Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat: I’m not even going to try to analyze and explain what the phrase “Tenth Avenue freeze-out” means. After all, if you ask Bruce, even he’ll admit:
But “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” the song… now that we can discuss.
But before we do, let’s step back for a moment and acknowledge just how unlikely it is that this song even exists. How much prescience, self-awareness, and outright ego must one have to mythologize one’s self, one’s compatriots, and one’s story at the tender age of twenty-five and a track record of exactly two albums that the world barely noticed?
Because that’s exactly what “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” is: a self-mythology, the story of the trials, tribulations and ultimate triumph of a man who embraces his self-importance even as he winks at it.
“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” has taken on a life of its own over the years, morphing and growing to keep pace with the myth itself. At various times in various eras, it’s celebratory, mournful, or redemptive.
But at its origin, it was a cocky, almost braggadocious strut. It entered the scene as the second track on Born to Run, on the heels of what is arguably Bruce’s greatest songwriting achievement. As if he knows just how masterful and enduring that song would turn out to be, when the famous coda of “Thunder Road” fades, the very next thing we hear is a herald of trumpets announcing the arrival of the future of rock and roll. Drum roll, please!
Those first twenty-five seconds are some serious self-aggrandizement–and Bruce knows it, because he brings himself and us back down to earth with some serious self-bathos:
Teardrops on the city
Bad Scooter searching for his groove
Seem like the whole world walking pretty
And you can’t find the room to move
We start our tale with an immediate declaration of autobiography (Bad Scooter’s initials ain’t no coincidence) and perhaps Bruce’s earliest depression confession on record.
Well, everybody better move over, that’s all
‘Cause I’m running on the bad side
And I got my back to the wall
“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” was the last song written and recorded for Born to Run. At that point in Bruce’s story, he absolutely did have his back to the wall. Two failed albums into his recording career, Bruce knew his third album was make or break. He wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue runs down the Manhattan west side, through Hell’s Kitchen and into the West Village, where Bruce used to play. That was a mean street back then, and it gave Bruce an apt metaphor for his precarious career circumstances.
As for the freeze-out: like I wrote earlier, I’m not gonna attempt to define it, but Bruce makes pretty clear it isn’t a good thing. Maybe it’s Bruce’s fear of being frozen out of the rock and roll scene he so desperately wanted to be a part of.
Dang it, I just went ahead and tried anyway.
Our story continues:
Well, I was stranded in the jungle
Trying to take in all the heat they was giving
Remember: two albums in, neither of which set the world aflame. There must have been no shortage of feedback, critique, suggestion, and direction coming Bruce’s way. What must it have felt like trying to navigate those seas toward a singular vision?
Till the night is dark, but the sidewalk bright
And lined with the light of the living
By day, perhaps, Bruce was struggling to realize his vision, but not at night. The night was his, and he brought it to life every time he stepped on stage.
From a tenement window a transistor blasts
Turn around the corner, things got real quiet real fast
I walked into a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
There’s music on the radio, but it’s not his. Bruce is a long way down a dark, cold and lonely path, and it looks like he might need some back-up.
The emotional heart of the song arrives as a primal scream:
And I’m all alone, I’m all alone!
….and a voice whispers in his ear:
And, kid, you better get the picture!
But Bruce doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he howls:
And I’m on my own, I’m on my own
And I can’t go home
It’s funny: because it’s a myth, we tend to think of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” as a heroic journey in which our hero ultimately realizes he needs his band of merry men in order to succeed. But if you listen closely, he only realizes that in retrospect.
Regardless of whether it’s literally Clarence or just a voice in Bruce’s own head telling him to get the picture, he doesn’t. Only after Clarence joins the band and magic ensues does Bad Scooter understand:
When that change was made uptown
And the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city
All the little pretties raise their hands
I’m gonna sit back right easy and laugh
When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half, oh
Tenth Avenue freeze-out!
“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” is often regarded as the story of Bruce and Clarence, and there’s some merit to that interpretation. But the song is bigger than that: it’s the story of the E Street Band, and how Bruce discovered the power of fraternity.
In fact, in an early work-in-progress version, not only does the Big Man feature prominently throughout the song, so does Steve Van Zandt, known here as “Miami.”
And that’s appropriate too, because “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” does more than just celebrate Clarence joining the band–it announces the arrival of Steve Van Zandt as well.
Steve was hired when he broke a logjam blocking the completion of “Tenth Avenue.” Randy and Michael Brecker had been hired to supply the horn parts on the song, but Bruce was unable to articulate what he had in mind. Steve, already a long-time friend of Bruce, was hanging out in the studio that day and had a crystal vision for the song’s horn arrangement. He taught it to the brothers on the spot, and what you hear in the final version of the song is reportedly exactly what they played that day. Bruce hired him as a guitarist for the E Street Band shortly after.
(Interestingly, the early version above doesn’t have the horn parts, yet it clearly refers to Miami as part of the brotherhood. This suggests that the instrumental might be an earlier basic track, with a vocal overdub by Bruce. Perhaps Bruce recorded it as a guide for Steve to use with the Breckers; if so, it suggests that Bruce only finalized the song’s lyrics very late in the process. Not much is known about this particular recording other than that it showed up unheralded on E Street Radio back in 2005. Other curiosities in this work-in-progress: Bruce’s wince-inducing stereotypical “oriental” guitar flourish after the “Chinatown” reference, and more interestingly, the “say it! say it! say it!” ending that he uses in concert to this day.)
Bruce, Steve, and the band finished recording the song on May 16, 1975. Barely two months later, they debuted it on stage at the opening show of the Born to Run Tour. Listening to it more than four decades later, it bursts with barely contained energy. It’s also Steve’s debut performance with the band, and his vocals are prominent, already helping to cement the band’s new sound.
In December, the song was released as a single, but it barely cracked the Hot 100 and only charted for three short weeks. But it quickly became a fan favorite in concert.
Bruce started re-arranging and re-interpreting “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” almost immediately. At the year’s last stand at Philadelphia’s Tower Theater, Bruce debuted a stunning (and never repeated) slow full-band arrangement. Fittingly, Clarence’s vocals and Steve’s guitar are just as prominent as Bruce’s lead.
But for the most part, it remained true to its original uptempo strut. It’s been a mainstay of every tour, and frequently a showcase for the guest-starring Miami Horns.
During the E Street Band’s decade-long hiatus, “Tenth Avenue” went missing in action for the most part. When it did surface, it carried extra heft. At Bruce’s pair of solo acoustic shows in 1990, the song sounded forlorn. With no one present to remind him to get the picture, it seemed Bruce had forgotten the lesson that led him to write the song.
But the next time it surfaced, he’d remembered: At a special benefit show in 1993, Bruce was joined by two surprise guests, and the trio celebrated by the song was reunited.
That night, that moment, was a powerful emotional release, and Bruce surely noticed. When the E Street Band officially reunited in 1999, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” became the emotional centerpiece of the show, growing in length and power and meaning throughout the tour, and ushering in the modern era of the E Street Band. Bruce gave the song room to breathe and allowed the fans to celebrate each member of the band individually.
Probably because of its outsize presence on the Reunion Tour, Bruce largely gave the song a rest during the Rising Tour. It returned on the Magic Tour, however, and it’s been an encore staple ever since. Even after Clarence passed away in 2011, Bruce made the song a permanent setlist fixture, using it not only to pay tribute to his dearly departed friends (Danny Federici had passed three years prior) but to immortalize them–halting the song during the final verse for an arena-shaking roar of release, remembrance, and love.
The break in the song eventually healed, just like a broken heart does, but “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” remained and likely will always be a nightly E Street ritual, a communal tribute and celebration of…
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Recorded: May 5-16, 1975
Released: Born to Run (1975), The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)
First performed: July 20, 1975 (Providence, RI)
Last performed: September 3, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)
Looking for your favorite Bruce song? Check our full index. New entries every week!
