Two Faces: Cynthia

There’s a video of a Late Show interview from 2016, in which Stephen Colbert challenges Bruce Springsteen to name his top 5 Bruce songs. Springsteen gets through the first four pretty easily –“Born to Run,” “The Rising,” “Thunder Road,” and “Nebraska”–and then stalls out. The audience tries to help as Bruce dramatically ponders his choices. Then a woman’s voice rises above the rest, shouting loud enough to get Bruce’s attention. “Cynthia! CYNTHIAAA!”

Bruce, unsurprisingly, goes with “Racing in the Street” instead.

But my heart goes out to that mystery fan, using her moment in the Colbert audience to stand up and testify for “Cynthia.” And I think I understand why this obscure outtake from the Born in the U.S.A. era might inspire such devotion, why someone might believe that Bruce–who didn’t put it on an album at all until Tracks–should nonetheless rank it among his favorite songs.

And that’s because “Cynthia,” a goofy outtake that skirts the boundary between Roy Orbison pastiche and outright Roy Orbison parody, is also one of Springsteen’s most explicitly feminist songs. Ken, who notes the Orbison influence in his original Roll of the Dice entry, writes that “Cynthia” is “a deeper, more mature (albeit marginally) song than ‘Oh, Pretty Woman.’” I would go further. I think “Cynthia” is a deliberate point-by-point feminist re-write of “Oh, Pretty Woman,” in which Bruce takes everything that’s wrong (from a feminist standpoint) with the original song, and fixes it. (A bit like Kelly Clarkson and John Legend rewriting “Baby it’s Cold Outside,” but more tongue-in-cheek, and also better.)

Let’s start by taking a look at the lyrics of “Oh Pretty Woman,” the most famous song ever written about catcalling women on the street.

Pretty woman won’t you pardon me
Pretty woman I couldn’t help but see
Pretty woman that you look lovely as can be
Are you lonely just like me

Pretty woman stop awhile
Pretty woman talk awhile
Pretty woman give your smile to me

Orbison’s singer doesn’t just reduce his subject to her looks, he does it again and again, sometimes twice in the same line. “Pretty woman…you look lovely as can be.” Hey, pretty woman, you’re pretty! Nice one, Roy. Real smooth.

He wonders if she’s lonely. Why would she be? He makes demands on her time, asks her to stop and talk. He tells her to smile. And then he tries to guilt-trip her into spending the night with him.

Pretty woman don’t walk on by
Pretty woman don’t make me cry
Pretty woman don’t walk away, hey

And it works! Realizing what a terrible thing it would be to make Roy Orbison sad, the pretty woman turns around and presumably goes home with him. Happy ending!

So given that the original song is basically a list of sexist tropes loosely stapled together, does it seem improbable that anyone could create a feminist, or at any rate a not horrifically sexist, version of “Oh Pretty Woman?” Well, hold onto your cool and stylish hats, because Bruce Springsteen is about to show us the most respectful way to holler at a woman on the street.

Cynthia, when you come walking by you’re an inspiring sight.

Bruce is off to a good start here; the woman he’s talking to has a name! Where Orbison lets us know from the start that his subject is pretty, but doesn’t bother to name her, Springsteen does the opposite. He calls Cynthia by name, and instead of commenting on her looks, he tells her she’s inspiring. It’s a goofy and charming word choice, a compliment so consciously respectful it tips over into absurdity.

Cynthia, you don’t smile or say hi, but baby that’s all right

You can almost see Springsteen going through Orbison’s song line by line, ticking things off. He’s not going to tell Cynthia to smile. He’s not going to tell her to talk to him. In fact, he doesn’t expect anything from her.

‘Cause I don’t need to hold you or taste your kiss
I just like knowing, Cynthia, you exist, doll, in a world like this

Here, the song makes a quick swerve into one of the major preoccupations of the Born in the U.S.A. era: the general awfulness of the world. This is, of course, the time period of Springsteen’s first major depression, and even in a joke song like “Cynthia” there’s an assumption (played here mostly for laughs) that being depressed is just the standard way to be. Here, everyone in the song seems to be depressed except for Cynthia; the singer works on a construction site populated by men who are all equally bummed out and in need of inspiration.

Well you give us a reason to stop just for a while
To stop, stand, baby, and salute your style

Salute your style. Notice that we still don’t know what Cynthia looks like. The emphasis is entirely on her style, her attitude, her general vibe.

Springsteen makes it clear that unlike Roy Orbison, his character is not going to be laying a guilt trip on Cynthia.

Well now you ain’t the finest thing I’ll never have
And when you go the hurt you leave baby it ain’t so bad

She cheers him up, sure. But that doesn’t mean she needs to worry about making him unhappy when she leaves; he’s a rational adult; he can handle it. He’s still a little worried, though, that he and his buddies might be overstepping, that it might bother Cynthia to know she’s being talked about. So he asks her.

There ain’t a man in this whole town who’d say you ain’t fine
You hear them guys talking, tell me, baby, do you mind?

Once again he implicitly apologizes, reminding her that she’s a bright spot in a miserable world, that by ogling her on the street he’s just trying to alleviate his own depression. That he feels the need to justify himself at all sets him aside from Orbison’s singer, who feels fully entitled to approach any woman as long as she’s pretty. Springsteen’s character is still going to talk to Cynthia, or at least talk about her, but he needs her to know he has a good reason for it.

Well you make us happy, honey, when we feel sad
To see something so good in a world gone bad

As proof, he gives us a quick snippet of dialogue, two guys reassuring each other: “There’s still Cynthia.” “Oh yeah.”

In case we’re worried that these emotionally needy men might start stalking Cynthia, he lets us know she’s still safely a mystery; they don’t know anything about her beyond her name.

Cynthia, no one knows your number, no one knows where you live
Cynthia, I wonder do you understand this strange thing you give
Yeah well baby is it your style, the mystery in your smile
Or just how cool you walk, in a world gone wild?

Let’s catalogue the words we’ve heard applied to Cynthia, shall we? She’s inspiring, she walks cool, she has style. We’re now most of the way through the song, a song that’s entirely devoted to admiring Cynthia, and Springsteen has not once called her pretty. “Fine” is the closest we’ve gotten.

Springsteen ends with a specific callback to Orbison’s first verse. “Pretty woman, I don’t believe you,” Orbison sang, “you’re not the truth.” Springsteen sings, “I gotta be pretty naïve to believe in you,” but here it comes across not as flattering or insulting but just as realism: he’s acknowledging that he doesn’t know Cynthia, and that any hopes or beliefs he’s built around her are just in his mind. And that’s okay, because as he assures her one last time, he doesn’t expect anything from her. He’s going to let her keep walking now, and unlike Orbison’s pretty woman, she’s not going to turn around.

Yeah now baby, now this ain’t no come-on
Now walk on, Cynthia, walk on

As she walks away, Bruce finally lets loose with some hoots and hollers.

You make me holler, yeah, yeah, all right
I said yeah, yeah, all right
Well she’s a yeah, yeah, all right

I’m torn as to how to take this ending. Pure, joyful, goofy celebration, Springsteen having fun at the end of an essentially silly song? Or are these whoops what Cynthia actually hears as she’s walking past the construction site, unaware of all the high-minded, idealistic thoughts that lie behind them?

Either way, this song is essentially sketch comedy, not to be taken too seriously. It’s like an SNL skit on respectful catcalling. But for such a light song, it manages a neat balancing act: it’s both a loving homage to Roy Orbison and a hilarious, welcome gift to every woman who’s ever cringed at the lyrics of “Oh, Pretty Woman.”

So if some of us, at odd moments, are moved to holler “Cynthia!” at Bruce – well, what can we say? It makes us happy when we feel sad, to know that in a world like this there’s still “Cynthia.”