Roll of the Dice: I’m on Fire

At long last, the dice force us to confront one of the great enduring Springsteenian mysteries, namely:

Why is “I’m on Fire” so freaking popular?

I’m not exaggerating: only four of Bruce’s songs have ever outperformed “I’m on Fire” (which  peaked at #6) on the charts, and when it comes to covers, I lost count long ago. It’s clearly the most-covered Springsteen song ever. My list of notable “I’m on Fire” covers left to blog about still has dozens of entries and grows by the week.

“I’m on Fire” is arguably Bruce Springsteen’s most popular song, and I’ll be darned if I can explain why.

It’s not that it’s a bad song–in fact, it’s a great song. But it’s also one of Bruce’s slightest songs at barely two-and-a-half minutes and the sparest of lyrics (half of which he recycled from a Darkness-era outtake called “Spanish Eyes”).

It’s also a quiet song–not even really an E Street Band track, as Bruce, Max, and Roy (sort of a Jersey version of the Tennessee Three, for whom “I’m on Fire” is clearly an homage) are the only musicians playing on it.

Could that be the reason for its everlasting popularity? Did Bruce, Max, and Roy tap a vein of Johnny Cash fans ready to embrace Bruce’s music? Could be, I suppose, since The Man in Black had just released a couple of Springsteen covers on vinyl just a year prior.

But it had been years since Cash had enjoyed chart success anywhere near where “I’m on Fire” was flying, and when “I’m on Fire” was peaking, it was surrounded on the charts by slicker, poppier hits from Madonna, Phil Collins, Debarge, and The Commodores. Bruce’s song kind of stood out.

Maybe it’s the video? Other than “Glory Days,” which uses its story as a framing sequence, “I’m on Fire” is really the only Springsteen video that attempts to tell a story rather than spotlight Bruce’s performance (at least until “Hunter of Invisible Game“).

“I’m on Fire” is one of Bruce’s better videos, thanks to the talent behind it. Legendary film director John Sayles (early in his career) helmed it, conceiving it as a dramatic enactment of the song’s forbidden lust theme.

Legend has it the legs of the otherwise unseen object of desire belong to actress Cybill Shepherd, but Sayles denies that. Her voice, though, belongs to the video’s producer (and Sayle’s life partner) Maggie Renzi, and that Ford Thunderbird is rumored to be the same one Suzanne Sommers drove in American Graffiti.

But it’s Bruce who clearly and convincingly carries the video, wisely cast as what Sayles refers to as “a brooding character in a brooding song… he doesn’t have to talk much!” The video quickly establishes heat between Bruce’s grease monkey and his out-of-his league customer, with Bruce’s offer to deliver the car to her mansion on the hill, her slightly (but significantly) hesitant resistance, Bruce’s override and finally his last-minute return to his senses.

Bruce’s video of “I’m on Fire” is basically a more mature version of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” video, and watching them back to back begs the question why no one really flagged this at the time.

Joel’s video was nominated for a Best Video VMA in 1984 but lost; “I’m on Fire” was nominated and won the following year. So perhaps audiences favored a more adult approach.

Except that video has long since faded from the zeitgeist, so it doesn’t fully explain the song’s strange popularity either.

So maybe it’s the lyrics. Unlike “Hungry Heart” and “Dancing in the Dark” (the only songs that previously outperformed it), both of which require close attention to understand thanks to their belying backing tracks, Bruce’s words in “I’m on Fire” are simple, direct, and frank–and in perfect comity with his music.

It’s almost silly to try and analyze “I’m on Fire,” so blatant are its lyrics.

Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone
I got a bad desire
Oh I’m on fire

Tell me now baby is he good to you
Can he do to you the things that I do
I can take you higher
Oh I’m on fire

Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull
And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul

At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Oh I’m on fire

The entire song boils down to:

I’m completely obsessed with you, and you should really be with me because I’m way better in bed than that guy you’re with.

There’s really nothing else left to comment on, except perhaps for the “skull/soul” debate. (He sings the former on both vinyl and stage despite clearly writing the latter in every printed source, including his official web site to this day. This is a more substantial difference than the “sways/waves” thing). Or perhaps we could debate whether the sheets are soaking wet from sweat or some other nocturnal emission.

But these are mere distractions from a song that I am quite sure everyone over the age of thirteen understands on first listen.

Of course, Bruce wasn’t the first or only artist to write graphically about sex, so that doesn’t fully explain the song’s popularity either.

So perhaps it’s his delivery. We’re talking about a mega-star (at the time, certainly) who was best known for his powerful, bombastic, almost physical vocals, so to hear Bruce so controlled, so restrained, so pent-up to the point of repressed… that performance holds us so rapt at least in part because of all the expectations we bring to the song based on our previous experience with Bruce.

“I’m on Fire” is a tightly coiled wire of sexual tension that only finds release in the wordless coda, without which I’d argue the song would border on creepy.

(In an unused take, the coda extends for a good thirty seconds longer than the official version. It’s a little too much release, in my opinion, but you can judge for yourself here.

Jackson Browne said it best in Rolling Stone: “[Bruce] lets all this muscular playing fall away. The performance has its own power. It’s something that exists in him. It’s just there. And it’s astonishing to see somebody who relied that much on physical power to let the music and his voice be understated like this. It’s a great moment.”

Bruce’s restraint is clearly a conscious choice, a technique he continues to use to this day. Even in the midst of a stadium full of fans, when Bruce breaks out “I’m on Fire,” he’s likely to do so in a physically intimate fashion–sometimes even sitting down with his audience.

Even in his less-restrained performances, Bruce is wont to let his audience come to him rather than the other way around.

So is it Bruce’s performance that makes the song so popular? If that was the root cause, it wouldn’t explain why there are so many covers in countless varieties of arrangements. More so than most of Bruce’s songs, “I’m on Fire” seems infinitely pliable. It takes to pretty much any genre, and depending on how it’s performed, it can range in effect from wistful to sinister. Bruce leaned into the latter during his 2005 solo acoustic tour.

So which is it? What’s the secret to this song’s popularity? Is it the production, the music, the lyrics, the video, the vocals, the theme, or its versatility?

Heck if I know. (You didn’t think I was going to answer that, did you? I said up front that it was a mystery.)

Maybe it’s the mix and balance of all of the above, perfectly proportioned ingredients in a recipe for enduring commercial and artistic success.

But in a nice bit of circle closure, shortly before his death Johnny Cash recorded his own version of the Springsteen song he inspired, joining the crowded and still-growing ranks of notable artists covering one of Bruce’s most-loved songs: “I’m on Fire.”

I’m on Fire
Recorded: May 11, 1982
Released: Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
First performed: June 29, 1984 (Saint Paul, MN)
Last performed: July 2, 2023 (Oslo, Norway)

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