You know I always loved a lonely town
Those empty streets, no one around
You fall in love with lonely, you end up that way — Bruce Springsteen, 2019
To be free is to be lonely — Bruce Springsteen, 1973
Even almost a half-century ago, Bruce was both enamored of the freedom of the open road and wary of its cost.
Too often dismissed as a work-in-progress “Zero and Blind Terry,” “Phantoms” is in reality a fully-formed song for which we have a full-band recording. It just so happens to share the exact same music (right down to the oh-oh-OHs) as the better known Tracks track.
Surviving records suggest that Bruce worked on and recorded “Phantoms” and “Zero and Blind Terry” simultaneously during the sessions that yielded his second album. Perhaps he intended for the stronger twin to survive; ultimately neither did.
But whereas “Zero and Blind Terry” foretold the arrival of “Romantic Bruce” (“Incident on 57th Street,” and “4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy)” lay just ahead in the not-too-distant future), “Phantoms” closed the chapter on… what shall we call him? Western Bruce? Historical Bruce? Hallucinatory Bruce? Regardless, “Phantoms” marked the end of songs like “The Angel,” “Santa Ana,” and “If I Was the Priest.” The tone and imagery of Bruce’s songs would shift from this point forward. (He’d temporarily relapse about 35 years later, but that’s an essay for another day.)
Let’s take a listen.
Although records aren’t clear enough to tell us exactly what Bruce had in mind with his dueling “Phantoms” and “Zero and Blind Terry,” we have enough artifacts of the former to suggest that Bruce was tinkering with “Phantoms” right up until the point he abandoned it.
First, we have an early lyrics sheet that shows us that Bruce hadn’t yet settled on a name for Jamey’s love interest. What’s fascinating are the two names he’d tried and tossed: Sandy and Mary. Both women would make an appearance in Bruce’s catalog soon enough.
An early live recording (but not that early–only weeks before Bruce recorded “Phantoms” in the studio, in fact) tells the same story but apparently with understudies: the recording below is the tale of Billy and Bobby instead of Jamey and Jessie.
Still other early lyrics revolve around Billy and Lou, and sometimes the action switches from St. George to St. Croix.
But the events chronicled within remain largely unchanged:
Jamey rides in high boots, breaks his drink and wades in the river
Holds his gun above the water and crosses to the shore
Now the Christian army awaits you, and Jessie is still waiting to date you
Those phantoms fly in strict formation over the hills of Saint George
Now the rebel life is lonely, oh but them mountains are soft with freedom
To be free is to be lonely, oh lonely lonely lonely lonely
Yep, the songwriter is in full Western mode for one last time. Maybe we should call him Steampunk Bruce, though, because “Phantoms” is a strange amalgamation of a Western rider in an 18th century war in Belize with American F-4 fighter jets screaming overhead. So there’s that. Or maybe St. George refers to the Utah town, although that’s doubtful given the St. Croix variants. Best not to think too hard about it.
And anyway, the key to the song is in the last two lines of the first verse, the emergence of a theme that would come to permeate Bruce’s work right up to the present day: freedom is oh so seductive but also oh so lonely.
Let’s continue:
Jamey rides down a broken highway, the heat of the sun tends to bring him down
His field is full of crazy visions of negroes and white women in evening gowns
And he hears Jessie calling to him in the hills
Oh she calls to him from the clouds
And the men are working in the fields
I’m not exactly sure what to make of the “negroes” reference, especially since it’s absent from earlier versions; the uncertain historical and geographical setting makes it difficult to pin down what Bruce intended here. So let’s instead just focus on the fact that Jamey is getting a little road-crazy, possibly with some heat stroke layered on top. In the rhythmic work of the rock-splitters, he thinks he hears his girl calling out to him.
Oh listen to ’em work (oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-ohhh oh)
Oh busting rocks (oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-ohhh oh)
Oh busting those rocks (oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-ohhh oh)
(Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-ohhh oh)
(Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-ohhh oh)
The song goes on from here, but truthfully it doesn’t go anywhere–the verses repeat, the chanting repeats, as Jamey continues riding down that long lonely road and Jessie continues calling him home.
Does Jamey ever make it back to Jessie? We never find out, but I’d wager the answer is no.
Miles to go is miles away.
Phantoms
Recorded: June 1973
Never released
First performed: June 13, 1973 (Binghamton, NY)
Last performed: June 13, 1973 (Binghamton, NY)
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