Roll of the Dice: Radio Nowhere

It’s the essential, existential question at the heart of rock and roll.*

Is there anybody alive out there?

If rock is about anything, it’s about connection.

Even the term “rock and roll” began as a colloquialism for religious rapture and a euphemism for sex and dancing (before fusing in the milestone “Good Rockin’ Tonight“), and what do all three of those have in common if not connection?

So it’s not much of a stretch to label Bruce Springsteen’s Grammy-winning 2007 single “Radio Nowhere” a mission statement for rock stars current and aspiring.

And perhaps rockers past as well.

Because if the chorus of “Radio Nowhere” is about connection, its verses are about alienation.

I was trying to find my way home
But all I heard was a drone
Bouncing off a satellite
Crushing the last lone American night

The first and most important thing we learn about our narrator is that he’s lost.

“Radio Nowhere” is often described as a road song, but I think that’s the result of a superficial listen. Although our narrator is searching for his way home, there’s nothing in the song (save for a single line in the last verse) that implies driving.

Like many of Bruce’s best songs, “Radio Nowhere” operates on multiple levels simultaneously: Is our hero a once-popular musician abandoned by modern audiences? Or perhaps an aging music lover out of step with modern tastes? A pundit warning us of the danger posed by technology to our societal bonds? An ex-lover unable to move past a messy break-up? Or maybe someone suffering from depression, detached and self-distanced from his friends and family?

My money’s on all of the above (Bruce has mined those themes before and since), but one thing’s for certain: our narrator is lost and lonely.

That drone could be the indistinguishable sameness of modern music. It might be the static between stations. A dial tone. That voice in your head that sabotages your relationships. Deafening silence.

It’s empty, and it’s distant. (It’s relayed by satellite, after all.)

This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?

Springsteen fans recognize the chorus on first listen with a thrill: it’s the phrase Bruce often yells in concert when he wants to dial his audience engagement up to twelve. It’s a farcical if not rhetorical question, and we recognize it for what it is: a demand for us to do our part and match his investment in the moment.

But in this song, it’s a desperate and lonely plaint: I’m alone. Is there anyone out there for me?

I was spinning ’round a dead dial
Just another lost number in a file
Dancing down a dark hole
Just searching for a world with some soul

I love this verse, because it’s deceptive in its pop simplicity. There’s a lot of songwriting artistry at work here, however, and it’s worth taking a moment to admire it.

That first couplet is especially clever: The dead dial belongs to both a radio and rotary telephone; the lost number belongs to both a bygone favorite radio station and an ex-lover or friend.

“Dancing down a dark hole” keeps the musical metaphor going while making it clear that the narrator is in a dark emotional place, likely a depressive episode. And “some soul” refers both to the music genre and human connection.

This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?

The vocal bridge is a scream into the void:

I just want to hear some rhythm!
I just want to hear some rhythm!
I just want to hear some rhythm!
I just want to hear some rhythm!

What’s another word for rhythm? Beat. Pulse. These are signs of life we’re looking for.

I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues

There’s a world out there somewhere, and we’re not part of it.

Bruce’s revealing video for “Radio Nowhere” shows a bustling city of anonymous strangers. Life happens in front of us, along with moments of intimacy, but they’re all viewed from a distance, intercut with photos of the singer being torn apart. (The implication is that the singer is doing it to himself.) This is one of Thom Zimny’s earliest works with Bruce, and its one of his best.

In a contemporaneous interview, Bruce described “Radio Nowhere” as apocalyptic, “an end of the world scenario,” but that’s just its window dressing. Zimny’s video gives away the song’s true significance.

I was driving through the misty rain
Searching for a mystery train
Bopping through the wild blue
Trying to make a connection with you

Our narrator searches high and low for connection: to music (the mystery train refers to the iconic rock song) and to people.

I’ve read suggestions that “misty rain” is a “Downbound Train” callback, and that “dancing down a dark hole” refers to another Born in the U.S.A. track, but I think that’s reading too much into Bruce’s penchant for recycling metaphors. It’s a neat idea to think that this might be Bruce’s way of referring to his career journey (of which Born in the U.S.A. was his commercial apex), but if that was his intent, I doubt he’d select one of the few songs from that album that wasn’t even released as a single.)

And since we’re discussing similarities to other songs, I supposed this is as good a place as any to address the musical controversy that unfortunately overshadowed a deservedly deeper discussion of “Radio Nowhere” when it first debuted.

Yes, the instantly recognizable riff and chord progression of “Radio Nowhere” is unmistakably borrowed from Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309.”

To dismiss the similarity (as many fans and critics do) strikes me as disingenuous.

But acknowledging the influence of the hit 1981 single on Bruce’s 2007 anthem shouldn’t require an ounce of defensiveness. Rock and roll is built on a tradition of recycling and upcycling, borrowing and swapping.

“867-5309” and “Radio Nowhere” are very different songs lyrically and musically, and there are many songs strewn through Bruce’s catalog that share DNA with the work of artists who preceded and came after him for those who enjoy tracing that sort of thing. (I do.)

It was an odd controversy at the time (fueled, no doubt, by some tongue-in-cheek comments offered by songwriter Tommy Heath when interviewed about it), and I’m glad it was much shorter-lived than the maddening “waves/sways” debate. (Thank you, Jon Landau, for putting that to rest before the dice forced me to waste words on it someday.)

So let’s look past the separated-at-birth riffs and appreciate the E Street Band’s performance on”Radio Nowhere” for what it is: a powerful, hard-driving, galvanizing instrumental clarion call as powerful as any in the rock canon. There’s a reason why “Radio Nowhere” tends to only appear as an opener, encore, or lead-in to a main set finale. Like “Badlands” (with which “Radio Nowhere” shares common traits), it reliably rallies the audience to the peak of emotion, energy, and zeal required for the moment… even at 8:45 in the morning.

That was one of Bruce’s earliest performances of “Radio Nowhere.” The song quickly became a set list staple, opening most shows on the Magic Tour and carrying through to the Working on a Dream and Wrecking Ball tours and beyond.

It should also be mentioned that when Jay Weinberg filled in for his dad on drums during the 2009 tour, he absolutely owned “Radio Nowhere,” elevating it to a new level with his fierce playing.

When it came to airplay, however, Bruce’s song went… well, radio nowhere. It was released as the lead single in advance of Magic, but it didn’t even crack the Billboard Hot 100. (It did, however, chart in other countries.) “Radio Nowhere” fared better at the Grammy Awards, where it earned Bruce an award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance.

The failure of “Radio Nowhere” to chart signaled that Bruce’s days of commercial success were behind him. After “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” the following year and “Working on a Dream” in 2009 both peaked at #95, the pop music chart said goodbye to Bruce Springsteen and never looked back, rendering “Radio Nowhere” fittingly prescient.

Is there anybody alive out there?

Radio Nowhere
Recorded: March 2007
Released: Magic (2007), The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2015)
First performed: September 24, 2007 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: February 21, 2017 (Christchurch, New Zealand)

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*Also, as it turns out, blogging. Thanks for sticking around while I was on vacation; it’s good to be back.