Roll of the Dice: The Big Muddy

If you ask me for my top ten Springsteen on songs on any given day, you won’t find “The Big Muddy” on that list.

But if you ask me for my top twenty, I guarantee “The Big Muddy” will be on it every time. It’s one of Bruce’s best songs, and while it may not come immediately to mind when mentally browsing Bruce’s catalog, when you hear it, it’s bound to stick with you for days afterward.

“The Big Muddy” sticks out like a sore thumb on Lucky Town, the 1992 album that introduced it to us. On an album full of bright, shiny optimism, how the heck did a song like this end up smack in the middle of it? Only “Souls of the Departed” keeps it from being the sole rebel on the album, but whereas “Souls of the Departed” is an angry song, “The Big Muddy” is just… unsettling.

Everything about it sounds ominous, from Bruce’s lyrics to his idle guitar and meandering riff. (Bruce plays almost solo, accompanied only by Roy on keyboards and Gary Mallaber on drums.) This is the song of a man uncertain about the way forward.

Let’s take a listen.

That’s one foreboding song, isn’t it?

It’s also one of Bruce’s most referential songs, so before we dive into the lyrics, let’s start by acknowledging the song’s title–an intentional reference to Pete Seeger’s famous anti-war song, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.”

Bruce’s song is focused on more intimate conflicts than Pete’s song, but they share a central conceit: that the waters of moral corruption run deep, and if you think you can wade in one side and out the other, you’re very likely deceiving yourself–perhaps irredeemably so.

Our muddiest imbroglios often start in relative innocence, as Bruce (via Billy) relates below:

Billy had a mistress down on A and 12th
She was that little something that he did for himself
His own little secret didn’t hurt nobody
Come the afternoon he’d take her wading

Waist deep in the big muddy
Waist deep in the big muddy
You start out standing but end up crawling, sonny

Notice how Billy rationalizes his infidelity: his mistress is just a “little something that he did for himself.” He works hard, and presumably takes good care of his family. Doesn’t he deserve a little special treatment? Especially if no one else knows, who does it hurt?

We must take a moment to acknowledge the brilliance in Bruce’s songwriting in those last lines: when Billy takes his mistress wading waist deep in the big muddy, does he mean it literally? (Perhaps a daily afternoon swim?) Euphemistically? (A nooner is a more likely scenario.) Or metaphorically? (Sinking deeper into darker and darker moral territory.)

One verse in, and we’ve got a triple entendre–and in a song that’s all about moral ambiguity, what could be more perfect than that?

In the second verse, the scene shifts–similar, in a way, to “Reason to Believe,” in which Bruce uses vignettes rather than an overarching narrative to illustrate a point.

Got in some trouble and needed a hand from a friend of mine
This old friend had a figure in mind
It was nothing illegal, just a little bit funny
He said “C’mon don’t tell me that the rich don’t know, sonny
Sooner or later it all comes down to money”

And you’re waist deep in the big muddy
Waist deep in the big muddy
You start on higher ground but end up crawling, sonny

What kind of trouble did Bruce (now singing in the first person) find himself in? We never learn, but it was dire enough to require some specialized help from a “friend” who knew he had the singer over a barrel. “Sooner or later it all comes down to money,” he says, and if you’ve got it, you can buy your way out of most kinds of trouble. And when you know you can do that, what does that do to your moral rudder?

The crux of the song comes in the bridge:

Well I had a friend, said “You watch what you do
Poison snake bites you and you’re poison too”

Most accounts of this song cite this adage as a direct quote from Pete Dexter’s novel Paris Trout, and the notion does indeed come from that story. But the original line isn’t about a snake–it’s about a fox, cleverer and therefore far more dangerous than a snake:

She passed the windows wide, averting her eyes, and when she was safely by and looked in front of herself again, she saw the fox. He was dull red and tired and seemed in some way to recognize her.
 
She stopped cold in her tracks, the fox picked up his head. She took a slow step backwards, and he followed her, keeping the same distance. Then he moved again, closer, and seemed to sway. She heard her own breathing as she backed away.
 
The movement only seemed to draw him; something drew him. “Please, Mr. Fox,” she said, “don’t poison me. I be out of your way, as quick as you seen me, I be gone.”
 
She knew foxes had turned poisonous from her brothers. Worse than a snake. She stopped again, and he stopped with her. Her brothers said when the poison fox bit you, you were poison too.
 
The fox cocked his head, and she began to run. She didn’t know where. Her legs were strong; but before she had gone ten steps, they seemed to tangle in each other, and she was surprised, looking down just before she fell, to see the fox between them. Then she closed her eyes and hit the ground.
 
She never felt the bites. The fox growled—the sound was higher-pitched than a dog, and busier—and then she kicked out with her heels and felt his coat and the bones beneath it. He cried out, and when she kicked again nothing was there.
 
She opened her eyes, and as fast as he had come he was gone.
 
She stood up slowly, collecting her breath, and dusted herself off. She was thorough about it, she didn’t like to be dirty, and it was only when her hand touched the inside of her calf and felt blood that she knew that he had opened her up.
 
She saw the bites then, two small openings on the same leg, closer to her ankle than her knee. The blood wasn’t much and had already dried everywhere except near the tears in the skin. She sat back down on the ground and began to cry. The clay was scorched, but she didn’t feel that either.
 
She cried because she was poisoned.

Having the full context of that passage helps us appreciate Bruce’s intent in quoting it: the danger isn’t just that you might get bitten and poisoned–it’s that you might not even feel the bite.

(And yeah, it probably wouldn’t have been a cleaner reference if Bruce had used the fox rather than the snake, but to a listener unfamiliar with the novel the notion of a “poison fox” would sound strange and jarring enough to break the song’s power and take us out of it. So we’ll cut him a break. Besides, Bruce got two great songs out of it: he used the same line in “Gave it a Name.”)

Just in case the song’s message is too subtle, Bruce makes it explicit in the final verse:

Well how beautiful the river flows and the birds they sing
But you and I we’re messier things
There ain’t no one leaving this world buddy
Without their shirttail dirty or hands a little bloody

Waist deep in the big muddy
Waist deep in the big muddy
You start on higher ground but end up somehow crawling, sonny

In other words, let’s not judge Billy or the singer, because we’re all a little dirty and bloody. We wade through life in a series of compromises, moral and otherwise, and we do our best to keep our head above water.

Sometimes, though, we end up crawling, hoping to find solid ground again so we can stand.

Bruce played “The Big Muddy” regularly throughout World Tour 1992, but it hasn’t been seen since. It’s a tough song to translate to a live setting: it demands attention. It’s not a quiet song, but it’s an atmospheric one, and the sonics are as important to the song’s power as the lyrics. Perhaps that’s why Bruce hasn’t attempted it in concert in over a quarter century.

We do have one particularly stellar live performance to enjoy, however: Bruce performed “The Big Muddy” with his 1992 touring band on his MTV Unplugged special (that turned out to be anything but unplugged). While the song wasn’t released on the audio CD, it was restored to the performance when the concert was released officially on VHS.

Enjoy the official video (yes, there is one) for “The Big Muddy.”

The Big Muddy
Recorded: Late 1991
Released: Lucky Town (1992)
First performed: May 6, 1992 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: December 17, 1992 (Lexington, KY)

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