It’s time for another dip into the “1968 Notebook,” a compendium of early, unrecorded song drafts by an eighteen-year-old Bruce Springsteen(!), unbeknownst to fans until it was auctioned, allowing fans to get a peek at it.
Today’s entry is the thirteenth song in the notebook’s table of contents: “New York Morning Love.”
Like all of the songs in Bruce’s notebook, we have no record of Bruce ever performing “New York Morning Love” live, and there’s no known recording–so we don’t know what the song would have sounded like.
However, “New York Morning Love” does stand apart in that it includes both notation for chords and indications for solos, so it would appear that these aren’t just standalone lyrics. Bruce had a complete song in mind.
Perhaps it’s for the best that “New York Morning Love” never made it to the stage or studio, though, because it’s far from Bruce’s best work. In fact, it’s far from his best work in that notebook alone.
“New York Morning Love” is high on melodrama. Keep in mind that Bruce was only eighteen at the time and still living in a New Jersey small town… and then read his imagining of New York city affair, one that bears eyebrow-raising consequences.
Let’s take a close look at those lyrics:
Pastel colors paint the sky
Green sea children cloud your eyes
Upon the grass together we’d lie
And a raindrop filled your eye
That first verse is fairly typical of Bruce’s late 1960s writing. His imagery often featured vivid colors, and he was prone to making frequent trips to the well of nature metaphors.
But the second verse rescues the song from what might otherwise have already been cliched territory for Bruce, wresting the lovers from their green reverie and transplanting them to the reality of a New York City flat.
Stained glass window comes alive
Through its veins pulse the merging light
Under the soft white sheet together we’d lie
And your tears are crystallized
Our narrator and his love lie in the afterglow of their love, but something’s not quite right–why is his girl crying?
I’ll take your love & hide it in my hand
Until the sea has stolen all of the sand
I’ll shield you from the violence of a half-crazed man
Who’d kill you where you stand
Oh. Well, that’s certainly a curve ball. It turns out she’s married, or at least in a relationship serious enough that her partner could conceivably resort to violence for her betrayal.
But Bruce is undeterred, promising to protect her and professing his true love.
Sometimes I doubt if you understand
All the things I’ve spoken to you and
Everything I’ve felt for you today
But I guess you cannot say what you don’t know
Okay, here comes the next plot twist. Ready?
Through the green fields that day we ran
You made me happy like no one else can
Then dusk came in and hid us in the night
And you gave me my first child
Whoa–that’s pretty serious ground for a teenager to travel. Not only is our protagonist in love with a married woman, he apparently is the father of her child.
You’d think that’d be the setup of a fascinating song, but unfortunately that’s where Bruce ends it. There’s a refrain or coda of sorts, one that implies that the lovers long for each other but are destined to remain apart.
Can you help me
Can you help me
Can you help me call your name
(repeat)
I will help you
I will help you
I will help you call my name
…and that’s all he wrote.
So while a recorded version of “New York Morning Love” isn’t likely to ever see the light of day in any fashion, Bruce’s notebook lyrics at least give us some insight into a young artist learning to grapple with some very adult themes.
New York Morning Love
Never recorded
Never performed
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