“I had the word. I had ‘Badlands.’ And then I had chord changes and we got in the studio and we laid the track down. And I had a vague outline and I’d go home, I’d play the tape and I’d write the words.” — Bruce Springsteen, July 9, 1978
He had the title, and he had the riff (co-opted from a favorite song, as Bruce confesses below).
And before long, he had the instrumental track in almost final form (the bridge would continue to evolve).
All he needed now was some lyrics.
“Badlands” is such an iconic Springsteen song, so true in its musical and lyrical embodiment of defiance and persistence, that it’s almost unimaginable that it started life as a purely instrumental track–a spirit in search of a host. But once pointed out, it’s obvious: like “Candy’s Room,” (whose lyrics were grafted onto an existing instrumental known simply as “The Fast Song“), the backing track for “Badlands” sounds elemental, as if the idea of accompanying lyrics hadn’t even occurred to Springsteen, because the track already said everything without them.
But “Badlands” was never intended to be an instrumental, and so Bruce set out to craft a story.
It didn’t come easy.
In the early outtake above, “Badlands” is a shockingly callous story. Bruce felt the fire in the song’s soul but overshot its themes of self-determination and self-actualization and landed squarely in self-centeredness and just plain selfishness. In the heart of the song, Bruce dismisses his girl in his impatience to take on the world:
Hurry up and try, try to take me
Girl, I’m walkin’ by in the daytime
Honey, I’m walkin’ by, and I don’t care for you
Hey, now, I’m talking to you, baby
I don’t give a damn, all your kiddin’ ’round
Well, I don’t care, well that you look fine
I don’t really care that you’re all mine!
Yeah, how ’bout that, baby?
Badlands, rip the world apart
Badlands, hurry up and let it start
But the song eventually took form, and this near final outtake, “Badlands” is clearly the song we know and love–with some small but striking differences:
In the version above, the singer wakes up in the night screaming and crying in fury–but not about the existential angst that fuels the rest of the song. Instead, he rails against the president’s false promises of peace; it’s an odd and dated (and belated) reference that disrupts the song, and Bruce seems to have realized that quickly.
But the more striking difference is the “Baby, don’t cry now” spoken-word bridge as the band gears up for the song’s famous final push. I actually like it a lot, both in theory and in execution, but given how that section of the song evolved over the years into a communal chant-along, it’s probably a good thing that Bruce dropped it.
The final version, of course, from late 1977 is perfect. For good reason, it remains one of Bruce’s most-loved songs, with a vocal performance so powerful and impassioned that few artists have ever dared to cover it.
Now let’s take a dive into those lyrics.
In Brian Hiatt’s book Stories Behind the Songs, Hiatt posits that the opening line might have its origins in the great New York City blackout of 1977. Perhaps he’s correct, but I prefer to believe otherwise, because those first three lines rank high among Bruce’s finest stage-setting:
Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision smashing in my guts man
I’m caught in a crossfire that I don’t understand
I’ve always believed that the key to understanding “Badlands” is right there in the first line. Yes, the title is almost certainly inspired by the 1973 classic Terrence Malick film; yes, Bruce probably liked the symbolism of the phrase “bad lands.” But similarly, when Bruce sings about “trouble in the heartland,” he’s really singing about “trouble in the heart land” — in other words, the conflict in “Badlands” is internal, and although the choruses are defiant, the verses are anything but.
“Badlands” certainly seems rooted in the legal battle Bruce had just won, wresting control of his work from former manager Mike Appel. In fact, while much has been made of “The Promise” being a veiled retelling of that conflict, I believe “Badlands” is a far more blatant allegory.
Bruce had just spent years on the road instead of in the studio, frittering away precious months following his big Born to Run break. He’d been built up as the next big thing, then the current big thing, and then he all but disappeared from the scene while he toured secondary markets.
Lights out, indeed.
That existential conflict between the affirmation he received on stage and the self-determination and control he craved over his work almost certainly infused “Badlands” if not directly informed it:
But there’s one thing I know for sure
Girl, I don’t give a damn for the same old played out scenes
Baby, I don’t give a damn for just the in-betweens
Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul, I want control right now
One has to think that as time dragged on, Bruce had to question the wisdom of his resolve and wonder if his legal ownership might come at the expense of his audience’s attention. What if he completely missed his fifteen minutes in the spotlight?
You better listen to me baby, talk about a dream, try to make it real
You wake up in the night with a fear so real
You spend your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come
Well don’t waste your time waiting
The chorus of “Badlands” is defiant, but also desperate. It’s Bruce’s refusal to back down from principle and integrity no matter the cost. It may take time, a long time even, but someday those badlands will treat him good.
Badlands, you gotta live it every day
Let the broken hearts stand as the price you’ve gotta pay
We’ll keep pushing till it’s understood
And these badlands start treating us good
The second verse reveals how Bruce pictured himself, laboring on stage as hard as a field worker, but ultimately for a rich man’s benefit rather than his own. Yes, that “poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king” line comes from Elvis Presley’s “King of the Whole Wide World,” so if Bruce went out of his way to quote it, that notion must have been lodged in his brain for good reason.
Working in the field till you get your back burned
Working ‘neath the wheels till you get your facts learned
Baby, I got my facts learned real good right now
You better get it straight, darling
Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king
And a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything
I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got
Well I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that could save me
I believe in the hope and I pray that some day it may raise me above these badlands
Who’s Bruce talking to here? Whose love does he believe in? That’s easy: ours. Bruce is trusting that his audience would still be there when his legal fight was over and he returned with a long-awaited album.
And then: that bridge.
Not the guitar solo, or the sax solo, as wonderful as those moments are. I’m talking about that quiet interlude that sounds for all the world like Bruce marshaling his fans in lockstep. Max lays down a marching drumbeat behind Bruce and Steve’s wordless harmonies, conjuring a vision of legions of fans at Bruce’s back.
Which of course is exactly what happens during this part of the song in concert. Over the years, that interlude has grown in length and power and potency, an emotional and communal high point in almost every show.
All of this, of course, is just to serve as a build-up for the song’s climax. Bruce may have written songs with final lines that are equally powerful, but certainly none more exhilarating. With all of the power marshaled within and behind him, Bruce dedicates “Badlands” to the dreamers who pursue their passion, who look past the users, and who reclaim their heart and soul from those who would hold them back:
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive
I wanna find one face that ain’t looking through me
I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these…
Badlands
Recorded: Late 1977
Released: Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), Greatest Hits (1995), The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003), Chapter and Verse (2016)
First performed: May 19, 1978 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: September 3, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)
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