Roll of the Dice: Pilgrim in the Temple of Love

“Say that in your next interview, Mr. Social Consciousness!”  — Patti Scialfa to Bruce Springsteen (on many an occasion), as related by Bruce Springsteen (on many an occasion)

Ho ho ho!

It’s that most wonderful time of the year, which means it’s time to break out that evergreen seasonal favorite, that timeless Christmas classic, that beloved Springsteen holiday chestnut.

That’s right: I’m talking about “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love.”

(What, you were expecting something else? Maybe next year.)

For the unfamiliar, “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” holds the distinction of being the only Christmas song Bruce has ever written.

Composed in 1996 and performed throughout that year on The Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” is the story of a chance meeting between Bruce and Santa in the unlikeliest of places: a New Jersey strip club.

Now given St. Bruce’s public persona, fans might find this a difficult premise to swallow. But while it may border on the apocryphal, “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” has an air of authenticity about it, similar to “Local Hero,” with which “Pilgrim” shares its image-puncturing theme.

For Bruce actually is known to be an aficionado of the naked art scene–he’s admitted as much on occasion, most notably on his VH1 Storytellers appearance in 2005.

“I used to like to go to the strip clubs. Back before they were fancy. Back in the prehistoric days before the lap dancing. But there was two people who would rather me not go: one whose wishes I must respect, but the other one was that holier-than-thou bastard, Bruce Springsteen.

“Now why he would want to deny a simple man his simple pleasures, I will not bore you with. But I had many arguments about it, and it kinda culminated on one day, I’m sitting in a favorite spot of mine along the highway side, and I’m enjoying the show, and I’ve had a few drinks, and my mind is momentarily at peace…

“As I reached the parking lot, a man and a woman spied me and said ‘Bruce! You aren’t supposed to be here.’

So I could see where they were going with the whole thing, so I said, ‘I’m not.’ I said, ‘I am simply an errant figment of one of Bruce’s many selves. I drift in the ether over the highways and byways of the Garden State, often touching down in image-incongruous but fun places. Bruce does not even know I’m missing. He is at home right now, doing good deeds.’

“That usually stupefies and satisfies them. Hey, I gotta get through the world somehow.”

Bruce shared that story almost a decade after his last performance of “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” and in a much different context. By way of introducing “Brilliant Disguise“, Bruce used his anecdote to illustrate his theme of a “public face” and a “private face.”

The notion that we have different identities depending on who we’re with and where is something we’re all familiar with. But for celebrities (let alone icons), it’s something they’re always aware of. It’s part of the cost of fame.

“Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” shocks with its graphicness and amuses with its ribald humor, but if we listen closely, it actually has a lot to say about the nature of celebrity. Let’s take a listen.

Now you might be thinking: perhaps this is a song that doesn’t warrant deep analysis, but bear with me. Our story begins on Christmas Eve, as our hero pulls up to a favorite local haunt:

It was Christmas Eve, I was standing in the parking lot
of “Fabulous Girls: Nude, Nude, Nude!”
In the car next to me there was a young lady
Givin’ a blow job to a man in a Santa Claus suit
His beard was crooked, his hat askew
Embarrassed, I turned to go
When from the back seat of that Mazda I heard somebody shout, “Oh baby, don’t stop!”
And a merry “ho ho ho”

Before we go any further, let’s pause here to give Bruce his due, because he must have been mighty pleased with himself at being able to sneak such a clever double entendre into a song that’s otherwise very, um, in your face. Ho ho ho, indeed.

Let’s continue:

Well I walked inside, ordered a beer and a double shot of whiskey
And in three minutes I’d fallen in love
The DJ announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, from Fort Worth, Texas: Lady Godiva!”
And I sat and worshipped ‘neath the angel above
At the end of her set, she brushed her hair came and sat on the stool to my right
And said, “Will you buy me a drink?”
My heart beat fast, my trousers grew tight, and wittily I replied
“Uhhhhh….”

Breaking the rhyme scheme that way is just the first of several ways Bruce attempts to puncture his cool public image in this song. He goes on to establish a moment of personal connection with Lady Godiva, who clearly does not recognize her famous customer.

She showed me a picture of her kid
Said during the day she was a commercial art student
But five nights a week she dances for slobs and idiots like this
Uh, present company excluded

We arrive at our first chorus now, but this is also an opportune time to point out what fans of The Ghost of Tom Joad Tour probably already realize: “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” shares its melody with another song Bruce wrote and performed on that tour, “Sell It and They Will Come.” Bruce alternated between the two songs for much of the tour, treating them both as trifles. “Pilgrim,” however is the stronger song. (Bruce would actually graft the melody onto a third song in 2007, but that one was a true one-off.)

On Donner, on Dancer, on Comet, on Blitzen
I’m lost in the valley of the super-vixens
Worshippin’ at the feet of the goddess above
I’m a pilgrim in the temple of love, ma
I’m a pilgrim in the temple of love

Bruce addressing the chorus to “ma” probably warrants some analysis all its own, but let’s set that aside for a bit, because with the scene now vividly set, the heart of our story truly begins.

Well, then Santa came stumblin’ in and somebody shouted
“Hey Santa, where’s your elves?”
He sat down on the stool to my left
And the bartender took a vodka bottle off the shelf
He asked if Mrs. Claus had called and to tell her he’d worked the late shift at the mall
He was sorry, he just got through
So I turned and asked, “How’s the kids this year, Santa?”
He downed a shot, and beneath his breath he whispered, a merry “Fuck you!”

In case there was any doubt as to Santa’s inauthenticity, Bruce devotes this verse to making it painfully clear that this is merely a “mall Santa,” a working joe trying to make ends meet in search of a little escapism (ironic, given his job) at the end of a long work day.

Bruce, however, won’t let “Santa” shed his public face, and his good-natured comment provokes a short-tempered response. One wonders how often Bruce has to resist responding like Santa when fans approach him while he’s out for a little private time, and I suspect that the songwriter feels a fair bit of empathy for Santa at this point in the song.

The plot thickens: Bruce is recognized by the owner, and suddenly neither Santa nor the dancers are the center of attention at the club.

Well, then the owner came over, and he was a short, fat, ugly guy
With a pushed-in face
He shook my hand and said it was the first time
They ever had a real superstar in this place
Lady Godiva bought me a few drinks and words came out of my mouth
What they were I couldn’t guess
Something about: “showgirls,” “lapdance,” “Motley Crue…”
You can guess the rest

The tables have turned. Even the showgirl now buys drinks for her customer. Santa, we notice, is completely absent from this verse. He’s faded completely into the background, made nondescript by the famous rock star sitting next to him.

Bruce doesn’t share any more of the scene inside the club, but like he says: we can guess the rest. It’s a scene that likely plays out wherever and whenever Bruce appears in public, although usually in less risqué circumstances.

But there’s one final twist coming, a surprise ending as Bruce leaves the club:

Well, I walked outside, snow was fallin’
It was Christmas time
Santa followed me into the parking lot
And threw up on the hood of the car next to mine
I gave him my handkerchief, pulled out onto the highway
And as I sat at the light
I swear I saw a sleigh with twelve reindeer pull up out of that parking lot and go cuttin’ across the moon
And I heard a voice shout, “Merry Christmas to all you assholes, and to all–a good fuckin’ night!”

Turns out Santa was the real thing after all! And here we find the lesson buried within “Pilgrim at the Temple of Love”: Santa is a lot smarter than Bruce.

Santa understands that the best way for a famous person to enjoy anonymity in public is to refuse to wear his public face when off the clock. His private face is the only disguise he needs. Because Santa doesn’t act like Santa when he’s at the club, no one suspects for a moment that he might actually be Santa.

Bruce, however, seems incapable of being anything but gracious in public. When recognized, he puts on his public face for the sake of his fans rather than risk shattering his folk hero myth.

That has to come at a cost.

Bruce plays it for laughs, but below the surface he’s telling us something significant: he knows he could wear his private face in public if he wanted to. He could deny his identity and act in a way that would at best convince those he encounters that he’s just a close lookalike rather than the real thing, and at worst disillusion them if they saw through it.

But he chooses not to, and each time he acknowledges his identity and puts on his public face, he’s giving a gift.

Oh, and about that chorus and title:

On Donner, on Dancer, on Comet, on Blitzen
I’m lost in the valley of the super-vixens
Worshippin’ at the feet of the goddess above
I’m a pilgrim in the temple of love, ma
Just a pilgrim in the temple of love

“Just a pilgrim” — That’s Bruce expressing his desire to lose himself, to be just another customer in a nightclub where attention is not likely to be focused anywhere in his direction. (That may be a reason (besides the obvious one) why Bruce enjoyed strip clubs: his audience is mostly male, and a strip club is probably the easiest public place to escape notice by other men.

He looks up at the dancer (who is wearing her own public face, if nothing else) from the same angle that his diehard fans look up at him in concert, and in that moment he’s as anonymous as his fans are.

And about that “ma” he sings to: who else sees through our public faces as readily as our own mothers do? Bruce may be inviting some Freudian analysis with the reference, but he’s simply saying: at this moment, I’m just a guy in a strip club, nothing more and nothing less.

I imagine that for Bruce Springsteen, that momentary freedom from his public face counts as a pretty sweet Christmas gift.

Bonus: Here’s a rare live performance of “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love” captured on video, from Cincinnati on December 12, 1996.

Pilgrim in the Temple of Love
Never recorded
Never released
First performed: April 16, 1996 (London, England)
Last performed: February 8, 1997 (Sydney, Australia)

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