Among the many, many reasons I have to be grateful to Bruce Springsteen, I owe him thanks for introducing me to the music of Jesse Malin.
After listening to Jesse perform songs from his debut album at Bruce’s Asbury Park holiday shows in 2003, I ran right out and bought a copy of The Fine Art of Self-Destruction. It remains one of my favorite and most-played albums to this day. I didn’t know at the time that I’d caught Malin at a key moment in his evolution from punk band frontman to singer-songwriter, but I could certainly sense that in his music. That album felt at once fresh and nostalgic, and I already want to go listen to it again as soon as I finish writing.
By the time Jesse released his third album, Glitter in the Gutter, in 2007, I was a fan for life. Even so, I was completely unprepared for the power of the fourth track on that CD, “Broken Radio.”
Jesse wrote “Broken Radio” for his mother, who died when he was only eighteen. Jesse has described her as an aspiring singer who never made it big. A single parent, she became a waitress but never forgot her dream. And if a song ever came on the radio, she’d stop what she was doing and sing.
If that story sounds at all familiar to Springsteen fans, it’s probably because Bruce has told a similar story about his own mom–whenever music was playing, she’d stop what she was doing and dance. Years into her battle with Alzheimer’s disease, it remained the one always reliable essence of her core self.
So when Jesse sent Bruce the lyrics for “Broken Radio,” in which Jesse describes how he associates his mother so strongly with the radio that he can’t help but summon her presence whenever it plays, I have to believe Bruce was immediately on-board for the duet–even if he hadn’t already once promised Jesse that he was happy to help anytime Jesse needed him.
In August 2006, Jesse and his producer trekked out to Bruce’s house to record Bruce’s vocals. In an interview nine years later, Jesse tells of his producer’s dissatisfaction with Bruce’s initial takes and insistence that Bruce give it another go… and another, and another, much to Jesse’s mortified dismay: “I’m dying, I’m so embarrassed… there were a couple of moments there where I thought ‘are we gonna get thrown out of his house?’”
But in the end, the take they ran with was perfect. Bruce’s vocals are both gruff and tender, sounding for all the world like he might be Jesse’s father–which is wholly appropriate since Bruce appears to be singing lines written from that very perspective. The result is an achingly lovely ballad and a family’s tribute to a lost loved one, with intensely private lyrical references like “stomachache Sundays” that somehow manage to sound universal.
When Jesse starts the first chorus with “your baby loves you more than you know,” I’m in tears. When Bruce leaves that final “The angels love you more…” hanging, I’m sobbing.
“Broken Radio” is a bravely beautiful song.
Bruce and Jesse performed “Broken Radio” live together twice–almost exactly a year apart.
Their debut performance was at the Light of Day benefit in 2010. Despite the welcome addition of a viola to warm up the sound, though, Jesse and Bruce couldn’t quite match the tenderness of their studio performance. (Bruce also missed his final cue, leaving Jesse hanging, although you’d only know it if you were intimately familiar with the original recording.)
But 364 days later, they had another chance at it at Light of Day 2011, and this time they nailed it:
Bruce seemed to be really feeling the lyrics that night, in a way he hadn’t just a year before. During his Broadway show in 2018, Bruce would regularly refer to his mother’s seven-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Backing out the math, I can’t help but wonder if on this night in 2011, “Broken Radio” was beginning to take on an unexpectedly new resonance.
Perhaps that’s reading too much into it. Regardless, both the studio and 2011 live performance of “Broken Radio” remain among my all-time favorite Springsteen collaborations.
Broken Radio
Recorded: August 2006 (audio), April 18, 2007 (video)
Released: Glitter in the Gutter (2007)
First performed: January 16, 2010 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: January 18, 2020 (Asbury Park, NJ)
