Roll of the Dice: Spanish Eyes

In the midst of the Born to Run Tour, Bruce Springsteen and his former manager Mike Appel filed mutual lawsuits that precluded Springsteen from entering a recording studio for almost a year.

By the time the dust finally settled in May 1977, Bruce had quite a backlog of material. He wasted no time getting back into the studio with the band, and over the months that followed they recorded at least sixty songs, only ten of which would see release a year later on Darkness on the Edge of Town.

If we were to judge by the finished album only, we’d conclude that Bruce left his Born to Run romanticism by the wayside in favor of a more cynical yet defiant vein of songwriting. In truth, Springsteen was still writing the big romantic ballads that typified his setlists from 1975 through 1977. He just locked them away for decades until he finally set them free on The Promise in 2010.

One such song was “Spanish Eyes,” a bright confection that would have stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the embattled set of songs that comprise Darkness.

If you listened to the song above, I’m sure at least two things stood out. First, for a 1977 recording, “Spanish Eyes” sure sounds a lot like modern-day Springsteen. That’s because it is–Bruce never finished the song back in ’77. (He may not even have finished writing the lyrics.) The backing track is vintage (at least mostly so), but the vocals are new.

Here’s an original work-in-progress version from June ’77 with Bruce’s original vocal. We can quickly hear why Bruce had to record a new vocal, because many of the lyrics are bluffed.

The second thing that leaps out at us are the lyrics, which sound awfully familiar to anyone listening to the radio in 1985.

Hey little girl, is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone
Baby I been watching you for a long, long time
Come close, we could have us some fun
And after the burning is done
Our ruins will shine through the night
Where you took me with your Spanish eyes

He’s your Saturday night special baby, is he good to you
Does he have money, honey, like I do
Can he do the things that I’ll do for you
If your answer it isn’t so clear
Then maybe you should stay right here
And let your doubts slip away ‘neath your sighs
Let me kiss your Spanish eyes

“Spanish Eyes” wouldn’t see the light of day until 2010, but those four lines in bold introduce one of Bruce’s greatest hits, his 1985 Top Ten single, “I’m on Fire.”

It’s not just those lines that rhyme between songs; they’re thematically similar, too. Where “I’m on Fire” is steamy and sinister, “Spanish Eyes” sounds richly romantic. However, they’re both seduction songs crooned by a protagonist who isn’t troubled by the fact that the object of his affection already has an object of her own.

When the music it plays and the dancers sway with sweet emotion
And the dance floor is filled with promises of complete devotion
Close to feel your motion
Yeah, bring it on in

Come on and stretch out baby, and call your daddy home
I’m running tonight, I won’t be long
I got something special baby, just meant for you
Here where the road narrows and turns
The only light’s from the fire that burns
Here ‘neath the coal black skies
When I look into your Spanish eyes

“Spanish Eyes” only sounds romantic. While its bridge makes us swoon with words like emotion and devotion, our narrator makes no promises beyond showing his would-be lover a good time. But hey, maybe that’s good enough for tonight.

“Spanish Eyes” is almost certainly inspired by Ben E. King’s 1960 single, “Spanish Harlem,” which Bruce performed a few times during the Wild and Innocent Tour. We can hear its influences in both the music and lyrics (both songs feature references to coal-black eyes).

While its origins aren’t a mystery, its lineage is much tougher to trace. We know that Bruce didn’t finish the song back in ’77. As late as May 1978, we can hear him rehearsing it with the band before the Darkness Tour, but he’s still bluffing in parts and the song is missing an entire verse.

What complicates things is that we have a second work-in-progress take from 1977 that sounds like it’s a more primitive version but was actually recorded (if studio logs are to be believed) two weeks later. Called “New Spanish” (certainly a working title), this version features wholly different lyrics (with even more bluffing than the June version) and a few new musical flourishes–enough that a reasonable argument can be made that “New Spanish” should be considered a separate song.

Whether misdated or a branch experiment that went nowhere, no record exists of “New Spanish” before or after the above outtake, so we’ll simply consider it a curious artifact of the “Spanish Eyes” development process.

Springsteen didn’t tour in support of The Promise, so when he took the E Street Band on a two-year tour to promote Wrecking Ball and High Hopes in 2012, hopes ran high that his sets would feature deep cuts from The Promise. By and large, those hopes didn’t pan out–hard times had come again, and Bruce’s set lists were focused on setting a different mood.

Thank goodness for that tour’s fan request segment, however. One time only, in (fittingly) Madrid in June 2012, an audience member made a sign for “Spanish Eyes.” It caught Bruce’s eye, and the band played it for the first and only time to date.

If we’re only ever going to get one performance, at least it was a great one, featuring a gorgeous Curt Ramm trumpet solo. It’s probably too deep a cut to surface again, but if you’re laying odds keep an eye out for the Barcelona shows in a few months–you never know what surprises might lie in store.

Spanish Eyes
Recorded: June 30, 1977; 2010
Released: The Promise (2010)
First performed: June 17, 2012 (Madrid, Spain)
Last performed: June 17, 2012 (Madrid, Spain)

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