{"id":17937,"date":"2020-05-11T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=17937"},"modified":"2021-12-20T04:42:19","modified_gmt":"2021-12-20T12:42:19","slug":"roll-of-the-dice-tv-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/11\/roll-of-the-dice-tv-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Roll of the Dice: TV Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember one night when we were completely packed up to go home and Bruce was off in the corner playing his acoustic guitar. Suddenly, I guess the bug bit him, and he started writing these rockabilly songs. We’d been recording all night and were dead tired, but they had to open up the cases and set up the equipment so that we could start recording again at five in the morning. That’s when we got “Pink Cadillac<\/a>,” “Stand On It<\/a>,” and… “TV Movie”… Bruce got on a roll, and when that happens, you just hold on for dear life. — Max Weinberg, quoted in Clinton Heylin, E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It wasn’t just that night. Bruce had been writing in a rockabilly vein all through the\u00a0Born in the U.S.A.<\/em> sessions. “My Hometown<\/a>” started out as rockabilly, as did “Cynthia<\/a>” and “Sugarland.”<\/p>\n

It’s not clear exactly when that night was that Max refers to–“Pink Cadillac” and “TV Movie” both date back to home demos in very early 1982, so it’s unlikely that Bruce had invented them out of whole cloth in the studio sessions that followed.<\/p>\n

More likely he resurrected them, inspired by his mood to finish and perfect them with the band. “Pink Cadillac” was recorded on May 31, “TV Movie” on June 13, and “Stand On It” on June 16, so that rockabilly groove lasted at least two weeks. While none of the three would make it onto a studio album (they’d all see the light of day on Tracks, <\/em>Bruce’s 1998 outtakes collection), two of the three would be performed dozens of times over the decades that followed.<\/p>\n

“TV Movie,” however, would see only a single live outing (to date, at least), so let’s give this relative obscurity some sunlight.<\/p>\n