When rock and roll first hit the scene, parents fretted over its influence on their impressionable children. Looking back on it, most of those early songs were comparatively tame by today’s standards.
There were exceptions, though.
One of them was “It Ain’t the Meat (It’s the Motion)” by The Swallows, which might have been a hit if it had received national airplay. “Everybody liked it everywhere,” recalled Eddie Rich of The Swallows, “[but] you couldn’t play it.” It became a regional hit in the South, though, where the double entendre-laden lyrics and the rocking accompaniment earned it both appreciation and notoriety.
If you were unfamiliar with the song before now, you might suspect you know what the song’s title is referring to. And you’d almost certainly be wrong.
That’s because in 1974, Maria Muldaur covered “It Ain’t the Meat,” switching the lyrics from a man’s to a woman’s perspective.
Muldaur’s version injected the title phrase into the popular vernacular, and “it ain’t the meat, it’s the motion” became a clever euphemism for saying that penis size doesn’t matter if you’ve got technique.
However, the “meat” of the original song referred to the singer’s female lovers, and that’s the version that Southside Johnny rescued from obscurity when he covered it for his 1976 debut album, I Don’t Want to Go Home, with original Juke Kenny “Popeye” Pentifallo doing his best Irving Turner impression (and making it clear the band was familiar with the original track).
“It Ain’t the Meat (It’s the Motion)” was a reliable crowd-pleaser in either version, and it made frequent appearances in Southside’s early sets (and still makes appearances to this day).
Despite their many on-stage team-ups, however, Bruce Springsteen has never joined Southside for this particular song. He came close one time, though–when Bruce joined the Jukes, the E Street Band, and Ronnie Spector as part of a two-nights-only supergroup called The Asbury Park All-Star Revue.
The Revue was the brainchild of Steven Van Zandt, the nexus linking the Jukes and the E Street Band, when Southside took ill in the spring of 1977 and was unable to perform at a run of shows timed to support his newly released second album.
Stevie assembled the artists on a single stage, fronting the group for Southside’s material while Bruce took the lead for his own songs. Springsteen was on stage the whole night, however, playing guitar when he wasn’t singing.
And that’s exactly what we can hear him doing in this recording of his one and only known performance of “It Ain’t the Meat (It’s the Motion)” — supporting the band on guitar, while Van Zandt handles the frontman duties.
Yeah, I know that’s not the clearest of recordings, but it’s the only one we’ve got. Maybe someday a better version of those special shows will surface, but for the moment, this is our only glimpse at Bruce Springsteen covering one of rock’s earliest risque classics.
It Ain’t the Meat (It’s the Motion)
First performed: May 12, 1977 (Red Bank, NJ)
Last performed: May 12, 1977 (Red Bank, NJ)
