Roll of the Dice: Open All Night

“[‘Open All Night’] is totally Chuck Berry-inspired, because he was the master of everyday imagery.” — Bruce Springsteen to Conan O’Brien, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, October 25, 2020

Nebraska is often labeled as Bruce’s “acoustic album,” but that’s not entirely true. There’s one track that’s not only electric but destined to rock from the start,

Bruce explicitly acknowledged Chuck Berry’s influence on “Open All Night” earlier this week, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise: we can hear Berry’s stamp from the “Nadine”-esque opening guitar intro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myPzYiTLvK0

It’s almost impossible to listen to “Open All Night” and not hear the E Street Band rocking out in our mind’s inner ear.

In fact, the first time Bruce ever performed “Open All Night” live (at The Stone Pony just days after Nebraska was released to record stores), that’s exactly the way he performed it: as a straight-out rocker, backed by the Pony’s house band.

Let’s take a close listen to this curious Nebraska standout, but before we do, a note:

I find this essay to be a difficult one to write, because I feel like I’ve written it already. “Open All Night” is virtually the same song as “Living on the Edge of the World,” which Bruce recorded three years earlier but didn’t officially release until 1998.

And since tracing the origins of “Open All Night” can get seriously messy, I very much recommend reading my earlier essay for a detailed history lesson. If you don’t have time for that, I’ll provide a short version here.

“Living on the Edge of the World” came first, recorded in 1979 during the River recording sessions. Bruce decided to leave that song off the record, but he was apparently too fond of the lyrics to let them go to waste.

In the early spring of 1981, Bruce picked his cast-off song back up and recorded a home demo entitled “Wanda.”

Both melodically and lyrically, “Wanda” is obviously an attempt by Bruce to rework “Living on the Edge of the World,” and we can also hear the early seeds of “This Hard Land” and “State Trooper.” (I told you the lineage of “Open All Night” is complicated.)

Bruce eventually found a new melody for his errant lyrics and wrote a few new verses to keep them company. He gave his girl a name (“Wanda”) and a new employer (Bob’s Big Boy, an arguably lateral step  from Howard Johnson’s), he plugged in his trusty Telecaster, and pressed Record.

Honestly, I’m hard-pressed to say whether there’s any real substantive difference between “Living on the Edge of the World” and “Open All Night” despite the lyrical additions and changes. Both songs are very much about a working-class guy getting off his night shift and hurtling the length of the New Jersey Turnpike towards his girl.

Bruce described “Open All Night” in a letter to Jon Landau as a song about a hero braving “snow, sleet, rain, and the highway patrol for a kiss from his baby’s lips.” But if anything, the additions to “Open All Night” only serve to add depth and character to the narrator’s car rather than Wanda, which raises a question as to which one is the true love interest.

Well I had the carburetor baby cleaned and checked
With her line blown out she’s humming like a turbojet
Propped her up in the backyard on concrete blocks
For a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks
Took her down to the car wash, checked the plugs and points
Well I’m going out tonight, I’m gonna rock that joint

Early North Jersey industrial skyline
I’m an all-set cobra jet creeping through the night time
Gotta find a gas station, gotta find a payphone
This turnpike sure is spooky at night when you’re all alone
Gotta hit the gas, baby, I’m running late
This New Jersey in the morning like a lunar landscape

He certainly seems to take pride in his car’s ability to outrun the state police:

Now the boss don’t dig me, so he put me on the night shift
It takes me two hours to get back to where my baby lives
In the wee wee hours your mind gets hazy
Radio relay towers, won’t you lead me to my baby
Underneath the overpass, trooper hits his party light switch
Good night good luck, one two power shift

We do get a single verse devoted to Wanda, a flashback that tells us little about the attraction other than her eyes:

I met Wanda when she was employed
Behind the counter at Route 60 Bob’s Big Boy Fried Chicken
On the front seat, she’s sitting in my lap
We’re wiping our fingers on a Texaco road map
I remember Wanda up on scrap metal hill
With them big brown eyes that make your heart stand still

But in short order, our narrator’s mind returns to the road and the present as he focuses on staying awake for the long drive still ahead. (Three hours? Wherever Wanda lives, it’s obviously not in New Jersey.)

Well at 5 a.m. oil pressure’s sinking fast
I make a pit stop, wipe the windshield, check the gas
Gotta call my baby on the telephone
Let her know that her daddy’s coming on home
Sit tight, little mama, I’m a-coming around
I got three more hours but I’m covering ground

Your eyes get itchy in the wee wee hours
Sun’s just a red ball rising over them refinery towers
Radio’s jammed up with gospel stations
Lost souls calling long distance salvation
Hey mister deejay won’t you hear my last prayer
Hey ho rock ‘n roll deliver me from nowhere

“Open All Night” sticks out like a sore thumb on Nebraska–not only because of Bruce’s electric guitar and his mile-a-minute lyrics (Bruce sounds out of breath throughout much of the song), but also because of its light substance.

Arranged the right way, “Open All Night” is almost a pop song, which may be why Bruce chose it as the A-side of the second single for an album that seemed single-resistant. (It was backed by “The Big Payback,” another uptempo track from the Nebraska sessions that didn’t make the album but seemed like it might rock hard enough to get some attention if not airplay.)

Bruce played “Open All Night” in its acoustic arrangement during its infrequent appearances on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, but when he brought it back for a pair of cameo appearances in 1992, he leaned into the song’s rocker roots (and made a sly wink to the song’s origins with a seriously inside joke).

But “Open All Night wouldn’t truly embrace its potential until Bruce’s 2006 Seeger Sessions Tour. Although mostly remembered for its Americana-centric set lists, the Seeger Sessions Tour also provided fertile ground for reinventing Bruce’s original songs. Over the course of the tour, many beloved Springsteen originals found new life in surprising arrangements.

“Open All Night” was one of the very first songs in Bruce’s catalog to be Seeger-ized, and a boogie-woogie arrangement proved a surprisingly perfect fit. Bruce debuted it at their very first show, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

That first performance was pretty loose, as opening shows often are, but by the time the tour reached its homestretch, the Sessions Band was as well-oiled as the E Street Band, and “Open All Night” had grown into a nightly marathon-length set piece.

This incredible version of “Open All Night” from their final Dublin stand may be the best we’re ever likely to see:

Bruce brought “Open All Night” (in its new arrangement) back for nineteen outings with the E Street Band in the years since, but no E Street performance has ever equaled the best Sessions ones.

Open All Night
Recorded: January 3, 1982
Released: Nebraska (1982)
First performed: October 3, 1982 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: February 8, 2014 (Perth, Australia)

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