Roll of the Dice: Trouble in Paradise

Bruce Springsteen released “Brilliant Disguise” in October 1987, but he apparently didn’t finish writing it for another two years after that.

Because “Trouble in Paradise” is most definitely the period at the end of his earlier song’s sentence.

“Trouble in Paradise” began its life as a Don Henley song. Or rather, as a Roy Bittan song, who wrote the music with Henley in mind, according to Brian Hiatt in Stories Behind the Songs. It sounds that way, too–this is a track that bears little to no musical resemblance to any other song in Bruce’s catalog. Like many of the songs on Human Touch, “Trouble in Paradise” is synth-forward, but with sparer instrumentation, a more understated production and a late-eighties soft rock feel.

One of three tracks Roy brought to Bruce during a period of writer’s block, “Trouble in Paradise” is also the only one of the three to be cast off Bruce’s Human Touch album. (It wouldn’t see release until Tracks in 1998.) If I had to hazard a guess, I’d speculate that’s because the lyrics Bruce wrote for it look backwards, making it out of step with his forward-looking 1992 albums.

It sure makes a great bookend to his previous album, though. Tunnel of Love gets an unfair rap as a divorce album; it would be more accurate to call it a concept album that explores the stages and varieties of loving relationships. But there’s no denying that the album’s second side is a journey through the fraying of a relationship, the centerpiece of which is the exquisite “Brilliant Disguise.”

“Brilliant Disguise” foreshadows, predicts and even rhymes with “Trouble in Paradise.” Bruce sets his earlier song in newlywed days, where mystery gives way to insecurity and doubt. Seeds of dissolution sown here are in full flower by “Trouble in Paradise.”

The later song takes place if not in the aftermath of a marriage at least in the aftermath of a betrayal. Like he does in “Brilliant Disguise,” Bruce writes from the perspective of a distanced lover in a relationship, in this case one rocked by infidelity–but as to whether our narrator is the cheater or the cheated on, Bruce is deliberately inscrutable.

You do the drying, I’ll do the dishes
Who’ll do the crying when all the wishes don’t come true
You do the washing, I’ll do the folding
Whose heart is breaking when whose arms are holding someone new
Sitting on a peaceful lake sunning
Didn’t hear the roar of the waterfall coming
When it’s all a storybook story
When it’s all so easy and nice
Here comes trouble in paradise

Bruce introduces us to a couple going through the motions of a marriage. They do the dishes together, and the laundry. They do the dusting and the sweeping.

What they don’t do is talk. There’s a cold emotional distance and disconnection in the room, at stark contrast with Bittan’s warm backing track. Bruce wastes no time telling us why: one lover’s heart is broken because the other’s arms are holding someone new.

“Trouble in Paradise” isn’t about the effects of adultery, though. It’s about the roots of it, the missed signals, and our blindness to it. How could we be in trouble, when everything about us seems perfect?

You did the dusting, I did the sweeping
You did the driving and I did the sleeping a little too long
On a picnic ‘neath the sky so blue
We didn’t see the rain and heartache coming through
When it’s all an old black and white movie
And you’re sure you’ve seen the ending twice
Here comes trouble in paradise

In the second verse, the narrator hints that he missed the signs, although it’s still unclear whether he failed to pay attention to his own heart or his spouse’s. Is he the betrayer or the betrayed? Did he fail to see his partner straying or not recognize his own restlessness and dissatisfaction?

Either way, Bruce ends the verse with a clever meta-metaphor, comparing their marriage to the old 1932 Lubitsch movie–simultaneously establishing the song’s theme and title reference while illustrating how we assume that happy endings are as much a given in real life as they are in the cinema. They’re not, of course, so even when we do see the signs of a train bearing down the track at us, we assume a last minute diversion that doesn’t come. (It’s also one of Bruce’s favorite tropes, appropriating the name of an old film to serve double duty as his song title.)

Like many of Bruce’s best songs, the heart of “Trouble in Paradise” can be found in its bridge, which features Bruce voicing a suddenly vulnerable narrator in a vocal so heightened, anguished and soulful that it would make Sam and Dave proud.

You said everything was fine
I’m sorry baby I didn’t see the signs
Oh so beautifully you read your lines
In a play where the hero has no vice
And love comes without a price
So does trouble in paradise

And it’s those last lines that pack the song’s power: in a play where the hero has no vice and love comes without a price, so does trouble in paradise.

We all have flaws, and love takes work to sustain. When we’re blind to the former and naïve about the latter, our relationships are ticking time bombs. We want to be loved, but we need to feel seen for that love to feel authentic. And when one lover feels they’re going through the motions and acting a part, that’s a signal of trouble building.

These lyrics reference key lines from “Brilliant Disguise:”

Now you play the loving woman, I’ll play the faithful man
But just don’t look too close into the palm of my hand

In both songs, Bruce writes of the long-term dangers of presenting yourself inauthentically, even if done so out of the best of motives–to be who we think our partner wants us to be.

Bruce’s earlier narrator knew this:

So when you look at me you better look hard and look twice
Is that me baby or just a brilliant disguise

Am I the person you think I am, he asks. Do I let you see my true self? Do I shield you from my fears and doubts? Or am I protecting myself? The earlier narrator asks these questions, and the later one answers them.

Bruce still hasn’t hinted at who’s the betrayer in the relationship, though, and in the last verse he tells us why:

Don’t matter who did the dusting, who did the sweeping
Who did the trusting or who did the cheating when it’s all gone
Laying in a field on a summer’s day
Waiting for those gray skies to clear away
Knowing all love’s glory and beauty
Can vanish before you think twice
Leaving trouble in paradise

Bruce is deliberately vague because (he argues) blame doesn’t matter. Passivity can be as much at fault as action. Blind trust can be indistinguishable from complacency, and it can keep us from holding up our end of a relationship.

When we take our wedding vows, we promise to love and cherish, honor and hold, trust and respect, care and comfort. We don’t usually pledge to talk and listen, though. It seems too obvious. But it’s the root of connection, and when connection fades, the relationship has a half-life at best.

In “Brilliant Disguise” the narrator is a ball of hot-wire insecurities trapped in his own head because he can’t bring himself to talk to his partner; in “Trouble in Paradise,” we might be listening to the same character, now paying the price for his failure to communicate. And as if to drive home the connection, Bruce ends “Trouble in Paradise” with a coda that echoes one of his most memorable song endings:

Now we share the laughing, we share the joking
Oh we do the sleeping with one eye open

Our couple hasn’t split yet, but they’re definitely broken. They may be healing, though, because for the first time, they aren’t dividing their duties to each other– they’re sharing them.

They’re both telling jokes, and they’re each laughing at the other. It’s a small step, but it’s at least a first one, and it ends the song with a faint glimmer of hope. But like Bruce reminded us earlier, life isn’t a movie, and happy endings don’t come easy.

Bruce’s last line is a brilliant one, because it operates simultaneously on two levels. Taken literally, it reflects the broken trust that may never be fully repaired; read metaphorically, however, it’s a more hopeful reference to Bruce’s earlier confession that he “did the sleeping a little too long.” In other words, it’s a promise to not let each other fall asleep on the job–to keep an eye out for the signals of a relationship sailing toward troubled waters before they arrive.

Because once we start to distance, the masks come on, trust frays, and doubt creeps in.

And when we start doubting what we’re sure of, God have mercy.

Trouble in Paradise
Recorded: December 1, 1989
Released: Tracks (1998)
Never performed

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