Roll of the Dice: Murder Incorporated

“There’s a body count incorporated into our way of life. We’ve come to accept the expendability of some of our citizens’ lives and dreams as just a part of the price of doing business.” –Bruce Springsteen, December 17, 1995

It was a Tuesday night in the dead of winter, and a lucky invite-only crowd packed the floor at the appropriately-named Tramps in New York City.

Acclaimed film director Jonathan Demme (hot off of two Academy Award-winning films in a row) was on the scene to prep the crowd for what was about to happen, but it must have been difficult for even the die-hards to believe.

It had been more than six years since the E Street Band had last played in public and over five years since Bruce had called it an era and moved on to a post-E Street career. But the band had tenuously reunited in the studio to record a few new tracks for Bruce’s upcoming Greatest Hits album, and Bruce had a notion to throw an intact Born in the U.S.A. outtake on there as well, one that not only was a serious contender for the album back in 1982-1983 but was actually for a short time going to be the title track.

Bruce felt he needed a modern video to draw attention to the 1982 studio outcast, however, and that’s where Demme and the crowd came in. That evening of February 21, 1995 was supposed to be a simple video shoot, but it turned out to be something more: a ten-song mini-concert punctuated by a half-dozen takes of the video they were there to film.

While the crowd’s anticipation built to a fever pitch, Bruce and the band rehearsed backstage, so calm and assured that you’d think they’d never skipped a day.

And with that, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band launched into their first song, ushering in the Reunion era with the world debut of a song that would someday serve as a centerpiece for every single show of their comeback tour: “Murder Incorporated.”

Ferocious and crunchy, “Murder Incorporated” was the perfect song to re-introduce the new, more muscular E Street Band. (Now with more guitars!)

The intervening years and additional life experience served the song well, making the original 1982 outtake cum Greatest Hits album track seem tame by comparison.

The only downside from that night: the crowd’s excitement over the band’s reunion was so high and the song’s arrangement so fierce, that even though Bruce and the band played “Murder Incorporated” a full six times start-to-finish, the song’s message almost certainly went completely unnoticed.

And that’s too bad, because “Murder Incorporated” was as timely in 1995 as it was in 1982 and as it still is today.

Bruce and the E Street Band performed “Murder Incorporated” a couple more high-profile times that spring, and each time the focus was more on the band than on the song.

So when Bruce embarked on solo acoustic tour later in the year (that would stretch on for over a year-and-a-half, delaying the long-wished-for Reunion Tour), he made sure to feature “Murder Incorporated” in a setting and arrangement where its lyrical content couldn’t be ignored.

Bruce played “Murder Incorporated” over fifty times solo acoustic before he ever played it in a proper concert with the E Street Band, and fortunately one of those performances is available as part of Bruce’s official archive series (get it here).

Stripped down to its mournful essence, “Murder Incorporated” reveals itself as song not of anger but of hopelessness. The song takes its name from the real-life organization of the same name–well, unofficially at least, because the real Murder, Inc. never had a true name. It was simply an enforcement organization for the mob, killing and maiming for a price.

In other words: murder as a business.

And certainly the song can be read literally as a tale of life in the 1930s and 1940s when Murder Incorporated ruled the streets, claiming hundreds of lives.

Bobby’s got a gun that he keeps beneath his pillow
Out on the street your chances are zero
Take a look around you
It ain’t too complicated
You’re messing with Murder Incorporated

Now you check over your shoulder everywhere that you go
Walking down the street, there’s eyes in every shadow
You better take a look around you
That equipment you got’s so outdated
You can’t compete with Murder Incorporated
Everywhere you look now: Murder Incorporated

But Bruce is never one to pass up a good metaphor, so we can safely assume that “Murder Incorporated” is more than just a film noir “Jungleland.” (Plus, Bruce gave up the game when introducing the song nightly on the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour–see the pull quote at the top.)

The key is right there in the second line of the song: out on the street your chances are zero.

The deck is stacked against certain members of our society. The game is rigged. So if you’re playing for the losing team, your life is non-stop vigilance in order to survive it.

A gun is such a potent symbol of violence that when Bruce introduces it in the first line of the song, we might assume that “Murder Incorporated” centers around gun violence. But it doesn’t–the gun is a metaphorical security blanket that’s just about as effective at protection as a literal one. Or as Bruce puts it during a bridge that builds in intensity and desperation until Bruce practically pants his way into the final verse:

So you keep a little secret down deep inside your dresser drawer
For dealing with the heat you’re feeling down on the killing floor
No matter where you step you feel you’re never out of danger
So the comfort that you keep’s a gold-plated snub-nose thirty-two

I hear that you got a job downtown, man it leaves your head cold
And everywhere you look life ain’t got no soul
That apartment you live in feels like it’s just a place to hide
When you’re walking down the street you won’t meet no one eye to eye
Now the cops reported you as just another homicide
I can tell that you was just frustrated
From living with Murder Incorporated

If there was any doubt about the message of “Murder Incorporated,” the last verse dispels it. Powerless, meaningless, nameless–just another casualty of the callousness in our society.

As I prep this article for publication, I’m finishing Week Seven of sheltering in place, and I can’t help but hear “Murder Incorporated” in an entirely new context.

Out in the street your chances are zero.

That equipment you got’s so outdated.

No matter where you step you feel you’re never out of danger.

That apartment you live in feels like it’s just a place to hide.

And yet, when I turn on the TV, talking heads debate the morality of dismantling the economy for all in order to save the lives of a relative few–even though they amount to a number so high that they’re recorded as just another homicide.

It’s enough to make us all frustrated.

Bonus #1: No essay on “Murder Incorporated” could be complete without the spectacular Live in New York City performance. Recorded at the very end of the Reunion Tour with the E Street Band at the peak of their powers, after performing the song every single night of the tour without exception, “Murder Incorporated” is a tour de force, one of Bruce’s most exciting performances on official video.

Bonus #2: “Murder Incorporated” actually made its proper public concert debut not with the E Street Band or even solo but with Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. Bruce, Joe, and the band played it several times during the 1995 mini-tour for American Babylon, which featured Bruce as an honorary Houserocker.

Bruce would continue to perform “Murder Incorporated” many times with the Houserockers over the years that followed. Here’s one such great performance from Light of Day 2010.

Bonus #3: Here’s an alternate unreleased mix of the same recording used for the official release. It’s most notable for its very different introduction and much more prominent piano and organ. Bruce made the right choice for the album.

Bonus #4: Here’s three minutes of Patti and Nils rehearsing their backing vocals in 1995. Just because.

Murder Incorporated
Recorded: May 3-4, 1982
Released: Greatest Hits (1995), The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)
First performed: February 21, 1995 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: February 2, 2017 (Melbourne, Australia)

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