The 1977 song Bruce Springsteen spent years trying to forget: “I never liked it”
Not writing songs doesn’t seem to fit in the vocabulary of Bruce Springsteen. From day one, ‘The Boss’ has always approached writing as if it were second nature, like everything he’s ever dreamed of depending on whether he could get to the end of the next line of any track.
That doesn’t mean that every piece goes the same distance, and when Springsteen was following up Born To Run, he felt like ‘The Way’ was far too weak to be considered for Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Then again, Springsteen’s fourth album is already a bit of a strange anomaly in his catalogue. He had already been working on some of the biggest songs about self-belief ever recorded, and now that he had conquered the world, he had never felt less sure of himself. While it’s hard to call the album a retread, Springsteen reflects on tales of working-class people that he knew way back when on tracks like ‘Racing in The Street’.
You can never return to those old stomping grounds again, though, and even if you did, they would look a lot different than the first time you were there. A man can still dream, and ‘The Way’ was the closest thing to an earnest love ballad that Springsteen could think of for the album.
That sense of disillusionment was hanging over almost every song Springsteen touched during the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions. After spending years locked in legal disputes with former manager Mike Appel, he returned to the studio carrying a much heavier worldview than the romantic dreamer who had written Born to Run. The characters on Darkness were still chasing freedom, but now they sounded painfully aware that escape was never guaranteed.
“The main reason it’s hidden is because I never liked it.”
Bruce Springsteen
That may explain why ‘The Way’ never fully fit alongside the rest of the material. Even with its melancholy undercurrent, there is still a softness to the song that feels at odds with the clenched-teeth determination running through tracks like ‘Badlands’ or ‘Adam Raised a Cain’. Darkness was built on tension and frustration, whereas ‘The Way’ sounds like someone briefly allowing themselves to believe things might still work out before reality comes crashing back in.
Adopting another girl group comparison with its chord progression, this song has the same waltz-like tempo that seems perfect for a slow dance in the middle of an empty high school gym. It may have been a perfect depiction of what the vision of love looked like for Springsteen… just don’t ask him to play it anytime soon.
When working on the album, Springsteen did everything he could to ensure the piece was buried, telling American Songwriter, “The main reason it’s hidden is because I never liked it. I would like to see it placed in a David Lynch film over a sexually perverse scene. That, to me, is its righteous home.”
Springsteen might be a bit too hard on himself in some respects. Since the track is only included as a piece of ‘City of Night’ in his rarities compilations, it is the right kind of love song for this kind of record. No one’s really sure if they are actually going to realise their dreams after all, so maybe this one last slow dance is his way of trying to capture the moment of innocence before it slips away.
If anything, the spare production of this song feels closer to what Springsteen was going for on the album Nebraska, which sounded even more desperate to find the answer to life than ever before. There are some added instruments in the mix, so this could have been the lost bridge between Springsteen’s recording with the E Street Band before deciding to cut those haunted demos in his apartment.
As it stands, ‘The Way’ is still a decent Springsteen song that seemed to come out at the wrong place and time. Darkness on the Edge of Town may be perfect on its own as the response record to Born to Run, but if they had included ‘The Way’ as a hidden track, it might have been the best way to put a happy face on a sad situation.
