Roll of the Dice: Candy’s Room

We left Bruce and the band on September 2, 1977–the day they finished both the version of “Candy’s Boy” that appears on The Promise and the last known version of “The Fast Song.” In the latter, Bruce had the completed music for “Candy’s Room,” but the lyrics were still floating unresolved between the two.

It was at this point that Bruce began to merge the sibling songs. As September progressed, “Candy’s Boy” and “The Fast Song” came together in the creatively titled “New Fast Song (Candy).” In a surviving page of handwritten lyrics, we can see the ideas starting to coalesce.

In Candy’s room she has pictures of her savior on the wall
But to get to Candy’s room you got to walk Candy’s hall
Strangers from the city call my baby’s number
They bring Candy toys but when I come knockin’
She smiles pretty, she knows I’m gonna be Candy’s boy

There somewhere in the darkness I find hidden worlds that shine
Through the fear blackness mist

Then when we kiss my hearts explodes through my skin
For with a moment she lets me in
That’s when the sadness begins
I get visions of avenging angels of eden
With them white horses and flaming swords
Can blow this whole town into the sea
But they cant touch Candy and me
Our love they cannot destroy
I will forever be Candy’s boy

She says baby if you wanna be wild you got a lot to learn
You gotta let your heart burn
So come with me together baby we’ll drive all
We’ll go drivin’ together into the night
through the heart of a fire fight with no rain

We go driving south through the pines ??? the out roads
that ??? off the line and then we kiss
From a world we’ll meet / burn / take / know / without end

We’re getting closer to the final version of “Candy’s Room,” now:  The first verse is there (it’s the one consistent component from the very beginning of the song’s evolution), and we see hints of the second (although this version contains lyrics that will make their way to “Iceman“).

The bridge is there too, although it’s a bit distributed. It’s only at the end of the song that Bruce seems to run out of steam, losing both power and coherence.

Bruce continued tinkering and polishing throughout the month, but sometimes evolution doesn’t happen in a straight line. On September 30, Bruce sat down at the piano and played yet another new version of what was quickly becoming “Candy’s Room,” and his demonstration was captured on video by Barry Rebo.

This version contains almost entirely new lyrics, but thematically the heart of the song remains intact:

In the night, all the lights will shine
With people laughing all the time
I went down to that house that sits on the edge of town
Shining so fine and so bright, so full of light

Tonight, I got a feeling that I can’t face
And tonight, I got a loneliness I can’t erase
I got a hunger that drives me down
Down to the gates of the house
That waits on the edge of town
Feeding my fears night after night
And for me, she’s waiting in the window
I see her face with a beauty that time can’t erase
Hidden from the sound, hidden from the light, hidden from the world… tonight

From here, evidence suggests the song cohered rather quickly, with recording sessions for the final track taking place between late October and mid-December, with three days of intensive overdubbing and mixing in early March until a final version (take 42 out of a total of 79) was selected for Darkness on the Edge of Town.

After almost two years of pruning and grafting, finessing and fine-tuning, “Candy’s Room” was complete.

And now that we’ve listened to the final track, we can finally ask the question: What’s it all about?

Who is Candy? Is she–as many (including this blogger) have suggested–a prostitute? (When Brian Hiatt put the question to him in 2010, Bruce simply laughed it off: “Does it matter? Does it really matter? I’ll never tell.”) Or was she–as two of his former girlfriends seem to believe–based on a former paramour?

My opening sentence in the first installment of this trilogy was: “Candy was definitely a hooker, and it absolutely matters.” I stand by my assessment: it certainly wouldn’t be either the first or last time Bruce cast a lady of the evening as his femme fatale.

But in fairness, after travelling the long and winding road from “Candy’s Boy” and “The Fast Song” to “Candy’s Room,” a fair argument can be made that Candy is a composite more than a character, and the song an impression moreso than a narrative. Bruce’s song went through so many iterations and so much evolution that it’s hard to make the case for a clear artistic vision from the outset.

That said, the first verse is vivid enough to strongly suggest  that Candy is a professional lover…

In Candy’s room, there are pictures of her heroes on the wall
But to get to Candy’s room, you gotta walk the darkness of Candy’s hall
Strangers from the city call my baby’s number and they bring her toys
When I come knocking, she smiles pretty, she knows I wanna be Candy’s boy

…and its consistent and continual inclusion as the opening verse of the song from its very earliest incarnations convinces me that “Candy’s Room” requires a narrator in love with an escort. Bruce also strongly suggests that the narrator is one of Candy’s clients, one of lesser material means than her other, more well-heeled johns.

But if he can’t compete financially, our self-styled hero can at least offer Candy true passion and connection–or so he’s convinced himself. Our narrator has cast himself as Candy’s would-be savior, certain that she must feel the same rush that he does when they’re together.

There’s a sadness hidden in that pretty face
A sadness all her own, from which no man can keep Candy safe
We kiss, my heart’s rushes to my brain
And the blood rushes in my veins, the fire rushes towards the sky
And then we go driving, driving deep into the night
I go driving deep into the light, in Candy’s eyes

We should pause our lyrical analysis for a moment to acknowledge the brilliance of the backing track. For a song pieced together from parts, it’s astounding how well the final lyrics and music reflect each other. In large part, this is because Bruce abandons concern with meter and form, delivering his vocals in spoken-word for much of the song, and matching the music’s flourishes.

“Candy’s Room” is instantly recognizable in its opening second purely from Max Weinberg’s unique drum introduction, which carries us through the first verse. (Max once called “Candy’s Room” his favorite Springsteen song to play.) Paired with Bruce’s flat, quiet, almost numb vocals, it creates a simmering, carefully constrained effect, as if our narrator is struggling to contain his seething jealousy.

But when he begins to describe their love-making, the song opens up–the musical accompaniment to rushing blood and heart and fire. And when Candy finally speaks, the song reaches its climax too, in a screaming guitar-solo of a bridge.

She says, “baby if you wanna be wild, you got a lot to learn
Close your eyes, let them melt, let them fire, let them burn”
‘Cause in the darkness, there’ll be hidden worlds that shine
When I hold Candy close she makes these hidden worlds mine

Finally, though, our narrator returns to reality–a reality in which he can’t compete with the expensive gifts lavished on her by her other suitors. So he convinces himself that he doesn’t need to: his connection with Candy is special rather than professional, and while he may have to accept her sharing her body, he’s got exclusive dibs on Candy’s heart.

She has fancy clothes and diamond rings
She has men who give her anything she wants, but they don’t see
That what she wants is me
Oh and I want her so, I’ll never let her go, no no no
She knows that I’d give all that I got to give
All that I want, all that I live to make Candy mine
Tonight

While never stated, the implication that Candy is a sex worker casts doubt on the reliability of our narrator. Does he truly have an intimate connection with the object of his affection? Possibly. But a skilled courtesan would likely convince her customer of that regardless of whether it was true, and the suggestion that our protagonist is or was originally a client suggests that he’s not quite as certain as he tries to sound.

Whether he’s correct, naive, or delusional is something we never learn, and it’s that uncertainty that shades “Candy’s Room” as one of the darker tracks on an already very dark album.

I know fans who have softer interpretations of “Candy’s Room” than I do, and one could certainly and willfully read it as a boy of modest means attempting to woo a high-society girl, but contextual clues in both the song and on the album itself convince at least this normally romantically-inclined blogger to take a more cynical view.

But more importantly, the Candy-as-courtesan interpretation supports the central conceit of the entire Darkness on the Edge of Town album: that even in the darkest of circumstance and context, Bruce’s characters cling to romance and idealism (whether by courage or delusion), caught up in a struggle that never resolves, standing on that hill with everything they’ve got.

In the end, “Candy’s Room” is yet another Springsteen song about a loser who knows the deck is stacked against him and yet refuses to concede the fight.  But it’s also arguably the most visceral such song.

We never do find out Candy’s side of the situation or her feelings for her would-be Romeo. Maybe she really is just making a living, or maybe she’s truly won over by his passion. We never learn, because the point of “Candy’s Room” isn’t the outcome but rather the struggle.

To win Candy’s heart, you have to reach Candy’s room. (The latter is a metaphor for the former, in case that isn’t clear by now.)

And to reach Candy’s room, you have to walk that long, dark hall.

Candy’s Room
Recorded: October 27, 1977 – March 5, 1978
Released: Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
First performed: May 23, 1978 (Buffalo, NY)
Last performed: August 26, 2023 (Foxborough, MA)

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