You know, for a guy who likes to profess that he didn’t write songs about relationships until his late thirties, Bruce sure wrote a lot of them back in his early twenties.
Maybe they don’t count because they were never released. Still, even a casual listen to songs like “Like a Stranger” reveals that Bruce was grappling with relationships through song even when he was relatively new to them.
There’s not a lot known about “Like a Stranger.” Bruce never recorded it, and he hasn’t spoken about it. We haven’t seen any lyric sheets turn up, so it’s hard to even estimate when Bruce wrote it.
But we know he performed it, because we have the very well preserved recording of it above, from his days fronting the Bruce Springsteen Band in 1972.
It’s not one of his best compositions, even in comparison to his other original songs from that period. The metaphors are spare and simple, and the language is often repetitive:
And when the children return to their mothers
When my lover goes home to her lover
She pulls tight around me just like my covers
But you know loneliness is such a bad lover
…ouch. That’s a really weak verse (although a good last line).
“Like a Stranger” is more notable for its theme–a young Bruce Springsteen coming to grips with the inner workings of relationships–than its artfulness, so I’ll keep my analysis high level.
Well no matter where I run, no matter where I hide
Like a bloodhound on the trail of a convict lost in flight
She sees me in the daytime, mama, she kiss me every night
She thrills me in the night-shine, mama, and chills my sheets at night
Yes and what I wouldn’t give
Oh darlin’ what I would not give
Baby what I wouldn’t give to be able to live
Like a stranger, no woman, no home
Like a stranger, no cares but my own
Like a stranger, a different face, a different name
Like a stranger, a different place, a different game
Like a stranger, a different touch, a different smell
Cause then you would not know me so well
That last line of the chorus is the line that makes the song. Until then, “Like a Stranger” is a typical girl-as-object-of-desire-cum-enigma song, but that last line flips the song on its head: its not the girl who’s the cipher, it’s the singer. Or rather, that’s how he wants to see himself. But his girl, she knows him all too well, and that freaks him out:
Well she claims she knows everything I do
And why I do everything
She says she knows all the meaning to every song I sing
She’s the wind that blows me inside out
On the streets at 2am
She burns me up and spits me out, and tells me who I am
Bruce is writing about something most of us–all but the most self-aware perhaps–encounter in our early romantic relationships: that moment when you realize that your partner understands you more than you understand yourself. If knowledge is truly power, that’s a scare concept to come to grips with. it’s also a pretty great concept for a young songwriter: it’s safer to be a stranger than to be known.
So we can forgive Bruce for his relative inartfulness with “Like a Stranger,” because he’d eventually get it right. In fact, not that long from here–just three years later, he’d write and release these lyrics on vinyl:
With her killer graces and her secret places
That no boy can fill with her hands on her hips
Oh and that smile on her lips
Because she knows that it kills me
With her soft French cream
Standing in that doorway like a dream
I wish she’d just leave me alone
Compare those lines to the first verse of “Like a Stranger,” (in content, they’re basically the same) and you’ll see just how much Bruce grew as a songwriter in those three years.
(And yeah, we’ll just leave that last verse alone…)
We shouldn’t be too harsh with “Like a Stranger.” It’s a stepping stone to later, subtler, and more incisive songs, and there are still phrases to admire and appreciate.
But there’s a reason why Bruce never recorded it, and it’s probably not oversight–so this will likely remain our definitive document of the song.
Like a Stranger
Never Recorded
First performed: February 4, 1972 (Richmond, VA)*
Last performed: February 25, 1972 (Richmond, VA)
*evidence suggests “Like a Stranger” was performed in 1971 as well, but we cannot pin to a particular date(s)
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