Roll of the Dice: Lady and the Doctor

One of the first songs recorded for Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., but ultimately discarded from the final release, “Lady and the Doctor” mines a common early Springsteen theme: lovers from different worlds, unable to make it work but unwilling to break it off.

Bruce’s recent autobiographical openness sheds light on his penchant for getting himself into toxic relationships in his younger days, so it’s not a stretch for us to suspect that “Lady and the Doctor,” like fellow immediately pre-label songs like “For You” and “Two Hearts in True Waltz Time,” are at least informed if not inspired by Bruce’s romantic misfires. They certainly all till similar earth.

“Lady and the Doctor” is one of the more artistically ambitious entries in this category; while it never quite seems fully realized, at times Bruce dazzles with his lyrics.

The first verse of “Lady and the Doctor” introduces us to our two title characters. Bruce writes in parallel throughout, alternating his point-of-view characters to ensure his listeners can empathize with both.

The lady keeps the doctor in a place inside her pocket
In a circle made of silver like a wheel
The doctor gives a strange love, but the lady she don’t knock it
She’s glad to get a piece of anything
Because the lady needs the medicine he brings
And the doctor needs the lady to see

I absolutely adore those opening lines, both for their effect and their humor. When Bruce describes “a circle made of silver like a wheel,” he is of course describing a locket–which would rhyme with the immediately preceding pocket.

Why didn’t Bruce simply open the song with “The lady keeps the doctor in a locket  in her pocket,” which would have better fit the song’s meter and supplied him with one of his trademark internal rhymes? Probably because the leisurely, lingering description of the locket conveys just how aware and attentive the lady is to its presence, which tells us something about the lady’s character before Bruce even gets going.

Bruce barely gives us time to appreciate the joke, however, before he lays out our lovers’ dilemma: she craves his attention; he’s devoted to his work. Bruce drives that comparison home in the opening lines of the second verse, which are almost as laugh-out-loud funny as the previous ones.

The doctor keeps the lady in a page in a book
On the history of communicable disease
The lady’s been to school and she lets the doctor play it cool
He writes the script, she follows his lead
Because the doctor writes a love story so fine
And the lady’s learned to read between his lines (sometimes)

In those first two lines, Bruce shows us that the lady really does occupy a space in the doctor’s heart–but that his attention is otherwise almost entirely focused on his work, his primary concern. “Communicable” is an absolutely horrible fit for the song’s meter, which is why Bruce uses it.

The awkward line tells us just how out of sync our two characters are, how little room the doctor has in his attention span for his emotions. It’s also a clever way to clinically convey how the doctor considers love (a communicable disease), implying the lady’s photo is as much an entry as a bookmark.

The lady thinks she understands the doctor, although she admits parenthetically that she’s not quite sure. She certainly has a somewhat resentful view of the demands of his job, though, as we learn in the third verse.

The doctor he takes house calls where he visits the animals in their stalls
Shoots ’em full of juice and then goes home
The lady hits the supermart where she rides the aisles in a shopping cart
‘Till she feels she’s played enough of the part to get by
Oh, and the lady feels it’s enough to just be good
But the doctor has this need to be understood

The lady plays her part, trying to be an understanding and devoted lover. But she can’t understand the doctor’s devotion to a job that she reduces to a literally dehumanizing degree, and that frustrates the doctor.

The doctor feels he’s so abused and the lady feels she’s so unused
And demands the doctor tend her daily parts
Oh, but the doctor he just can’t do it, because long ago the lady blew it
They’re too old now to make another start
The lady feels the doctor’s made of stone
But the doctor’s heart it just ain’t found a home

Frustration is the name of the game for both lovers: the lady feels neglected both physically and emotionally, and the doctor no longer trusts that the lady will ever understand or appreciate him for anything other than his attentiveness.

Given what we know of Bruce’s fierce devotion and concentration on his music over all else in his life, it seems a safe assumption that Bruce identified more with the doctor than the lady.  But it’s notable that even at the age of 22, he had enough empathy and self-awareness to recognize the toll his focus could take on a relationship.

As I wrote earlier, “Lady and the Doctor” ultimately feels unfinished, more a character portrait than a story or even a study. Never released or performed live, I suspect that Bruce meant it that way–an exercise in songwriting and self-awareness that would lead to better, more substantial songs before long.

Still, “Lady and the Doctor” is a gem of an early outtake.

Bonus: A couple of months before Bruce recorded “Lady and the Doctor” in the studio, he played and recorded it in Mike Appel’s New York City office. The recording is somewhat muddy, but it’s the only other known recording of this lost song.

Lady and the Doctor
Recorded: June 7, 1972
Never released
Never performed

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