MatR: Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen: Valerie

[“Valerie” is] a very heavy song in our history… I was visiting you in your apartment in New York (probably when I shouldn’t have been visiting you in your apartment in New York). Under the guise of rehearsing for Tunnel of Love, I’m teaching you the guitar parts. But somehow, you got around to playing me this next song, and I remember thinking, “Oh my God, this woman can write.” And it totally made me twice as scared as I was anyway. It was like, whoa, I think I saw your talent for the first time, outside of just your voice. It was a pretty intense moment. — Bruce Springsteen to Patti Scialfa, From My Home to Yours Volume 9

Until that revelatory confession, I’d always wondered why Patti chose to play “Valerie” during her promotional tour for Rumble Doll, her 1993 debut album.

Not that “Valerie” is a bad song–quite the opposite, as illustrated by Bruce’s awestruck reaction to his first listen. But it wasn’t the album’s first single–that honor belonged to “Lucky Girl.” Or even its second (“As Long As I (Can Be With You)“).

In fact, “Valerie” was never released as a single, and yet during a rare in-studio radio appearance in July 1993 (the month that Rumble Doll was released), “Valerie” is the song she chose to play.

Infatuation with its songwriter aside, it’s no wonder that Bruce was so taken with “Valerie.” With its gorgeous, evocative metaphor-rich lyrics, lush backing track, and failed love affair set against an exotic backdrop, “Valerie” is exactly the kind of song Bruce loved to write himself.

Patti was kind when the DJ called “Valerie” a “buddy-girl type of song” in the clip above. That’s most certainly not when “Valerie” is about. In fact, “Valerie” isn’t about Valerie at all. The titular character serves no purpose in the song’s story other than as an off-screen friend with whom the narrator shares her letter of regret and heartbreak.

The narrator of “Valerie” followed her lover on a great adventure, only to find herself alone and abandoned. He’s been gone for three years now, but she’d still sacrifice anything and everything to recapture that feeling of intense love.

The second verse of “Valerie” may be the most artful lyric Patti has ever written:

Sixteen days since I left Corona
And I traveled to this carnival town near Alberndeel
And I rode the coaster there on the fairground
Twisted backbone of a beast that never heels
And I left some skin on fortune’s wheel

I mean, come on: whose jaw wouldn’t drop when hearing that verse for the first time?

“Valerie” is an intensely sad song. The final verse leaves our narrator in a metaphorical prison, hiding out on the border between the lost love she can’t let go of and the family and friends who await her return. (If there’s a Springsteen song that’s closest to “Valerie” in theme and power, it’s “Jackson Cage.”)

And yet despite its beauty and personal significance, Patti and Bruce never performed “Valerie” together until (of all places) the Seeger Sessions Tour in 2006.

Bruce kicked off the autumn leg of the tour with a mini-tour of Italy, a country to which Bruce and Patti have long had a deep and romantic connection. It amounted to a working vacation of sorts, but by the time the tour reached Verona, familial duties called Patti back stateside.

Parting must have been sweet sorrow, though, because Bruce did something on stage that night that he’d never done before on tour: he featured one of Patti’s own songs in the set list and stepped back into a supporting role, ceding the spotlight to his wife.

That song, of course, was “Valerie,” and thanks to Bruce’s radio show this summer, I now understand why they chose that song. I was lucky enough to be in the audience that night, and it remains one of my favorite moments at a Springsteen show. The audio has circulated pretty widely, but the video is a lot harder to come by, so I’ve included it here.

Enjoy Patti Scialfa, backed by Bruce Springsteen and The Sessions Band, performing “Valerie.”

Bonus: Patti’s catalog hasn’t been covered nearly as much as Bruce’s has, but in 1999 Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt chose “Valerie” for their duet album, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions.”

The song loses some of its power when performed as a duet, however, and even though Harris and Ronstadt are both superb vocalists, neither quite manage to summon the brave vulnerability that “Valerie” (like much of Patti’s catalog) requires.

Valerie
First performed: October 5, 2006 (Verona, Italy)
Last performed: October 5, 2006 (Verona, Italy)