The Evolution of Born to Run: "Meeting Across The River"
Side 2, track 3.
For the 50th anniversary of Born to Run, here's a track-by-track breakdown of the evolution of each of the songs on the record, going in order from start to finish. Side 2, track 3: "Meeting Across The River."
“Meeting Across The River” began its life as “The Heist,” and wasn’t even written until the spring of 1975, when the band were already in the studio. There are seven circulating versions that we’re aware of, all of which were recorded on May 28, 1975, and by “versions” I mean “songs that were recorded and labelled as” because three of those aren’t complete songs, just aborted takes.
V1 is just Bruce and the piano with the melody as we know it and with most of the lyrics in place, there’s a few small deviations but nothing major, the story is complete. Brucebase suggests that it’s his initial “guide demo” but man, we are always just guessing with these things. This is the most interesting demo to me because it’s so basic, but still conveys the same power and gravity of the finished product.
All of the other circulating outtakes have Randy Brecker playing on them and the differences aren’t huge, nor do they go in drastically different directions. To my ear, it simply sounds like Brecker trying to capture what Bruce was looking for: he plays, they listen, Bruce likely provided notes, Brecker tries it again. You hire a session guy like Brecker precisely because he can execute based on charts or direction and he's going to knock it out and go on with his day. I’ll include them in case you’re interested, but just a heads-up that the differences are so slight.
The most interesting thing about “Meeting” is its potential origin, thanks to none other than Roy Bittan. In Brian Hiatt’s “Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs,” he tells a story about how Roy was at Bruce’s house one day and sat down at his piano to play, inspired by a recent trip to the city to see Pharoah Sanders. (I believe Roy mentioned this story at the BTR 50th Symposium; it is not captured in my handwritten notes [because that panel took place during the closed session], but the Pharoah Sanders detail feels familiar.)
According to the story as related by Hiatt, when Roy came back to Bruce’s house the next day, he heard Bruce playing something on the piano “that he thought might have been influenced by what Bittan played the day before, which would become the skeleton” of “Meeting Across The River.”
The reason we don’t have anyone on the record talking about this is that Bruce probably doesn’t remember himself. In 2005, he told Hiatt, “I had that little piano riff, and I’m not exactly sure where the lyric came from.” But based on the evidence that we have, it doesn’t seem like this was a song that Bruce labored over, writing different versions until he got it right. He didn’t even want to put it on the record!
Now is the time for one of my favorite Mike Appel quotes:
Bruce and Jon didn’t think that “Meeting Across the River” should be in the album. I did and fought for it like heck and it is in the album, and two of the songs that they wanted to be in there, “Lonely Night in the Park” and “Linda, Let Me Be the One,” I thought that neither one of those songs was up to his standards, and I fought against it. As a result, they are not in the album.”
— Down Thunder Road: The Making of Bruce Springsteen by Marc Eliot & Mike Appel
I'm also fond of Appel's "I said, 'You really think those shitty songs can stand next to 'Backstreets' and 'Thunder Road'? That's what you think? Fuck that!" (as told to Peter Ames Carlin in Bruce).
According to Peter Ames Carlin in his new-ish Tonight In Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run, the reason Bruce (and likely Landau) weren’t enthusiastically pro-"Meeting" is because it “sounded like the work of a different artist working on a very different kind of record.” After they recorded that V1 take above, there was discussion about adding a jazz-style trio, a stand-up bass and a trumpet, and that didn’t sync with Bruce and Landau’s desire to make a great rock and roll record. The two of them were still pro-”Lonely Night” and “Linda” and that’s when Appel stepped in.
“I said, ‘Okay, we haven’t finished recording “Meeting.” Why don’t we focus on that, see where that goes. And then we’ll maybe take up these other songs as we go along.’ Right. So at least I got them to shut up.” When the Brecker Brothers came to the studio in early July to record and Randy recorded his trumpet part for “Meeting,” and Richard Davis added his stand-up bass part, “Jon came up to me and sat down and said, ‘You were the visionary on this one, Mike.” Amen.
Finally, I just want to take this opportunity amongst friends to note that these two lines in “Meeting” are probably my least favorite Springsteen lyrics:
She’ll see this time that I wasn’t just talking / And we’re gonna go out walking
Bruce’s worst couplet. It takes me out of the song, every single time. I just wince.
