"I Wanna Be With You" (recorded May â September, 1979 at the Power Station, New York, NY; available on Tracks)
In 1979 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band recorded some of the greatest New Jersey power pop of all time. The treasure-chest of British-Invasion derived beats and strums that was left in the vaults after the River's completion shows a hit-hungry Boss, searching for the core of his fifth album, reveling in the power of the road-honed E Street Band. He cut a ton of material at the Power Station in NYC during that year and spilling over into 1980, 50 or 60 tunes by many accounts. The resulting album, as we know, was a sprawling 21 song double LP, containing his first big Billboard hit in âHungry Heart.â Â During this time, in a post-punk, post-disco world, Bruce explored many versions of what he imagined a proper radio pop song could be. One of the best, released on disc two of 1998's Tracks box-set of rarities, is âI Wanna Be With You.â
On paper it seems like a trifling song about a girl. Itâs got a simplistic chord sequence and a banal title. It is a temple of stereotypically Bossish gestures. B counts off his own guitar introduction with not one but two bars of Stiller-worthy one-two-three-four. He delivers a bombastic vocal performance about getting fired from his job. And yeah there is some toot-toot from the Big Man. Thereâs plenty for Boss-haters to dismiss.Â
To me, however, this is the best shit. It boils down the most crucial elements of the E Street Band and serves as a showcase for Bruceâs under-appreciated pop-craft. Iâve listened to the recording hundreds of times and I never tire of it. I still occasionally get the chills. Bruce junkies are addicted to this physical rush his music delivers. Bruce Juice. Itâs physical. Itâs a thing. It takes you over.Â
On that two-bar opening count, on that second beat four you can kinda hear Steven snarl âyeahâ off-mic just as Weinberg kicks in the band in. Little Steven is the heart of late-70s E-Street. Heâs the garage guy, the true believer in three chords-and-the-truth, the guy that fought Bruce to keep âLoose Endsâ on the River and lost. Heâs literally chomping at the bit. May I remind you that the Boss is counting himself off! After his four-bar guitar intro states the chorus riff, Maxâs mighty snare thwacks us into the the groove. Pianist Roy Bittan hammers on one static D note in a tense cadence while the band revs up for that first verse.
"Let the frozen cities crumble," he yells in key. This is the kind of vocal performance that makes all the veins on Bruceâs forehead pop out. Top volume. He empties the tank. Heâs going all in. Heâs got one thing on his mind and itâs making some sweet love to this one girl he canât stop thinking about and heâs yelling about it. Hey that sounds like rock and roll to me.Â
Heâs gotta sing loud because Mighty Max is slamming! The Power Station had a great big room sound. The rough mix of this song that circulated on bootlegs before the release of Tracks in â98 has those big room mics turned way up and you can really feel the air moving. He drives quarter notes on his hi-hat closed tight as hell leaving tons of space in the groove for Garry W Tallent, whose rising bass glissandos put some flash in the arrangement.Â
When the chorus crashes in, it is hook central! âI wanna be with you / Thatâs what I wanna do,â sings Bruce with taut harmony padding. Many songs from this period feature an expanded role for harmony singing, notably âWhere the Bands Are,â âDollhouse,â and of course âThe Ties That Bind,â and âTwo Hearts.âÂ
This is not one of Bruceâs most profound lyrics. Maybe thatâs why he elected to keep it off the River. However when he sings, âI lost my job at the Texaco station, instead of pumping gas Iâd dream of you,â you know Bruce is thinking about connecting on multiple levels. Heâs gotta twist it a little bit. Rather than making his narrator a dishwasher, a cab-driver or a caddy he makes him a gas-guy in 1979 amidst the oil crisis, when gas lines are wrapping around the block. Ah! Who am I kidding? You canât get too fancy trying to connect this song to some larger historical context. I think Bruce just wanted to sing the word âpumping.âÂ
In this period Bruce made a point to give his many of his songs great bridges, like the Beatles. He leads the band through a tidy and effective middle eight here, shuffling the chords around to build tension for the release that comes at the sectionâs end. The triplet figure and dramatic drum roll that conclude the section set up the climax of Springsteenâs vocal performance: âI donât know I donât know I just canât understaaand it. Youâre not pretty at all!â What? Sheâs not even a little bit pretty? Wait a second! THAT IS A CRUCIAL DETAIL HERE! You ainât a beauty but hey youâre alright, anyone? Does that mean sheâs ugly? Thatâs GREAT!!! Bruce overshoots his yell on the âunderstaaaandâ part, making a squeaky sound which shows us that what heâs dealing with here isnât coming from the mind, or even the heart really; itâs physical. He canât hold himself together. Heâs a man in need and heâs all worked up! Blue-balls? He continues, âBut I come when you whisper.â Oh OK! I get it, Boss! Springsteen sings these lines with the desperation of a young man dying for some tail. Thatâs something any working man can relate to.
Bruce isnât some sex-crazed cretin though. Heâs after more than tail. He uses the ending of the song to remind the object of his affection of his love. Love? Up to this point in his career heâd steered clear of that ubiquitous pop-song topic. But if you want a hit, you gotta play the game. In a deliciously satisfying use of Beatles-esque show-biz pop-song ending, he croons âbee-cause-i-love-you-soooooâ at the end. What a guy! Wink.
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