Roll of the Dice: Cover Me

I always knew this day would come.

There are only two songs in Bruce’s catalog that I can’t bear listening to, and I was lucky enough to get the less irksome of the two out of the way early in my blogging “career.”

But ever since then, I’ve known my absolute least favorite Springsteen song was still out there, just a dice roll away from my next essay.

And now here we are.

We’ve arrived at a song Bruce did his best to give away. If only.

Everyone knows the story: At the height of her popularity, Donna Summer asked Bruce to write her a song, and not even three weeks after recording his famed Nebraska demo tape, Bruce wrote “Cover Me” for the disco queen.

In a “Hungry Heart” replay, Jon Landau sensed a hit record in “Cover Me” and urged Bruce to reconsider. Against his better judgment, Bruce wrote “Protection” (the thematic inverse of “Cover Me”) just a couple of weeks later and gave it to Summer instead of “Cover Me.”

Personally, I think “Cover Me” would have been a much stronger track performed by Summer, but hey–what do I know? “Protection” earned Summer a Grammy nomination, and “Cover Me” became Bruce’s third career Top Ten single. Landau obviously knew what he was doing.

The problem is: Bruce did, too. “Cover Me” was written for another artist to record, and so it sounds like that, too. In the hands of the E Street Band, “Cover Me” rocks, but it’s not supposed to. “Cover Me” should be a lot lighter on its feet than it is. When forced to listen to it, I sense a disco hit struggling to break free of the rock and roll band that keeps it anchored in place.

Okay, enough tangents. Although I’ve dreaded this moment, it’s time to take a close listen to “Cover Me.”

Don’t make me do it alone, okay?

Why does this song elicit such a visceral reaction from me?

Well, it’s not the lyrics. I mean, they’re not particularly profound, but they’re serviceable. In fact, similar to the lesson I relearned when I wrote about “Letter to You” recently, there’s an argument to be made for “Cover Me” being a decent pop song if only it was set to a different backing track and arrangement.

In fact, Bruce himself made that argument implicitly, when he recast “Cover Me” almost a year and a half after he recorded it, as the unreleased outtake “Drop On Down and Cover Me.”

“Drop on Down and Cover Me” is so far superior to “Cover Me” in every way that I am to this day mystified as to what made Bruce revert to the earlier version instead. Heck, even the guitar solo (the sole redeeming feature of “Cover Me”) is stronger in “Drop on Down and Cover Me.”

In either form, however, Bruce’s lyrics are inoffensively slight, revolving around a single gimmick: the use of wartime metaphor in what is otherwise a straightforward pop song about taking refuge from a harsh world in a nameless lover’s arms.

The times are tough now, just getting tougher
This old world is rough, it’s just getting rougher
Cover me, come on baby cover me
Well I’m looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me

Now promise me baby you won’t let them find us
Hold me in your arms, let’s let our love blind us
Cover me, shut the door and cover me
I’m looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me

Outside’s the rain, the driving snow
I can hear the wild wind blowing
Turn out the light, bolt the door
I ain’t going out there no more

This whole world is out there just trying to score
I’ve seen enough, I don’t wanna see any more
Cover me, come on and cover me
I’m looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me

I called “Cover Me” lyrically slight for a reason: aside from the repeated chorus, the song consists of a grand total of ten unique lines, the first two of which are awfully lazy, and the last two of which are basically restatements of the first two. (The rest isn’t particularly ambitious, either.)

Interestingly, even though the verses are essentially identical between “Cover Me” and “Drop on Down and Cover Me,” Bruce rewrote the bridge for the later song:

Inside I feel the pain that
The hatred and the sorrow
I wanna shut the light, baby
C’mon and shut the door
Drop on down and cover me

It’s a moment of vulnerability for the narrator–he drops the metaphor just long enough for us to feel his inner pain and turmoil, and I think the song is stronger for it.

But even the stronger bridge can’t rescue the overall message of the song, which is: the world sucks, so let’s have sex.

It would be one thing if the narrator was trying to mute the effects of a specific tragedy, or if he was addressing a specific person. Bruce did that with “The Fuse” (which is basically the same song as “Cover Me” thematically) two decades later to much more powerful and artistic effect.

But in “Cover Me,” the narrator doesn’t seem to be set off by anything in particular, nor does he seem to care who he hooks up with: he’s looking for a lover who will cover him, and there’s no indication that he’s talking to anyone specifically.

But if the problem with “Cover Me” were only its lyrics, the song would be forgettable rather than terrible. No, the true problem with “Cover Me” is the backing track.

It’s just awkward.

Like, really awkward.

Bruce’s smoking guitar solo distracts for the first few seconds out of the gate, but as soon as the first verse kicks in, so do the cringes. The E Street Band has grown tremendously in versatility over the years but in 1982, they were ill-suited for a song that clearly cries out for a disco beat. Bruce does his best to save it with his lead guitar (and Garry is particularly and impressively active throughout), but it’s not enough to be convincing.

Lacking any substantive lyrics to distract from or elevate the backing track, “Cover Me” doesn’t so much rock as plod–which may be what motivated Bruce to commission DJ/producer Arthur Baker to remix “Cover Me” (along with “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Dancing in the Dark.“)

“Cover Me” proved a much bigger challenge than the other two singles, though, and Baker did much more than remix the song. He swapped out Garry’s bassline for a new one by Brian Rock, and he added a new background vocal track by Jocelyn Brown.

It wasn’t enough. After a rough opening, Baker finds his footing for a couple of minutes, but it quickly goes off the rails at around the 2:40 mark and becomes almost a parody of an 80s dance song.

Baker’s “Undercover” mix was accompanied by two shorter “dub” mixes. They weren’t much better.

Caught between worlds, “Cover Me” works in neither its rock nor club mix form. And yet, it was a bona fide hit, peaking at #7 in the summer of 1984, the second of a record-tying string of seven Top Ten singles from a single album. Only Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and Drake have ever equaled that feat. (Strangely, though, for the peak era of MTV, Bruce never filmed a video for “Cover Me.”)

So naturally, Bruce kept “Cover Me” in his set lists throughout the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, prefixing it with an ominous introduction that only served to raise expectations before dashing them. (Bruce’s guitar solo worked pretty well live, though.)

“Cover Me” stuck around on the next tour, too. On the Tunnel of Love Express Tour, Bruce gave Patti one of her first spotlight moments with a Martha Reeves-inspired intro, and the horn section made the riff sound slightly less dated. Otherwise, though, the arrangement was the same.

Bruce kept “Cover Me” in heavy rotation through one last tour in 1992, and I actually think it fared somewhat better in the hands of his new touring band.

But as the 1980s faded further and firmly into the rearview mirror, “Cover Me” thankfully became a rarity, making only a handful of appearances per tour from the Magic Tour forward.  (Maddeningly, I seemed to have a knack for catching them.)

Credit Bruce for always playing it straight, at least. He never gave anything but his all to each performance.

It’s been about four years since we last heard Bruce perform “Cover Me” in concert, but then again Bruce hasn’t played a whole lot of concerts in that time.

I’m thinking this is a streak worth extending.

(Sorry for the negativity–I’ll balance it with one of my all-time favorite Springsteen songs this weekend.)

Bonus: Here’s an alternate, unreleased mix of “Cover Me.” I present it here for the catharsis of hearing the E Street Band bring the song to a satisfying halt. You can almost hear the sigh of relief.

Cover Me
Recorded: January 25, 1982
Released: Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
First performed: July 2, 1984 (St. Paul, MN)
Last performed: February 4, 2017 (Melbourne, Australia)

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