Roll of the Dice: Save My Love

Ever since Bruce released Tracks more than twenty years ago, we’ve become used to Bruce rescuing, tweaking, finishing, and releasing outtakes from the vault.

Sometimes the changes are subtle, like when he added a horn overlay on to “Ain’t Good Enough for You” or surgically edited the bootleg of “Mr. Outside.” Sometimes they’re jarring, like the modern vocals grafted onto the end of “The Brokenhearted.” For 18 Tracks, Bruce completely re-recorded “The Promise” rather than release the original recording. (We’d have to wait another decade or so to hear the original.)

But “Save My Love” is in a class by itself: an entirely new 2010 recording of a 1976 song that never even made it into the studio. (And calling it a “song” is pretty generous.)

One hot day in the summer of ’76, almost a full year before the first recording sessions for what would become Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band rehearsed new material at his house.

Fortunately, Barry Rebo always seemed to have a video camera with him at the right time and place; thanks to Barry, we have an astoundingly clear video of that rehearsal session, which included a musically finished but lyrically rough song that existed nowhere in Bruce’s recording sessions until decades later. Take a look at the can’t-believe-they-were-ever-that-young E Street Band:

Notice that the words “Save My Love” don’t appear anywhere in the song. We don’t know if Bruce polished the song beyond what we see in the video above, but we do know he never played it live, and he abandoned it altogether by the time the band was finally able to start recording again in the summer of ’77.

That is, until Thom Zimny came across it while scouring footage for the documentary that would accompany the anniversary box set for Darkness on the Edge of Town. Zimny loved the song, and Bruce was fascinated by it as well–enough to finish the lyrics and summon the E Street Band to his home studio to record it.

We don’t know whether Bruce remembered the song at all. We do know that he and the band had to learn it from watching the 1976 video, so it’s likely that Bruce simply latched onto the few coherent lyrics from the rehearsal and built a new song around it.

There were only three complete couplets in that ’76 video, and one of them was:

So turn up the radio, ’cause I love you the most
We’re linking up the airwaves, we’re travelling coast to coast

And something about that phrase “linking up the airwaves” resonated with Bruce. It suggested two lovers, separated by miles but united by listening to the same song at the exact same time.

Bruce latched onto that notion and rewrote and titled the song. The result became the lead single from The Promise, with a video that’s half box set commercial and half nostalgia, with seamless intercuts of the 2010 E Street Band with their 1976 selves.

Years later, during a rare live outing for “Save My Love,” Bruce gave fans some insight into the song’s modern-day inspiration:

“I always remember the first time I heard one of my own songs on the radio. I was in Connecticut, and I was standing on a street corner and a guy pulled up–we were playing at a local college–had his window rolled down, and i could hear “Spirit in the Night” on the radio. One of the top ten moments of my life… I remember standing there thinking about all the people that were listening to that song at that moment, and there was something… something happens in the air from all those souls converging around one idea, at one moment. That’s what’s happening here tonight. So… I think this is what I wrote about in this song.”

Note the disclaimer–“I think this is what I wrote about.” Whatever inspired Bruce to write the song in 1976 is probably lost even to him, but it’s what he most likely had in mind when he completed the lyrics in 2010.

In a time before mobile phones, before streaming music services, a handful of radio stations facilitated the only semblance of on-line community. Except you had to take it on faith that someone else was listening at the same time you were.

Now there’s something coming through the air that softly reminds me
Tonight I’ll park out on the hill and wait until they find me
Here slipping through the ether, a voice is coming through
So keep me in your heart tonight and I’ll save my love for you

Bruce’s long-distance Romeo sends a silent message out to his girl, pledging and pleading for fidelity, relying on the power of radio to keep their emotional connection strong and synchronized.

So turn up your radio and darling dial me in close
We’re riding on the airwaves and we’re traveling coast to coast
Over river and highway your voice comes clear and true
Though we’re far apart tonight, I’ll save my love for you

In the bridge, our hero surrenders to the power of the music and imagines his girl in his arms, a vision almost made real by the music.

Hold me in your arms and our doubts won’t break us
If we open up our hearts, love won’t forsake us
Let’s let the music take us and carry us home

In the final verse, whatever song is playing on the radio exerts such an intense pull on the narrator that he can no longer resist it. No longer content to simply imagine themselves linked by listening, he wills love to follow the radio signal to his love, and as the song concludes we’re left to wonder whether he sets his car in motion toward her as well.

There’s a prayer coming through the air like a shot straight through my heart
Tearing open the evening sky, tearing me apart
Now I’ll ride that signal down the line till I’m home again with you
So turn up your radio and I’ll save my love for you
Turn up your radio and I’ll save my love for you

Ironically, “Save My Love” made its live debut not with the E Street Band but with Joe Grushecky’s band, The Houserockers. At a 15th anniversary show in Pittsburgh for Joe’s Bruce-produced American Babylon album,  Bruce premiered his “new” song:

The rest of us only had to wait twelve days to hear it, but even then it was yet another band. On November 16, 2010, Bruce, Steve and Roy dropped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to play their new single with The Roots (complete with tuba):

(I think my favorite part of that video is Steve supplying his own “Brooooces” at the end, just in case the mics couldn’t pick up the audience doing it.)

Although certainly still considered a rarity, “Save My Love” has made a handful of appearances on every tour from Wrecking Ball forward, even popping up at off-tour theater and bar gigs, like at this 2015 Houserockers show at the Wonder Bar.

(I was fortunate enough to catch it myself the most recent time Bruce played it, in Virginia Beach in 2016.)

So while it may never be a staple of any tour’s setlist, I doubt it’s ever going to disappear again either. Here’s hoping for the chance to hear it again on the next tour.

Save My Love
Recorded: July 22, 2010
Released: The Promise (2010)
First performed: November 4, 2010 (Pittsburgh, PA)
Last performed: September 5, 2016 (Virginia Beach, VA)

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