mind.

You’ll Be Comin’ Down
Recorded: February-May 2007
Released: Magic (2007)
First performed: March 24, 2008 (Columbus, OH)
Last performed: March 24, 2008 (Columbus, OH)

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