Covers of Bruce Springsteen songs tend to fall into two categories: new interpretations of Bruce’s officially released material, or songs Bruce wrote and gave away.
Gary U.S. Bonds’ cover of Bruce’s “Angelyne” falls into an odd third category, however: Bruce not only gave him the song, he gave him the recording. Take a listen to the track below and you’ll clearly hear the E Street Band backing Bonds.
“Angelyne” is a serious E Street Band showcase: not only do Danny and Clarence get extended solos, but Steve trades off lead vocals with Bonds!
How in the world did this come about? We can thank Columbia Records for that.
Although there seems to be no definitive chronicle or sequence of events, it appears that Bruce and the E Street Band first recorded “Angelyne” on February 1, 1980 during the River sessions. (Interestingly, the song kicks off with “party noises” similar to those in “Sherry Darling,” which Bruce would record later that same month. Bruce gave “Angelyne” to Bonds, who likely recorded his vocals over the backing track, turning the song into a duet with Bruce.
And that’s where Columbia enters the picture: Although they apparently had no objection to Bruce participating in Bonds’ previous album, Dedication, they took issue with Bruce’s vocals being used on the follow-up. So even though Bruce co-produced the album and wrote a whopping seven of the eleven tracks on the album, Bruce was forced to remove his vocals from all of the recorded tracks (although I swear I can hear his unmistakable whoop at around the 1:53 mark).
That didn’t pose a problem for most of the album, since Bruce was singing very much in the background. But on Angelyne, he was front and center. Co-producer Steve Van Zandt came to the rescue, assuming the lead duet role, and the rest is history.
(Footnote: the original version with Bruce is still in the vault somewhere, it seems: in 1993, Bruce compiled an early prototype of Tracks, on which “Angelyne” was the second-to-last of 25 tracks. Several of the songs on that album remain unreleased to this day and continue to tantalize collectors.)
As for the song itself: let’s start with the title, because it holds some significance: it was the working title of the song that would eventually become “The River.” Take a listen to this early pre-Mary demo:
“Angelyne” eventually morphed into “The River,” but Bruce was apparently too taken with the original name to discard it altogether. Instead, he gave it to the female lead of the song that now bears her name on Bonds’ On the Line album.
The two songs are diametrically opposite: “Angelyne” is a fairy tale romance, where our heroes Big Bill and Little Angelyne meet, hook up, elope, run off to Vegas, come back and raise a family, and live happily ever after. There may have been some trials and tribulations along the way (Bruce writes of holding together when times were thin), but the lyrics and the roadhouse backing track imply that life didn’t throw anything by them that Bill and Angelyne couldn’t handle together. “The River,” on the other hand is all about what happens when reality inevitably trumps romance.
And yet, the two songs also bear some striking similarities. In fact, it’s almost like “Angelyne” and “The River” are mirror images from parallel universes. Maybe Bill and Angelyne didn’t meet in high school when they were just seventeen, but they’d still find themselves heading down to the river:
He was a bouncer in a joint called Tony’s Body Shop
She was a night cashier down at the Stop ‘n’ Shop
He was kinda good lookin’
And she was kinda fun
They met ‘neath that big oak tree
Out where the river runs
Little Angelyne, Little Angelyne
As the sun goes down and the moonlight shines
Back of a Greyhound bus sit two lovers entwined
Just Big Bill and Little Angelyne
And maybe the pregnancy didn’t come first, but Bill still finds himself prematurely proposing to Angelyne:
She was just in from Texas, didn’t know her way around
So he took her to a roadhouse on the edge of town
In the beer hall light she looked so fine
And so he popped the question that was on his mind
It was a simple affair, only a friend or two
Preacher asked if they did, they said they do
She bought two tickets with her daddy’s American Express
And hopped a Greyhound bus in her wedding dress
They faced money troubles (self-created and otherwise), but nothing they couldn’t face together:
In a six dollar motel with the honey bun
With seven glorious days in the Nevada sun
He played the tables, she pumped the slots full of dimes
They came back broke but they had a good time
Now many fell apart in the years come and gone
But Big Bill and Little Angel they’d last on and on
They held together when the times grew thin
A little boy that looked like her, and a girl that looked like him
Their youthful memories seem anything but a curse, because for Bill and Angelyne, their life was a dream that did come true. The song fades out with Bill and Angelyne literally riding off into the sunset:
So mister don’t you pay it no mind
If the sun goes down and the moonlight shines
Back of a Greyhound bus sit two lovers entwined
It’s Big Bill and Little Angelyne
But if “Angelyne” is the mirror image of “The River,” that doesn’t mean it’s an inferior song. “Angelyne” succeeds as a light-hearted romp–romantic, infectious, and tailor-made to show off the E Street Band’s chops.
Yet Bruce has only performed “Angelyne” once in concert, duetting with Bonds at a club gig in Long Branch in the summer of ’89. I’d hoped that this would be one of the outtakes Bruce would dust off for the River Tour reprise in 2016, but no such luck. It remains on my chase list–a long shot to be sure, but no longer than the odds that faced Big Bill and Little Angelyne.
And look how they turned out.
Angelyne
Recorded: February 1, 1980 (backing track); 1982 (Bonds and Van Zandt lead vocals)
Released: On the Line (1982)
First performed: July 2, 1989 (Long Branch, NJ)
Last performed: July 2, 1989 (Long Branch, NJ)
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