The underground hit that Bruce Springsteen called “never a real favourite”
Before Born to Run, most of the fame that Bruce Springsteen was getting was either in the music press or in small clubs across America. Thanks to his energetic live shows, Springsteen managed to keep the E Street Band afloat, but only just barely.
During the period that saw Springsteen record his second studio album, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, he and the E Street Band took time to record a new potential single, ‘The Fever’. Unimpressed with the final result, Springsteen only played the song live a few times before moving on. However, manager Mike Appel decided to release the studio version to radio stations without Springsteen’s permission.
In 1978, Springsteen explained how ‘The Fever’ went from an unreleased single to an underground hit. “It was just a surprise, you know. We’d done it two or three times, and the tape had gotten out through someone’s help whose name I won’t mention,” Springsteen told the Philadelphia radio station WIOQ-FM. “So we did it a few times, and we had to do it here. I used to have kids run up onstage and yell in my ear, ‘BRUCE! ‘FEVER’!’ That was always a request.”
“It was just something that I wrote so long ago. It was just an older song and never a real favourite of mine,” Springsteen added. “I liked it. I always liked it. But just for myself. I liked [Southside] Johnny’s version—I liked what he did with it a lot. But we wanted to have something extra, so we pulled it out.”
“It’s a weird thing ‘The Fever’… that song ‘Fever’ we did as a demo tape about a year ago… I promise if we’ll come back, we’ll work it up for you,” Springsteen told the crowd at the Liberty Hall in Houston, Texas, according to Dave Marsh’s book Bruce Springsteen: Two Hearts.
“We’re gonna try something now, this is something… this is a song we haven’t done in about a year, but we found out that they sent a demo down here,” Springsteen added at the following concert. “We’re gonna give it a try for you, hope we’ll remember… you know, but I’m gonna send this to the boys out here.”
‘The Fever’ became one of Springsteen’s most popular bootlegs, but the studio track wasn’t officially released in any capacity for more than 20 years. It was only when Springsteen compiled the 1999 compilation album 18 Tracks that ‘The Fever’ finally saw an official release.
