“Mountain of Love” still had seven years to go before becoming a #1 hit single when Bruce Springsteen covered it five times on the Born to Run Tour.
It wasn’t for lack of trying, though.
One-hit-wonder Harold Dorman had his one hit with “Mountain of Love” when he wrote and recorded his tale of jilted heartbreak in 1959.
Dorman’s lyrics were cutting. “Mountain of Love” is the story of a man forced to stand by helplessly as his former intended marries another man instead. Musically, though, “Mountain of Love” is irresistibly upbeat, even more so when Johnny Rivers covered it four years later.
It was the kind of dichotomous pairing of dour lyrics and poppy melody that Bruce has always seemed drawn to.
Dorman’s original stopped just shy of the Top Twenty; Rivers’ version went all the way to #7. One listen to Springsteen’s 1975 arrangement is all it takes to figure out which version captured his imagination. Take a listen to his debut performance from February 5, 1975 at The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA.
“Mountain of Love” proved a perfect fit for the young E Street Band, an early, minor, southern rock-and-roll hit reinvigorated by the boys from New Jersey. They only ever played it five times on tour, but remarkably almost every one of them was preserved in stellar quality. One appears in an official archive release…
…and astoundingly, one was even captured on video.
In 1982, Charley Pride recorded a cover of “Mountain of Love” and finally took the song to #1 (albeit on the country chart).
By then, though, Bruce had long stopped playing it in concert, and it seemed a safe bet against it ever appearing on Bruce’s set list again.
It wasn’t a safe bet though, because almost 33 years after he’d last performed it, Bruce accepted a fan’s “Stump the Band” challenge at a now legendary Magic Tour show in St. Louis in 2008. After a brief on-stage huddle, “Mountain of Love” made a triumphant return, much to the delight of long-time fans and the bemusement of newer ones.
In the years since, “Mountain of Love” has made a few more cameos, each time in a different arrangement. Early in the Wrecking Ball Tour, the song benefitted from a brassy infusion by the E Street Horns…
…and towards the end of the tour, Bruce performed it by himself on his acoustic guitar in Sweden. (He wasn’t the first to perform it acoustically, though. The Beach Boys staked that territory decades earlier.)
Before he offered his solo performance, Bruce gave the original songwriter some long overdue recognition, even though he knew the odds of anyone in his audience recognizing Dorman’s name were slim to none.
If Dorman hadn’t long since passed, it might have been a sweet moment for the one-hit singer-songwriter who watched one artist after another reach an audience he was never able to reach on his own.
Mountain of Love
First performed: February 5, 1975 (Bryn Mawr, PA)
Last performed: May 13, 2013 (Solna, Sweden)
