{"id":18560,"date":"1988-09-05T11:00:00","date_gmt":"1988-09-05T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=18560"},"modified":"2026-02-25T13:56:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T21:56:39","slug":"matr-patti-scialfa-and-bruce-springsteen-spanish-dancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/1988\/09\/05\/matr-patti-scialfa-and-bruce-springsteen-spanish-dancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish Dancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rumble Doll,<\/em> Patti Scialfa’s 1993 debut album, revealed a powerful voice paired with songwriting talent at once both brave and vulnerable. Her too-far-apart follow-up albums proved that Rumble Doll\u00a0<\/em>was no fluke.<\/p>\n

That entire first album is wonderful. As Emmylou Harris once put it in a 2013 NPR interview: “[Patti] writes about the female heart, the poetry of being female in a way that it just… every singer-songwriter, female artist that I know loves this record. It never got the attention it should have. I suppose it will always be overshadowed because she\u2019s, you know, Bruce Springsteen\u2019s wife, but it doesn\u2019t take away from the art, her artistry.”<\/p>\n

Rumble Doll<\/em> saves one of its best tracks for last. “Spanish Dancer” is a beautiful ballad about a mesmerizing, unattainable love interest who turns out to be “just a man after all.” It doesn’t require a lot of imagination to suspect who she’s singing about.<\/p>\n