Roll of the Dice: Good Eye

Bruce Springsteen was singing the blues long before he signed his first record deal, but it took him more than a quarter-century to commit a true blues song to vinyl.

“Good Eye” is as bluesy as rock and roll gets.

Conceived and recorded in true Chicago fashion (except for perhaps the harmonica loop shortcut Bruce uses throughout the track), “Good Eye” is a deceptively simple track. Musically, it storms and stomps; lyrically it howls and wails. Bruce makes arguably his best use to date of the bullet microphone he was so fond of in the mid-aughts, producing vocal distortion that further shades his already dark lyrics.

About those lyrics: Bruce wrote a total of six lines for a three-minute song. It’s a testament to his economical songwriting skill that he says as much in those six lines as he did in the six verses of “Cautious Man” two decades earlier.

And that’s not an arbitrary comparison: one can make a strong argument that “Good Eye” and “Cautious Man” are thematically the same song.

I was standing by the river where the cold black water runs
I was standing by the river where the cold black water runs
I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun

I had all the earthly riches, I had each and every one
I had all the earthly riches, I had each and every one
But I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun

Well I swore to you my darling, that you were the only one
Yes I swore to you my darling, you were the only one
I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun

The key to understanding “Good Eye” is to understand the line that closes each verse: I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun.

I’m watching the darkness, not the light, our narrator tells us. I’m surrendering to the temptations of more. More earthly possessions, when I already have all I need. More  pleasures of the flesh, when I already have the one I love. 

That’s it. That’s the song: I had it it all, and I lost it all, because I gave in to my darkest desires.

“Cautious Man” features a narrator still struggling against those urges; “Good Eye” introduces us to one who has already surrendered.

Bruce implicitly acknowledged the linkage when he performed “Good Eye” in concert for the first and only official time (after two rehearsal show outings) at the Working on a Dream Tour opener in San Jose on April 1, 2009.

In the clip below, you’ll hear a distorted Bruce reference the love and fear tattoos Bill Horton bears in “Cautious Man” (which itself was an homage to the 1955 film Night of the Hunter) before launching into an extended jam that’s twice as long as the album track.

“Good Eye” gathered steam and power in each of its three stage outings; even on the album, it sounds tailor-made for an arena. Why Bruce chose to drop it immediately after the tour opener is a question I can’t answer.

“Good Eye” has been absent ever since that 2009 tour opener, but it’s a solid if under-the-radar blues rocker just begging to be brought out again.

Good Eye
Recorded: 2008
Released: Working on Dream (2009)
First performed: March 23, 2009 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: April 1, 2009 (San Jose, CA)

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