
16.09.75 Dallas, TX, intro to ´Spirit in the Night´
´´The night was dark.....the moon was yellow....and the leaves came
tumbling down....´´
16.09.75 Dallas, TX, intro to ´It´s Gonna Work Out Fine´
´´(?) jumping around and stop for a second....I´m gonna (?)
Clarence.....remember I told you I saw a friend of mine the other day ? (Clarence:
´Yeah, right on´) yeah, I did, I met this guy came knocking on my
door, right....came up to my room, he had a briefcase and he had a suit on,
he was all dressed up and stuff and I....I sort of recognised him, he was, he
was with my brother-in-law, right, and my brother-in-law sells insurance, you
know, and, uh....he sells for like, uh, Manhattan Life, is that, Metropolitan
Life, right (?) down in New Jersey and he´s selling insurance and, and,
uh....right, he sold Stevie some, did you keep up the payments ? you did ! how´d
you keep up those payments, man ? (?) Stevie got that insurance policy, so he
sold Stevie some insurance and he sold me some insurance but, but it ran out
two or three months ago so (chuckles) anyway, this guy comes to my door and
my brother-in-law comes to my door and he´s got this guy with him, right,
and I sort of recognised him, you know, but I couldn´t tell from where,
right, ´cause he´s sort of a heavy-set guy with a round face and
he came in, came into my house, we sat down, he was talking and I remembered
that I went to, I went to high school with this guy, right, and that he looked
all different, right, he was, used to be a real skinny guy, right, he played
(?) real athletic type of dude but here he´s sitting selling insurance,
he said he got married, I said ´What you been doing ?´, he said
he got married, had some kids, had, had like four kids, (?) ´Where´d
you get all that hair on your face ?´, you know, I used to be real, like,
clean-shaven type of guy so (chuckles) so he was saying all this stuff, right,
and it started me thinking, it started me thinking about all these, all these
I´ve been in bands with that had like settled down or went crazy or something
(chuckles)(?) the first cat that ever, that I ever was in a band with settled
down and then he went crazy, you see, like, he got married (chuckles)(?) he
got married, this kid, his name was Bobby, he was 17, his name was Skibotts,
right, and he was this real little tiny guy and he wore the nylon socks that
you could see your ankles through and stuff....yeah (?) and he, 17 years old,
he ran off and he got, he got married, he ran off in this car (?) and uh, came
back (?) he missed practise for about two weeks but he came back, you know,
and he didn´t say nothing, he was all, kept real quiet, you know (?) finally
he says ´Yeah, you know, I got married´ and he had little, little
Skibottses and stuff, you know....and so then the next cat, like, I was in the
same band with this guy named George, right, George was this (?) type of guy,
like he had a real pretty face, all the girls used to love him and stuff when
he was in high school, you know, and he was about, I guess, he was about 19
when he settled down, but it started me thinking about all, any married folks
in the crowd here tonight ? one (?) others are still out there running around
and messing around....(?)....they´re out there practising, right (chuckles)(?)....´´
16.09.75 Dallas, TX, intro to ´The E Street Shuffle´
´´Bam !....it was about four years ago on a night just like tonight....it
was a hell of a night (chuckles) it was a night just like tonight, it was about
four years back.....me and Steve, me and Steve, my guitar man, Miami Steve,
and my bass player, Garry Tallent, we were, we had a band, we had a band that
we was working with down in Asbury Park, we had a small band and....we were,
we were playing this, at the time we were looking for a gig, we were looking
for a gig, we couldn´t get a gig anywhere, like, because at the time there
was this influx of bands from Long Island and New York City that was like, if
you remember, there was a period when all the club bands sounded like the Vanilla
Fudge....really, that wa, they was popular, that was (?) and these cats were
coming down and they were putting us, the local dudes, out of work, right....and
uh.....and ´cause we were playing (?) all the stuff we was writing and
we couldn´t get a gig in anywhere, right, and so it was a Saturday night,
it was a Saturday night, we went down to this place called the Student Prince,
that was the name of the joint, this, this little, little place in Asbury, right,
this little stingy place (?) but we were worked there and it was midnight and
Saturday and there was about ten people in the bar, like, that´s not too
many (?)....and we come in, I would say ´Who´s the owner, who´s
the owner ?´ and the guy points to way down the end of the bar, into the
dark, right, and we hussle down to the end of the bar, the dark corner of the
bar and the owner, let me tell you that the owner´s always sit in the
dark corner of the bar....that´s ´cause they may skip town the next
day and you´d never know what they looked like (?) the guy was sitting
down there, a guy named Bob Reed, he was a bricklayer, right, then he bought
this bar and he was like in his 30´s or something (?) so we come up to
him and we said, you know, we had a band (?) he was like this big timer (?)
all the bricklayers would come down (?) after work they would like, that´s
when he made any money he was making, anyway, so weekend´d come and we´d
say ´Listen, you don´t have to pay us no money, we´re gonna
play it for the door´ so we played it for the door and had only ten people
in there....so the guy was hesitant but he finally gave us the gig, so I had
about a 8-piece band, I came in, and I had a 10-piece band at one time, then
this drummer that was in my band, Mad Dog Lopez, he punched the trumpet player
an hour before we were supposed to go on.....(?)....hit him in the arm or hit
him in the mouth (?)(chuckles) so it was like, he quit and I had a 9-piece and
then the other guy who was playing the horn, we threw him out and then, and
then, uh....it came down to this one week when we split up 13 bucks, I came
back the next week with a 7-piece band , we split up 25 bucks, I came back the
next week with a 5-piece band, right, but this was like these five guys (?)
so we started to do this gig and things started to go pretty good, then after
about four months, four or five months, we started to get discouraged....you
know (?) people always telling me ´Man, I´m gonna bring down the
manager from, uh, the Byrds, he´s gonna come see you guys tonight´
(?) there we´d be knocking out five sets a night and you´d sit there
at the end of the night.....nobody there....´Where´s this guy ?´,
right, and you know you´re always saying ´Hey, we´re good
howcome we got no records (?)´ so it was a night like tonight that me
and Steve sat at this little table in this dark little joint and we decided
we were gonna find out the missing element for our band....right, we were gonna
find out what the X was, right, I know, I know all that algebra stuff so (chuckles)(?)
we were looking for X ....everybody out there´s always looking for X....we
got the Y, you got the C....so anyway.... anyway, we were sitting there (chuckles)
we were sitting there and uh....and we figured, we figured, well, we got guys,
they all play good, we got (?) we got a bass player with long hair ´cause
the girls always like that, right, a bass player with the long hair, (?) he
always stands in the back ´cause he´s like real shy type of guy,
so we figured we had the teen appeal, you know, we had that going for us (chuckles)
so we gotta figure out what´s the matter, right..... anyway, it was a
nasty night and me and Steve was walking home with no money down the boardwalk....it
was raining, it was snowing, it was hailing, the sun was shining....if it was
bad, it was happening, right (chuckles) Steve, Steve, despite the storm, had
his guitar with him....because Steve, like, like, he always, before he went
to Miami and became known as the Miami Steve, he was known as the Great Practiser....because
he practised all the time, he practised in the car, he had ten accidents practising
in the frontseat, he practised when he was making love to his girlfriend, she
would say ´Steve, quit that practising !´....but he was, he was
always practising (?) devoted, devoted (?) he was a devoted man....so there
was in the middle of this hurricane and he was practising (?)(Steve plays) he
had a little amplifier ins his hand.....all of a sudden.....(the source tape
is missing a part)....Steve.....he was carrying a (Steve: ´Saxophone´)....(?)....and
the next thing we heard (Clarence plays)(?)..... impressed and very scared.....so
we figured we ain´t gonna take no chances, we just wanted to get home,
right, turn on the blue tube, get some Pop-Tarts and jump into sack....(?) we
duck in this doorway and wait till whatever this is....(?).....we heard them
footsteps coming closer....we heard them footsteps coming closer....and they
came closer and faster....faster and closer (?)....instead of passing us by,
this guy turned (?)....nah, think we was worried or something ?....you got two
very cool guys up here (?) so if we was scared of this guy that we ain´t
gonna show it....(?) gotta put up a front and scare this guy off (?)....after
that didn´t work, we threw all our money on the ground....(?)...all this
guy did was stand there and put out his hand....me being the Boss, I gotta show
leadership (?).....Sparks fly on E Street.....´´
16.09.75 Dallas, TX, middle of ´Kitty´s Back´
´´You see, this girl´s followed me around every city I´ve
been to and the guys in the band think it´s some kind of a joke, right,
they´re always buying her airplane tickets and stuff so she can follow
me down (?)....Here she comes.....´´
16.09.75 Dallas, TX, intro to ´Rosalita´
´´Some folks said it, some folks said it happened in New Jersey...other
folks said it happened in Paris (chuckles) but actually it was (chuckles) in
a little cafe on the other side of the border....she was giving me food that
made my mouth water....´´
Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi