Roll of the Dice: Eloise

Someday I hope someone brings an “Eloise!” sign to a show, just so I can a) finally learn how the song ends, and b) watch the collective confusion in the room when Bruce plays the opening bars and sings:

Or maybe Bruce can play an “Eloise/Growin’ Up” mash-up the way he used to segue from “Preacher’s Daughter” into “She’s the One.” Either way, it’d be fun.

Anyway: yeah, this is the origin of what would become “Growin’ Up,” at least musically. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

We don’t know actually know when “Eloise” was written, even if only in relation to “Growin’ Up,” but the recording above (the only known recording), is contemporaneous to the earliest known demo of “Growin’ Up” as well–both were recorded in the spring of 1972. We can peg “Growin’ Up to a specific date that year–May 3rd–but “Eloise” only to the April-May timeframe, which means whether it pre- or post-dates “Growin’ Up,” it’s not by much.

It’s quite possible that Bruce was testing two sets of lyrics with the same melody and was unready to commit to a designated survivor.

We know which one ultimately won out, of course, so we may never find out just what gave Eloise all the power and what she chose to do with it.

It’s a great set-up, though (even if it pales beside the first verse of “Growin’ Up”):

Well, what power of God does a nun use to hold a parish priest
And what makes a good cop let go a beautiful thief
Oh, and how does a queen know she can hold that man with honey
Oh, and what makes an old woman give a young man all her money
Well, late in the night ‘neath the pale moonlight that power comes over me
And it’s all Eloise, yeah

Eloise
Recorded: April-May 1972
Never released
Never performed

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