Roll of the Dice: Prodigal Son

A couple of weeks ago, we examined “Family Song,” an original Springsteen song that Bruce wrote in the aftermath (or maybe even during) his West Coast reunion with his family in the winter of 1971-72.

Because we now know so much about Bruce’s early life, when we listen to “Family Song” we focus primarily on its autobiographical content–it’s such an intimate song that it almost sounds like a therapy assignment.

But there’s another influence at work in family song, and it’s the impression that his parents’ new home state of California made on him during his extended visit. (For many years in fact, “Family Song” was known by fans under another name–“California (You’re a Woman).”)

But if Bruce seemed to romanticize California in “Family Song,” that doesn’t mean he was blind to its seedier side. He wrote another song around this time called “Hollywood Kids” that painted a seamy street scene as seen through the eyes of an alienated musician.

And then there’s “Prodigal Son.”

Presumably, Bruce wrote “Prodigal Son” around the same time as “Family Song” and “Hollywood Kids,” because he recorded them all around the same time in early 1972, after he returned home from San Mateo. We can think of them as Bruce’s early California trilogy, because they were each clearly infused with if not inspired by the vivid impressions that California must have made on a New Jersey kid spending his first extended period of time out of state.

And if “Family Song” paved the way for more revealing autobiographical songs down the road like “Factory” or “The Wish,” we can look at “Prodigal Son” as one of Bruce’s earliest “saga songs” that paved the way for “Lost in the Flood” just a couple of months later.

It’s clear from the outset that Bruce is writing about California, but we should note the subtlety and poetry he employs even at the tender age of 22. He never name checks the state even once, but the locale is unmistakable:

In a place where outlaws are banned from the range
On a day that mountains have fallen to foes
In a land where boys are forbidden to grow
And metal is the only master

Where the highway ends and the desert breaks
And buildings are bent from great earthquakes
And statesmen crawl on their bellies like snakes
And feed off the public hunger

In a land where skyscrapers scratch the sky
And delinquent daughters to their mothers still lie
Papa stands on the corner, he wants to beat the drum
“Welcome home, my prodigal son”

But it’s also clear that Bruce still very much has his family reunion on his mind. Remember that Bruce’s family had picked up and moved from New Jersey to San Mateo, leaving him behind to make his way as a musician–a career that his father vocally viewed as foolish.

When the prodigal Springsteen finally returned home in late 1971, he was heartbroken from a recent romantic split, scraping to get by, and ready for what he thought was a permanent move. In other words, he almost certainly saw himself as an analog for the biblical prodigal son. While the song isn’t about that, it’s fascinating to see metaphor peek through his art.

As the song continues, Bruce zooms the camera in his mind’s eye in on the city streets.

When rivers run raging through city streets
And great eagles have fallen from their lofty peaks
And policemen moonlight as sideshow freaks
For the final crime is committed

When presidents ride in Ford Mustangs
And the black man releases his Cadillac fangs
And your check died in bed as the landlord bangs
The young girl next door for the rent

Where telegraph wires are attached to your mind
Delinquent daughters to their mothers still lie
Papa stands on the corner waiting to beat the drum
“Welcome home, my prodigal son”

When the telephone rings and falls off the hook
And your legs have been stolen by some defense department crook
And you’re starting to think about writing a book
But now you won’t pledge allegiance to anything

Strangely enough, there actually was someone out there who had lost the use of his legs thanks to the U.S. defense department and who was starting to think about writing a book. Five years down the road, Bruce would read that book and meet the author; ten years down the road that book would inspire one of Bruce’s best-known songs.

Bruce continues, and the song gets increasingly and vividly adult-themed:

And the maid comes in with coffee and cake
In a low-cut dress she wore just for your sake
You explain you’re not dead and she takes it as a compliment
She sticks out her tongue and asks for requests

In a land where skyscrapers scratch the sky
And delinquent daughters to their mothers still lie
Papa stands on the corner waiting to beat the drum
“Welcome home, my prodigal son”

And the Mercury men with hydraulic joints
They bribe with a smile and hold you up in the alley at pinpoint
And ask you to bend over that they may anoint
You with the holy water of your profession

When the line between love and hate gets so thin
And your body takes over when your mind gives in
And your lady lover demands that you pin her to the floor
But it’s too late, your reflexes are shot

And the man on the corner with the nervous twitch
Whispers, “Hey, how’d you like to buy a nice bitch
She’s a .38, and I got her loaded in all six”
He keeps talking and you just keep walking

The characters in “Prodigal Son” are hopeless, defeated, impotent. It doesn’t require a mental stretch to understand why Bruce was writing about those kinds of characters at that particular time.

And if we can criticize the song for its lack of story (like many of Bruce’s songs from this period, it’s stronger on imagery than it is on plot), there’s plenty to admire in its language. In particular, the last verse ranks high among Bruce’s best pre-Columbia lyrics, particularly the first couplet:

And you reach for the sky and get stuck on a steeple
You reach out for love but you get lost in the people
You run through the canyon screaming like an eagle
Then you fall face first in the mud

Those lines are stunningly artful and powerful: if there’s a more poetic way to describe the search for divine acceptance against the interference of church and state, I haven’t seen it. And again, the songwriter was only twenty-two at the time.

In a land where skyscrapers scratch the sky
And delinquent daughters have their own children who lie
Papa stands on the corner watching the parade, he wants to beat the drum
“Welcome home, welcome home, my prodigal son
Welcome home, my prodigal son”

Bruce recorded a demo of “Prodigal Son” (you listened to it above), but it never made it to either an album or the stage. But it remains an important signpost in Bruce’s development as an artist, and another source of insight into an under-chronicled period in his life.

Prodigal Son
Recorded: April 1972
Never released
Never performed

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