Roll of the Dice: The Long Goodbye

“The tragedy of life…is not that the beautiful things die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.”

 

— Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Conventional wisdom holds that “The Long Goodbye” is Bruce’s confessional about finally cutting the cord with New Jersey and moving to warmer, sunnier climes out west.

I don’t buy it.

Yes, the timing works out nicely: Bruce recorded “The Long Goodbye” shortly after he moved to California with Patti. But while it’s certainly possible that the move inspired him, I think it requires too selective a reading to conclude that’s what the song is about.

There’s a lot more going on in “The Long Goodbye” than a cross-country move.

My soul went walking but I stayed here
Feel like I been working for a thousand years
Chipping away at this chain of my own lies
Climbing a wall a hundred thousand miles high
Well I woke up this morning on the other side
Yeah yeah this is the long goodbye
Hey yeah this is the long goodbye

Bruce’s narrator is trapped in a situation of his own making. It’s possible to read this verse as attachment to a place, but the “chain of my own lies” is a big clue that Bruce is singing about a relationship more personal than geographical.

This is a dysfunctional relationship song. Like “Trouble in Paradise,” recorded not long before it, “The Long Goodbye” is a lyrical continuation of Bruce’s Tunnel of Love songwriting, if not a musical one. (Musically, “The Long Goodbye” is an oddity, an experiment in ZZ Top crunchiness that Bruce doesn’t sound entirely comfortable with.)

Emotionally, our narrator left his relationship long ago. Physically, however, he’s still there–unable to admit to his partner that he’s had enough, and unwilling to admit it to himself. Until one day he wakes up and realizes he’s done.

Same old faces it’s the same old town
What once was laughs is dragging me now
Waiting on rain hanging on for love
Words of forgiveness from some God above
Ain’t no words of mercy coming from on high
Oh no just a long goodbye
Yeah yeah just one long goodbye

An emotionally distant relationship can be harder to escape than a toxic one. What do you do when things are flat enough to leave you empty but not hostile enough to force your hand? You wait on rain, and you hang on for love.

Well I went to leave twenty years ago
Since then I guess I been packing kinda slow
Sure did like that admiring touch
Guess I liked it a little too much

It’s the bridge, I think, that ropes most critics into a narrow interpretation. Working backwards two decades from Human Touch, we arrive at the beginning of Bruce’s career, when he was ready to leave his boardwalk life behind and quit that scene. (Although if we work back from when he recorded “The Long Goodbye” we overshoot a bit.)

More likely, Bruce writes from the perspective of someone who has well overstayed in his relationship, too comfortable in his partner’s regard to admit that he could no longer reciprocate.

But today’s the day he owns up to it, and maybe even the day he does something about it.

The moon is high and here I am
Sitting here with this hammer in hand
One more drink oughta ease the pain
Staring at that last link in the chain
Well let’s raise our glass and let the hammer fly
Hey yeah this is the long goodbye
Hey yeah this is the long goodbye
Kiss me baby and we’re gonna fly
Hey yeah this is the long goodbye

Maybe. All he has to do is say “it’s over.” Those two words are the hammer in his hand, but the fact that he’s looking to liquid strength to face the moment leaves us a little uncertain about the outcome. The hard-rocking backing track belies his ambivalence, but that’s a card Bruce often plays in his songwriting.

The song slowly fades as our narrator drinks and readies his hammer, but it ends before he swings it. And he repeats that last line so many times that we’re left to wonder: will he ever?

Bruce has played “The Long Goodbye” only three times ever in concert, all with his short-lived 1992-93 touring band.

Originally recorded with a completely different set of musicians, “The Long Goodbye” was ill-suited for the touring band, with a heavy synth line in concert that did the song no favors whatsoever. Bruce did turn in some nice guitar solos, but it wasn’t enough to keep the song in the set.

Bruce dropped it a few months into the tour and never attempted it with the E Street Band. But that first ’92 performance was captured on video, providing us a rare document of a lyrically overlooked song,

The Long Goodbye
Recorded: April-May, 1990
Released: Human Touch (1992)
First performed: June 26, 1992 (Frankfurt, Germany)
Last performed: October 22, 1992 (Mountain View, CA)

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