Roll of the Dice: He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)

Bruce Springsteen, guitar hero?

Bruce doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his skill as a guitarist (Rolling Stone ranks him only 96th on their Greatest Guitarists of All Time list), in large part because he always ensures his instruments are in service of the song rather than the musician.

But that wasn’t always the case: set the wayback machine for the turn of the 1970s, and you’ll find a very different Bruce Springsteen fronting a band called Steel Mill.

Bruce wrote plenty of songs for Steel Mill. Few of them hold up lyrically when compared to his later solo material, but that’s because Bruce’s Steel Mill songs were largely framing devices for the band’s epic jams that often stretched songs far further than one would ever imagine based on lyrics alone.

Case in point: “He’s Guilty (The Judge Song),” written in the summer of 1969 and performed steadily throughout the remainder of the Steel Mill era.

“He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)” is one of the very few songs Steel Mill actually recorded in the studio, more than 50 years ago. Bruce finally released that track–46 years after it was recorded–on his 2016 compilation, Chapter and Verse.

Take a listen, and you’ll hear a much showier, cockier Bruce Springsteen tearing it up on guitar (and a pretty darn impressive Danny Federici keyboard solo, too).

See what I mean? Bruce’s Steel Mill material is typically more jam than song–and at only 4:38, that track suggests remarkable restraint on the part of the band.

But it’s only a suggestion, because their actual studio performance stretched out much longer–Bruce edited the track, presumably for time and modern sensibilities. Here’s the original version of “He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)” in all its glory:

Lyrically, “He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)” is slight–there’s very little to analyze or dissect. That said, there are a few lines worth at least annotating:

All rise!

Well the judge and the jury came into the courtroom
At about 9:30, the 23rd of June

Even though “He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)” was a staple of the band’s sets, for some reason Bruce seemed to frequently forget the time of the trial. Sometimes it was 9:30, sometimes 10:30, sometimes both in the same performance. I have no idea whether this was intentional, accidental, or playful, and it probably doesn’t matter anyway. But it still drives me nuts when I hear it.

Now we’re here to try this boy for his crime
To see if we set him free or make him serve his time
Jury all got up in the chairs
He’s guilty, he’s guilty, send that boy to jail!

Prior to Bruce releasing the song on Chapter and Verse, “He’s Guilty” circulated on a few live and studio bootlegs, often under the title “Send That Boy to Jail” due to that line’s prominence in the chorus. Many of Bruce’s early pre-label songs circulated on bootleg tapes long before fans had any documents to inform official names, so fans often had to invent names based on the lyrics.

Charged with speeding, running down his mother
Oh stabbing his wife and strangling her lover
Well the court is ready to hear your plea
Son, are you guilty or not guilty
Jury all got up to hear his plea
He’s guilty, he’s guilty, don’t let that boy go free

The jury’s out on whether Bruce sings “Charged with” or “George was” in the first line of the second verse. I’ve seen both put forward, and depending on the performance I can hear one or the other. Perhaps Bruce switched it up or evolved the song over time, but I lean toward believing it’s “charged with” in all instances. The song doesn’t require a named protagonist, and the litany of crimes both trivial and capital suggests a trumped up case against a defendant who doesn’t stand a chance.

In later performances, Bruce would add a verse after the mid-song jam that lends evidence to the “charged with” interpretation:

Oh your honor, oh won’t you treat me fair?
All I want is justice, this court is like a county fair
Can I get what I want there, what I need there
I don’t know, I don’t know right now…

You can hear that additional verse in the performance below, along with an even more ferocious guitar solo.

That clip you just listened to also happens to be the very last performance of both the song and the band, on January 23, 1971.

Both “He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)” and Steel Mill were never heard from again–at least in their original incarnation.

In 2005, however, original Steel Mill (and E Street Band) drummer Vini Lopez formed a new version of Steel Mill, called Steel Mill Retro–and their first album, Dead Sea Chronicles, featured a very familiar song under a new title: “The Judge.”

He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)
Recorded: February 22, 1970
Released: Chapter and Verse (2016)
First performed: January 13, 1970 (San Francisco, CA)
Last performed: January 23, 1971 (Asbury Park, NJ)

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