Roll of the Dice: Action in the Streets

I’m raising the white flag without even trying to analyze this one.

In Bruce Springsteen’s entire catalog, I’m not sure there’s a  bigger moving target than “Action in the Streets.”

Bruce performed it just shy of two dozen times during his 1977 “Lawsuit Tour,” and I’m pretty sure he changed the lyrics each and every time.

The first time he performed it (opening night in Albany), the song’s title didn’t even appear in the lyrics.

And despite benefiting from two stellar soundboard archive releases,  it still sounds like Bruce was either partially bluffing the lyrics each night or else realized that for a song like “Action in the Streets,” diction didn’t really matter. Certainly, the lyrics don’t. “Action in the Streets” is basically a song-length “everybody dance!”

Don’t move, I want you to listen now to what I’m saying
Hey you, you better get up if you plan to be staying
Get loose, come on and live for what the band is playing
And it’s whoa tonight, we’re rocking on the street
All night we’re thinking about the street
And driving, driving in the heat, and let’s go

At school, everybody you better take heed
Hey you, in this action that you need
That’s cool, it’s satisfaction guaranteed
Whoa  tonight, we’re rocking on the rhythm all night
Won’t you ???, let’s roll
???, let’s go

Hey man, now don’t let the little girls slide
Understand, move your body from side to side
Raise your hand, and shout until you’re satisfied
Whoa tonight, we’re rocking to the rhythm all night
Until you get the feeling don’t go
Racing in the street, don’t care

No, “Action in the Streets” was all about the music. Bruce loved its brassy, Miami Horns-powered instrumental underpinning.

I mean he loved it–so much so that he kept writing songs on top of it. Listen to E Street Band shows throughout the 1970s and you’ll hear it in “A Night Like This” and “A Love So Fine.” You’ll hear it on the vintage studio track “So Young and in Love” (which Bruce recorded in the ’70s but didn’t perform live until the post-Reunion era). And of course, we hear it in “Action in the Streets.”

Eventually, he gave up on lyrics altogether and just turned it into a Big Man showcase called “Paradise by the ‘C’.”

In the modern era, “Action in the Streets” is all but forgotten, unplayed on tour since 1977 and overshadowed on disc and stage by its cousin, “So Young and in Love.”

But on a summer night at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park in 2011, eyebrows were raised and minds blown when Bruce strode onto the stage with J.T. Bowen and The Sensational Soul Cruisers. Together, they played a set of songs that once upon a time spotlit the (at the time) recently departed Clarence Clemons.

The set started with a familiar melody that fooled most who recognized it into expecting “So Young and in Love.” By the time Bowen entered with his vocals, however, hardcore fans knew they were witnessing the return of “Action in the Streets” after an almost 35-year absence.

For the few in attendance, it was a magical throwback to a simpler time–one not likely to be repeated again. As for that instrumental, though… Bruce seems too fond of it for us to have seen the last of it.

Action in the Streets
Never recorded
Never released
First performed: February 7, 1977 (Albany, NY)
Last performed: July 17, 2011 (Asbury Park, NJ)

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