Darkness on the Edge of Town

They pulled over, and Eric Meola, the photographer, photographed The Boss leaning up against the rented convertible.

Now, that image became the artwork cover for his album Darkness on the Edge of Town, and he even sang about Utah a bit in one of the tracks, The Promised Land.

AD, how's that for a hockey halftime?

I was waiting for, you know, the question, Mike.

Yeah

... at the moment, where even songs like No Surrender or Darkness on the Edge of Town were very deliberate in that set.

They weren't just the hits like they were a couple, you know, the last few years.

You know, it was like No Surrender actually meant no surrender, you know, right? [laughs]

I think a lot more artists now do it than ever before though.

Um, it's just kind of industry practice almost now.

One to One or Darkness on the Edge of Town?

Darkness.

Oh, my God.

I mean, uh, Darkness on the Edge of Town or Born in the USA.

Okay.

I mean, I know that, I know that Born to Run and Born in the USA are his two biggest songs.

Um, I've really sort of embraced the totality of my career.

I wanted to make a record that was as heavy as the first Rage Against the Machine record, a record that had kind of the, the lyrical, uh, depth and breadth of my favorite, you know, Bruce Springsteen records, Darkness on the Edge of Town-

Mm-hmm

...

And my favorite illustration of this principle is Bruce Springsteen.

If you're not a Springsteen historian, one of his most famous albums is Darkness on the Edge of Town.

And when this album came out, he was after Born to Run.

So he's already famous, already mega rock star.

So it is...

Going back to the history of the song itself, it is possible that there was an early version of this song that dates back all the way to 1977 when Bruce was writing material for Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Although there's no public record of it actually being recorded during that era, there's a lot of...

There's a lot of suggestion that he probably wrote and maybe played around with it a little bit in 77, but ultimately did not even bother to record it.

Sure.

And you can think of something like Darkness on the Edge of Town, right? It's not necessarily a concept record, but there's a through line on the album for sure, which is why he had to whittle that down from however many tracks were recorded in those sessions to the ones that made it on the

album.

And all the way to Letter to You.

who celebrated his 77th birthday just this past week.

Had Racing in the Street from Darkness on the Edge of Town, one of my favorite albums and one of my favorite songs.

We followed that with Atlantic City, a big hit off of Nebraska.

A very highly covered song, both of those are.

And it's a song that I absolutely love.

I mean, Darkness on the Edge of Town is my favorite Springsteen record.

So yeah.

And during the third show, he did Downbound Train as well, didn't he?

solo? I'd probably have to say the guitar solo from Prove It All Night.

But of that specific night, because it's missing on the album version.

And then every single night he played this version during the tour, during the Night in the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour.

The solo was slightly different.