Cover Me/Roll of the Dice: Jersey Girl

Honestly now: are we really sure Bruce Springsteen didn’t write “Jersey Girl?”

I mean, I know that Tom Waits is clearly credited with it, and that his wonderful original version debuted on his 1980 album Heartattack and Vine almost a full year before Bruce ever performed it.

But come on: how is it possible that “Jersey Girl” isn’t a Bruce Springsteen song?

Its lyrics absolutely reek of Bruce:

✔   Name-checks a numbered New York City avenue
✔   Narrator who takes a trip across the river for a meeting
✔   Romantic Jersey Shore setting

Heck, if it wasn’t for the fact that Heartattack and Vine beat The River to record stores by two months, I’d swear there are “Out in the Street” and “I Wanna Marry You” references as well.

Okay, fine, I accept Waits’ authorship. Bruce wouldn’t have written that line about “the whores on 8th Avenue” anyway. But there’s a part of me that believes there’s some vast rock-and-roll conspiracy hiding the real truth.

In any event, Bruce first performed “Jersey Girl” at Max Weinberg’s wedding reception during a break between the European and second U.S. legs of the River Tour. We don’t have a recording from that event, unfortunately, but we do have one from two weeks later, at the first-ever show (by anyone) at the Meadowlands.

Bruce teed it up with the hometown crowd by sharing his observations that Europeans are different than New Jerseyans. (Glad he cleared that up.) Europeans are great, he said, but there’s “nobody better” than a New Jersey crowd. (I’ll let you decide whether or not that was a pander.) And then, Bruce debuted his own version of Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl.”

Fans familiar with Waits’ version probably noticed that Bruce cleaned up the lyrics a bit, but the shocker was the completely new final verse:

I see you on the street and you look so tired
Girl I know that job you got leaves you so uninspired
When I come by to take you out to eat
You’re lying all dressed up on the bed baby fast asleep
Go in the bathroom, put your makeup on
We’re gonna take that little brat of yours and drop her off at your mom’s
I know a place where the dancing’s free
Now baby won’t you come with me

That verse perfectly matches the tone and heart of Waits’ original–in large part because Waits’ songwriting on “Jersey Girl” so closely resembles Bruce’s own style.

In any event, while it wasn’t the first time Bruce wrote new lyrics for a song while covering it (he’d done it just a few months earlier with “Trapped“), and while it certainly wouldn’t be the last, it may very well be the most natural graft he’s ever made.

(None of us would realize it for more than three decades, but as it turns out, Bruce had those lyrics in his pocket already–he’d written them for “Party Lights,” recorded during the River sessions but locked away in the vault until it was released with The Ties That Bind box set in 2015.)

Exactly one week later, at the final show of that opening Meadowlands stand and after another practice performance on the 5th, Bruce recorded his performance of “Jersey Girl” for posterity. That rendition is the one we’re all most familiar with–it was released as the B-side to the single for “Cover Me” in 1984 and included on Live 1975-85 two years after that.

It’s a magnificent performance–one of Bruce’s very best and certainly one of his most passionate.

But the official release wasn’t the most remarkable “Jersey Girl” performance of the tour. That honor would have to go to (ironically) a Los Angeles performance from later that summer, where Bruce introduced the song by remarking:

There’s a guy that’s written a lot of great songs, like “Ol’ 55,” “Heart of Saturday Night…” and this song. When I heard it, I remember it was one of those songs I said, “Well… I wish I’d wrote that.” It’s a song called “Jersey Girl” and Tom Waits is gonna sing it with us.

And then, as promised, Tom Waits joined Bruce on stage for their one and only public duet of “Jersey Girl.” (They’d perform it once more in 1990 at a private reception.) Take a listen below–and notice how it’s an unusual, one-off hybrid version: Tom sings Bruce’s sanitized first verse but adds his “And I call your name; I can’t sleep at night” flourish that Bruce dropped, while Bruce sings the verse he added.

Almost immediately, “Jersey Girl” became a tri-state area favorite. Bruce has performed it dozens of times since the River Tour, but only four times outside of NJ, PA, and NY.

The real winning lottery tickets, though, were held by the few fans who were lucky enough to catch Bruce playing it on a summer night at the Jersey Shore. Here’s one of the earliest of those performances: Bruce with Cats on a Smooth Surface at The Stone Pony on August 15, 1982–remarkably captured and preserved on video.

As the years passed, “Jersey Girl” became less of a trusty tri-state standard and more of a special occasion marker. Bruce still played it, but the night had to be special to warrant it–like his 1993 Concert to Fight Hunger benefit, for example, where he played it with his new touring band, Max Weinberg, and the Miami Horns.

…or at his first-ever show in Atlantic City, where he played “Jersey Girl” solo on piano…

…or in 2009, where it was the last song he’d ever play at Giants Stadium before its demolition.

But I think my favorite all-time performance of “Jersey Girl” was on August 25, 2016, at an occasion that was only special for two fans in the entire Metlife Stadium. About halfway through the song, Bruce became distracted by something happening in the pit. And if you haven’t seen this video before, you should have the pleasure of finding out what was happening the same way we all did that night.

This video was too close to capture the fireworks at the end of the song. But I was there, so trust me when I tell you: the fireworks couldn’t make that moment any more wonderful than it already was.

Updated 12/13/2020: During the early days of the great shutdown of 2020, Bruce and Patti contributed their talents to a fundraiser for the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund. One of the songs they performed that evening was a poignant reading of “Jersey Girl.”

Jersey Girl
Recorded: July 9, 1981 (live)
Released: Live 1975-85 (1986)
First performed: June 22, 1981 (East Orange, NJ)
Last performed: September 3, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)

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