{"id":17539,"date":"1984-01-15T11:00:00","date_gmt":"1984-01-15T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=17539"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:53:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:53:37","slug":"roll-of-the-dice-murder-incorporated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/1984\/01\/15\/roll-of-the-dice-murder-incorporated\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder Incorporated"},"content":{"rendered":"

“There’s a body count incorporated into our way of life. We’ve come to accept the expendability of some of our citizens’ lives and dreams as just a part of the price of doing business.” –Bruce Springsteen, December 17, 1995<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was a Tuesday night in the dead of winter, and a lucky invite-only crowd packed the floor at the appropriately-named Tramps in New York City.<\/p>\n

Acclaimed film director Jonathan Demme (hot off of two Academy Award-winning films in a row) was on the scene to prep the crowd for what was about to happen, but it must have been difficult for even the die-hards to believe.<\/p>\n

It had been more than six years since the E Street Band had last played in public and over five years since Bruce had called it an era and moved on to a post-E Street career. But the band had tenuously reunited in the studio to record a few new tracks for Bruce’s upcoming Greatest Hits<\/em> album, and Bruce had a notion to throw an intact Born in the U.S.A.\u00a0<\/em>outtake on there as well, one that not only was a serious contender for the album back in 1982-1983 but was actually for a short time going to be the title track.<\/p>\n

Bruce felt he needed a modern video to draw attention to the 1982 studio outcast, however, and that’s where Demme and the crowd came in. That evening of February 21, 1995 was supposed to be a simple video shoot, but it turned out to be something more: a ten-song mini-concert punctuated by a half-dozen takes of the video they were there to film.<\/p>\n

While the crowd’s anticipation built to a fever pitch, Bruce and the band rehearsed backstage, so calm and assured that you’d think they’d never skipped a day.<\/p>\n