What is it with Bruce Springsteen and cars?
I mean, I get the fascination in general, even if I don’t share it. But he’s on record stating that he didn’t even know how to drive as late as 1970, and he didn’t own a car until 1975.
And yet here he is in 1972, so obsessed with cars with that he actually fetishizes a girl as a car.
From Bruce’s very first demo recording session with John Hammond on May 3, 1972, take a listen to “Street Queen,” performed by Bruce solo on piano:
“Street Queen” wasn’t an idle throwaway. Surviving documents suggest that Bruce actively considered it for inclusion on his first album during the summer of 1972, and indeed he continued to work on the song, refining its lyrics.
On June 7, 1972–the very first day of recording sessions for Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.–“Street Queen” was one of the first four songs Bruce recorded in the studio after signing with Columbia. This time he performed it on electric piano. Take a listen to it below–it’s the first and last recording we have of Bruce playing the electric piano until 33 years later.
There’s not a lot going on in “Street Queen.” As I wrote at the top, this is a fetish song plain and simple, and if there’s not a lot to parse and analyze, we can at least admire Bruce’s talent for riding a metaphor off into the horizon:
She got high class
She rides around in a cut down Chevy machine
Her eyes are plate glass
Oh and legs like a limousine
She comes stocked with sass
And pride ain’t there to be mean
She’s the baddest thing this town’s ever seen
Oh, Street Queen
See what I mean? But Bruce is just revving his engine so far. Read on:
Well, she got a turbine engine, mama
With maximum thrust
Cadillac hips, she’s got the best on the strip
She knows how to use a clutch
That entire verse is a finalist for Bruce’s raunchiest songwriting.
She comes on shiny and black
And, boys, if you hit her you better be tough
Oh she’s the slickest thing that I’ve ever seen
Oh, Street Queen
Let me pause here just to say: thank goodness Bruce finally got around to writing and releasing “Cadillac Ranch” so he could get “long and dark,” and “shiny and black” out of his system. Those phrases can be found floating around his unreleased songs for over a decade before he finally gave them a permanent home.
Anyway, let’s continue, because Bruce is about to go, um, all in.
And you can always tell a moment she’s around
You can hear the loud engine roaring
She says, “Come on, get in. Hey baby, you want to go for a ride?”
I know she sets your mind soaring
Oh and the boys, they jump back
As that engine unwinds
I’m glued to my seat, mama
As I watch that speed-o-meter climb
Oh she moves so fast she’s almost obscene
Street Queen
Bruce probably should have ended the song right after that moment of release, but instead he continues, and it’s almost as if he snaps out of his reverie.
Well, if you’re going to come streakin’ down my street, baby
Like an angel with them Chevy Wings
If you’re going to come streakin’ down my street, baby
Like an angel with them Chevy Wings
You better watch out, Street Queen
Cause you’re messing with the king
I’ll just let that first couplet stand without comment. The last lines, however, are the song’s punchline. Bruce’s main character spends the entire song under the sexual spell of this hard-driving woman, only to suddenly assert his machismo in the song’s final lines. Not only is he not the dominant force in this relationship, he doesn’t realize he can’t even hold his own.
It’s a clever way for Bruce to write his way out of a song that is otherwise more of a songwriting practice exercise, albeit a very clever one.
Obviously, Bruce chose not to release “Street Queen” on his first or any other album, and that was probably a wise choice. But with at least two clean studio recordings in the can, it would sure be nice to see it included on that someday-maybe Tracks II collection, wouldn’t it?
Street Queen
Recorded: June 7, 1972
Never released
Never performed
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