He didn’t have lyrics, but he had a riff. And that was all Bruce needed to gather the E Street Band together at his house toward the end of their month off during the Darkness Tour.
On October 26, 1978, the E Street Band got to work.
“Tonight” (as it was called at the time) was a riff in search of a song.
And also in search of a tempo, it seemed, because they tried it again–this time a bit faster.
But despite at least a half-dozen attempts that day, “Tonight” never developed into a full song.
(All was not lost that day, however. Bruce and the band worked on another new song that day, one that had more promise–so much promise, in fact, that “The Ties That Bind” made its debut on stage just six days later when the tour resumed.)
Months later, after the Darkness Tour ended and Bruce began working on what would become The River, he took another run at “Tonight,” keeping the riff (and speeding it up even more) but re-writing the song as “Break My Heart.”
That one didn’t go anywhere either.
But Bruce wasn’t about to give up on that riff. Before long, he found a new home for it, and by August he and the band had recorded “Dollhouse.”
Break My Heart (Tonight)
Never recorded
Never released
Never performed
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