Following Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen faced a giant hurdle. How do you follow up one of the biggest-selling albums of the 1970s? His manager, Mike Appel, pushed for a live album, while Bruce wanted to return to the recording studio with producer Jon Landau. After discovering terms of his contract with Laurel Canyon Ltd. were unacceptable, Springsteen sued the company owned by his manager, publisher, and producer, Mike Appel. Springsteen had signed away rights to Appel, and he wanted them back. In the 2010 documentary The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story, the singer said, “More than rich, more than successful, more than happy, I wanted to be great.”
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The legal proceedings blocked Springsteen from returning to the recording studio for almost a year. The band continued to play concerts, but all of the money from Born to Run was tied up until the lawsuit was resolved. On May 28, 1977, a settlement was reached out of court, and Springsteen bought out his contract with Appel. The E Street Band began work on their next album at Atlantic Studios in New York City on June 1.
Jon Landau and Springsteen co-produced the album with help from Steven Van Zandt. After several months, they became frustrated with the results and decided to move 13 blocks downtown to the Record Plant, where most of Born to Run had been captured. The band worked on many songs, eventually paring down the results to the 10 songs comprising Darkness on the Edge of Town. On July 13, 1977, at 9:27 p.m., as the band was tracking, Springsteen couldn’t hear his guitar in the headphones, then the studio went dark. It was the beginning of the 25-hour New York City blackout. As the band members exited the building, they saw the darkness continue for blocks. When recording resumed, Bruce was working on a song inspired by the poster from a 1973 movie starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Badlands” by Bruce Springsteen.
Well, lights out tonight
Trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision
Smashin’ in my guts, man
I’m caught in a crossfire
That I don’t understand
The Riff
Springsteen started with the title. Badlands was a movie based on the Charles Starkweather murder spree in Nebraska and Wyoming from November 1957 to January 1958. His 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, was also prosecuted for the crimes. Starkeweather was put to death in 1959. Springsteen admitted to stealing the opening riff from The Animals version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” In his 2012 South by Southwest Keynote Address, Springsteen strummed the rhythm of “Badlands” while he sang the opening riff to “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” He told the crowd to take notice of “how successful theft is accomplished.” In 2010, Springsteen told Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone, “‘Badlands,’ that’s a great title, but It would be easy to blow it. But I kept writing, and I kept writing, and I kept writing and writing until I had a song that I felt deserved that title.”
But there’s one thing I know for sure, girl
I don’t give a damn
For the same old played-out scenes
Baby, I don’t give a damn
For just the in-betweens
Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul
I want control right now
You better listen to me, baby
Punk Rock and Country
As bands like The Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash exploded across the airwaves, a singer/songwriter from New Jersey was taking notice. In The Promise, Springsteen talked about the two seemingly unrelated forms of music that played a role in his new album, “A couple of different things came together at a certain time to form my approach towards a record. The explosion of punk during ’77, which, actually, I felt quite a bit for. I felt some similarity in spirit somewhere. I started listening to country music, which I hadn’t really done before. For the first time, I really connected with Hank Williams. What I liked about that was country music tackled the adult concerns.”
Talk about a dream
Try to make it real
You wake up in the night
With a fear so real
You spend your life waiting
For a moment, that just don’t come
Well, don’t waste your time waiting
“Life’s Gonna Be a Struggle”
As Springsteen had written about wanting to escape in Born to Run, this album was about growing up and pushing back against the troubles of everyday life. Steven Van Zandt told Rolling Stone magazine in 2013, “All power starts with the music. It’s a powerful song, wonderfully positive and optimistic in its own negative sort of atmosphere. A warrior sort of heroism really is present in that opening salvo—you know that it’s not gonna get better. Life is gonna be tough, and then it’s gonna stay tough. And you better adjust to that really quickly because the good times that you’ve heard about or saw in the movies or read about, they’re probably not coming back, if they ever happened. And life’s gonna be a struggle every day. So I think it has that recognition in it.”
Badlands, you gotta live it every day
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you’ve gotta pay
Keep pushin’ ’til it’s understood
The Saxophone
Clarence Clemons, who was prominently featured on Born to Run, didn’t even play a solo on “Badlands” in the early stages of the recording.
Springsteen said in The Promise, “We had mastered the record with no sax solo on ‘Badlands,’ it was just a guitar solo. But at the end of the record, I didn’t think we had enough saxophone on the record. We took the guitar out, and Clarence played over that. Of course, it would have been a terrible mistake to leave that sax solo out.” Producer Landau continued, “Its presence is so strong in the places where it appears that it feels like the sax is on much more of the record than it actually turned out to be.”
Well, I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that can save me
I believe in the hope, and I pray
That someday it may raise me
Above these
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Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns
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