
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Reason to Believe’
‘‘Thank you.....now, here’s a song about blind faith....and
its, uh, tragic consequences .....‘cause everybody´s waited for
somebody who wasn´t ever coming back.....”
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Nebraska’
‘‘Oh....thanks.....this is uh.....I guess this is a song about what
happens when.....the ties that bind don’t bind no more and uh.....people
start feeling isolated from their families and their friends....from their government.....”
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Johnny Bye Bye’
‘‘Thank you....this is a song, I guess, about, uh.....I wrote, I
guess, in 1978.....it’s uh, I guess everybody has certain events that
they, that they kind of mark their lives by, you know, things that.....like
I can always remember I was nine years old and I remember my mother had Elvis
Presley on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’....like, I ran out and got a guitar
and....and started to take guitar lessons.....but they weren´t teaching
no rock’n’ roll in 1959, not at the, not at the lessons (chuckles)....I
remember, I remember I was 13 and I was in high school....when a.....when a
kid came running across the field..... and told us that the, that the president,
that John Kennedy had been shot.....and (?) I was living on this farm in New
Jersey when a friend of mine called me up and told me that Elvis.....that Elvis
Presley had died....and it was hard to understand how somebody who took away
so many people’s loneliness....could end up feeling so lonely.....there´s
all sorts of isolation that can kill you, whether it´s from the bottom
or from the top....this is called ‘Bye Bye, Bye Bye Johnny’.....”
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘I’m Goin’Down’
‘‘Oh....oh, let me see....let’s do something else (?) changing
my mind....what key is ‘I’m Goin´Down’....oh yeah, oh
yeah, alright....this is a song about the fleetingness of love.....how quickly
it passes.....you know, you meet somebody, and everything they do is great and
everything they do is beautiful and, and they come over and they’re all
dressed up all the time and you’re always spending time in front of the
mirror getting yourself all fixed up.....you know, and then about six months
later you come back....(?) ‘How did I ever get stuck with you ?’....you
know, at first it´s ‘What movie you wanna go see ?’, ‘Oh
honey, I don´t care, any one you wanna see’....‘Do you wanna
go out tonight ?’ ‘Oh honey, I don´t care, just as long as
I am with you’....and you’re making love to ‘em all the time,
three or four times a day....then you come back a little bit later .....and
oh-oh (chuckles)....it’s like ‘Are you gonna make love to me tonight
or are we gonna wait for the full moon again, you know ?’....anyway....what
can you say ? (chuckles) I mean, like, what´s the first verse ?....”
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Glory Days’
‘‘Now, this song.....this is a song about....my personal life....I
mean the kind of stuff
that you're gonna read in the National Enquirer after I die....or if my girlfriend
gets
mad at me you’re gonna read it while I’m still alive.....(?) I gotta
be good....but anyway, like when I was like, when I was about 15, I got interested
in three things.....
one, I was interested in playing pool ‘cause my father did....and then
I was interested in the guitar....and then the third thing I was interested
in was....you know....one Christmastime, one Christmastime my mother took me
down to Sears and for 69.95, she got me one of these little pooltables.....then
like we took it home on top of
the car, we tied it to the top of the car and like you know, lugged it upstairs,
I had it, I
put it in my bedroom.....so like I used to bring my girlfriends over and I would
tell my
father, I’d say ‘Dad, we’re gonna, we’re gonna go up
in my room and play pool for a little while’....but like, like my bedroom
was right over the kitchen and he used to sit in the kitchen all the time and
so, if he didn’t hear the guitar, and if he didn’t hear the pool
balls knocking around, he had a broomstick that he used to bang on the ceiling.....
‘Stop that!’ (chuckles) you know, but I had it all figured out ‘cause
I used to pull the pooltable like real over close to the bed, you know, and
like every once in a while I’d like reach up and knock the pool balls
around a little bit.....but anyway, as I matured.... I put away those childish
things....gave up playing pool, and of the other two, the guitar is the only
thing that I became profecient at.....but the third thing, I’m still looking
for some volunteers who wanna practice, practice, practice.....you know you
gotta practice all the time.....I’m gonna get it down (chuckles) this
year some time (chuckles).....anyway, in the end this song is about how all
things must pass.....all those wonderfully frustrated years (chuckles) and how
in the end it ain’t nothing but glory days....’’
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘My Hometown’
‘‘Thank you, thanks.....I was staying out in California, I guess,
a couple....a couple of winters ago and uh.....I wrote this song about the town.....the
town that I grew up in..... and uh....I guess when I was a kid, I remember....I
couldn´t wait to.....it was kind of a small town, real narrowminded, I
couldn´t wait to get out of there.....and for a long time I did and I
never went back and didn´t think much about what was going on back there....and
uh....I guess, as you get older, you try to.....face up to the responsobilities
of belonging somewhere and belonging to something.....whether it’s your
town or your state or the country that you live in....well, this song, I guess,
is a song about responsobility.....uh.....tonight when you go out into the lobby,
you’re gonna see some folks from the Harvesters’ Food Network.....and
what they are is they’re a foodbank, every, every year in this country
about 20 % of the food that gets produced just gets wasted and thrown away....meanwhile
in every city and every state, there’s people that are going hungry, that
aren´t getting enough to eat, that are falling through the cracks in our
social system and they got nowhere to go.....so these people try to get a hold
of that food and get it to the people that need it and just one dollar, just
one dollar enables them to get 30 dollars worth of food.....and.....they’ll
be out there tonight, they can use your support, I know I’d appreciate
it and they’d appreciate it.....and sometimes, sometimes these things
feel like they´re happening a long ways away but they’re not, it’s
happening right here in your hometown.....”
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘No Surrender’
‘‘Thanks (chuckles) oh ! (chuckles)....thank you.....oh, this song,
uh....this is a song about friendship, I guess.....about, uh, trying....trying
to, uh, find something you can hold on to....and then trying to hold on to it
(?)....that´s, I guess, the hardest thing to do ....anyway, this is....Phil,
this is from Pat to you on your birthday, she called me up and wanted me to
dedicate a song to you so, so happy birthday, Phil, and uh.....”
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Pink Cadillac’
´´Take it easy now, boys....now, this is a song about the conflict
.....between worldly things and spiritual health....between desires of the flesh....and
spiritual ecstasy....now, where did this conflict begin ?.....well, it began
in the beginning in a place called the Garden of Eden....now, the Garden of
Eden was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia....but the
latest theological studies have found that its actual location was ten miles
south of Jersey City, off the New Jersey Turnpike.....now, understand, in the
Garden of Eden , there were none of the accoutrements of modern living....I
mean they didn´t have no Laudromats, they didn’t have no like, like
little toasters you could put your Pop-Tarts in and then watch Johnny Carson
on tv....you couldn’t go out on to the highway and buy a cheeseburger
if you wanted one.....no, Sir ....in the Garden of Eden, there was no sin....there
was no sex.....man lived in a state of innocence ....now, when it comes to no
sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I live in .... but before the tour started
I decided to make a spiritual journey to the location of the Garden of Eden
to find out the answer to some of these pressing problems.....I went there and
that spot is now occupied by Happy Dan´s Celebrity Used Car Lot....I walked
in, the man said ´Son, you need a yellow convertible , a four-door DeVille
with a Continental spare, wide chrome wheels, air-conditioning, automatic heat,
with a full fold-out bed in your backseat, eight-track tapedeck , TV and a phone
so you can speak to your baby when you’re driving all alone’...I
said ‘I’ll take two’....I said ´But Dan, that´s
not all I came for, I wanna know what´s the answer behind this temptation
that I feel all the time, behind this conflict’....and he said ´Son,
that´s easy because right here on these ten beautiful industrial zoned
acres was the sweetest little paradise that man has ever seen.....now, in the
Garden of Eden there were many wonderous things : there was a Tree of Life,
there was a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, there was Adam, there was Eve,
and she looked fine.....and when Adam kissed her, it was the first time that
a man had ever kissed a woman ....and she had these long, pale legs and when
Adam touched her, it was the first time that a man had ever touched a woman....
and then they lay down in the green grass.....and when Adam....well, it was
the first time.... but something else was in the Garden of Eden, old Satan came
slithering up on his belly and somehow he turned their love into a betrayal
but right now, right here, tonight on this backlot, for 99.95 and no money down,
I´ve got their getaway car....and if you´ve got the nerve to ride....I´ve
got the keys....to the first....pink ....Cadillac...´´
19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Racing in the Street’
‘‘When we, when we first met....we were going out riding all the
time and laughing all the time....everything, everything we did was fun and
funny and later on it seemed like the things.....that made her happy once just
didn´t make her happy no more.....she started staying in a lot, not talking....and
she started to hide my keys on me so I couldn´t go out at night.....and
it got hard to make her understand....that when I took the car out and when
I won....that it was the only time that I felt good about myself.... and that
to have just one thing, one thing in your whole life that you do, that makes
you feel proud of yourself.....I don’t think that´s too much for
anybody to ask....is it ? ... (....)Well, that was the night that we left.....we
don´t know where we´re going yet but I guess that’ll come
in time.....and as for this place.....well, there’s a lot here that we’ll
always remember....but we just gotta, we gotta keep searching......there´s
gotta be something out there.....”
Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi