The Evolution of Born to Run: "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"
For the 50th anniversary of Born to Run, a track-by-track breakdown of the evolution of each of the songs on the record.
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 1, track 2: "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out."
On an album where more than a handful of songs took months to get to completion, “10th Avenue Freeze-Out” seems to have been -- with one notable exception -- blessedly simple. On May 5, 1975, Bruce Springsteen walked into the Record Plant with this song for the first time. There are four known takes, two of which have not circulated publicly, and there are no huge variations between them, the song you hear is pretty much the song we ended up with. Of the two circulating versions, one is the version we all have and love. And then there is this one, known as v2.
It’s a very complete version for a demo, even if there are no horns, just Bruce singing some horn lines that are not unrecognizable. The piano takes center stage, as it did for most of the songs on the record. The big difference is that there’s more specificity in the lyrics: the Big Man is a character – “When the Big Man take off his hat / Should have seen them dudes turn back” is probably my favorite. Steve Van Zandt gets a mention, too – “Big Man played it up / He and Miami had us shoot their shot” – and this is even before the moment in which he earned his paycheck and got added to the lineup.
Speaking of that, it’s clear from v2 that Bruce absolutely knew what he wanted the horns to sound like – he could sing a least a rudimentary horn line – and so it is interesting how much trouble they had getting the hired horns to understand what he wanted. The whole point of bringing in guys like that is that not everyone is a skilled horn arranger and so (in my opinion, at least) they should have absolutely been able to translate a melody into a riff. But the fact that they couldn’t gave us one of the best legends of E Street.
In case you are reading this and are unaware of the story (probably my favorite piece of E Street Band lore), let's talk about the night SVZ was hanging out in the studio and earned his place in the band by singing each horn player their parts to this track. They’d brought in David Sanborn, Wayne Andre, and the Brecker Brothers to “enhance” the horn parts. (Has anyone ever asked where the Jukes horns were during this time, given that their manager was apparently free enough to be lounging on the control room floor?) But despite (or more likely because) of the existence of the horn charts and the pricey session guys, they couldn’t meet Bruce’s expectations. Bruce asked his friend what he thought, and Steve told him, “I think it sucks.”
