Roll of the Dice: Fire

We’re all friends here, so let’s just acknowledge a couple of things up front, okay?

First: the studio version of “Fire” is, at best, meh. This is a song that comes alive when Bruce performs it live but is rather limp on vinyl.

Bruce’s studio version features a 2010 vocal grafted onto a 1977 backing track that sounds like it was intended to be more of a rehearsal than a finished take. It almost certainly was–here’s the original studio outtake, from June 17, 1977, in which you’ll notice that several of the lyrics are bluffed (meaning Bruce mumbles or sings nonsense syllables where the lyrics are unfinished).

Bruce could have edited and interwoven new vocals to replace the unfinished lines (as he did with other tracks on The Promise), but instead he chose to re-record the vocal track from scratch.

That was a wise choice–despite his ability to mimic his earlier singing styles, there’s no mistaking Bruce’s 2010 voice for his 1977 one. (Compare the outtake above with the official version at the top of the article and hear for yourself.)  “The Brokenhearted,” for example, would have been a stronger track had Bruce taken the full vocal replacement approach rather than a surgical one.

In any event, the original track runs for more than five minutes, and even edited for release on The Promise, the official version meanders for more than four minutes.

Speaking of meandering, I almost forgot the second thing we should just acknowledge before we go any further:

“Fire” is more than a little bit dated. And I use the term “dated” because it’s kinder than “date rapey.” File “Fire” under “songs no one would write today.”

I’m a bit surprised, in fact, that Bruce chose to finish and release his incomplete 1977 studio outtake on his 2010 collection, The Promise, and even more surprised that it didn’t meet a similar reception as Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (which is essentially a modern “Fire” retelling) did three years later.

A holdover from Bruce’s less enlightened “little girl” days (an oft-repeated phrase in his early songs that by 1982 prompted a letter-writing protest campaign by the National Organization of Women), “Fire” is at the very least a little uncomfortable to listen to with modern ears.

Still, there’s no denying its crowd-pleasing Fire-power, thanks largely to its instantly recognizable bass  line and the simmering sexual frustration that Bruce channels for his live performances of the song.

In fact, if not for Bruce’s live performances of it from the late 1970s through mid-1980s, fans likely would have considered “Fire” forgettable despite The Pointer Sisters’ chart success with it.

The story goes like this:

In the summer of 1977, Bruce decided he’d write a song for Elvis–literally. I’ve always suspected that story is a bit apocryphal, but there’s no doubt that at the very least Bruce was writing with The King in mind–we can hear it in the outtake recording, even down to the Elvis-esque vocal frills in the bluffed lyrics.

Whether by forethought or afterthought however, Bruce reportedly sent his demo to Elvis for consideration. We don’t know exactly when that would have been, but since we know the outtake above was recorded in mid-June of ’77, it’s likely that if Elvis ever received it, it wasn’t before early July, at which point he had only weeks to live.

With Elvis unable to record it and Bruce disinterested in including it on Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce gave the song to Robert Gordon, who recorded it with Link Wray and released it in 1978. Gordon’s cover got some airplay but never cracked the Top 100.

The next year, however, The Pointer Sisters took a crack at it and took “Fire” all the way to #2.

All the while, Bruce made “Fire” a staple of his set lists–if he was reluctant to release it on vinyl, he had no hesitation about performing it live, and very quickly it became a fan favorite.

Watching Bruce’s live performances, It’s easy to see why. It’s not because of the lyrics, which are few and cringe-inducing:

I’m driving in my car, I turn on the radio
I’m pulling you close, you just say no
You say you don’t like it, but girl I know you’re a liar
‘Cause when we kiss, oh, fire

Well late at night, I’m taking you home
I say I wanna stay, you say you wanna be alone
You say you don’t love me, but you can’t hide your desire
When we kiss, oh, fire

You had a hold on me right from the start
A grip so tight I couldn’t tear it apart
My nerves all jumping acting like a fool
Your kisses they burn but your heart stays cool

Romeo and Juliet, Samson and Delilah
You can bet their love they couldn’t deny
Your words say split, but your words they lie
When we kiss, oh, fire, fire

No, what makes Bruce’s live performances of “Fire” so great, so inspired, so head-and-shoulders above the studio version, is that he quickly realized the song’s secret ingredient–the essential element that didn’t make it into any of the studio recordings, including his own.

The secret to Bruce’s live performances of “Fire” is…

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…the pause.

“Fire” is all about… the pause. It’s about the tease. It’s about satisfaction delayed and ultimately denied.

In his Darkness Tour performances (see the clip above for an example), we can see and hear Bruce subtly arriving at that realization as his on-stage hamming evolved night by night. By the time he toured next, for The River in 1980, Bruce was milking the tease to comic and choreographed extremes, with his foil by his side.

Nearly 30 years later, Bruce and Clarence were still serving up the same shtick. And why not? As this Philadelphia crowd’s reaction proves, it never got old.

Even when forced to play his own straight man in a restrained 1986 acoustic version with Nils and Danny, Bruce got the point of the song across with a masterfully metaphorical microphone maneuver that still cracks me up every time I watch it.

On rare occasions, though, Bruce lets the song’s content rise to the surface. At the very last show of the Devils & Dust Tour, Bruce played “Fire” in an unusual arrangement–solo harmonica and bullet mic–normally reserved for more serious subject matter like “Reason to Believe” and “Johnny 99.”

In this Nebraska-esque arrangement, “Fire” comes across more sinister than silly, and the result is more than a little chilling.

“Fire” has been a rarity in Bruce’s set lists for the last three decades, and especially so since the passing of The Big Man, whose presence was so essential to Bruce’s earlier performances. In recent performances, Patti or Steve stand in for Clarence, but of course it’s never quite the same.

Still, “Fire” remains a fan favorite for those able to look past its content, or at least recognize that we don’t have to admire a song’s point-of-view character to appreciate a great performance.

Fire
Recorded: 1977 and 2010
Released: The Promise (2010)
First performed: May 23, 1978 (Buffalo, NY)
Last performed: September 4, 2021 (New York City, NY)

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