Song Spotlight - "She's The One"

Key Live Performance:



If I could time travel I would absolutely love to see Bruce on the Darkness tour.  He'd put out enough classic material that you'd still get a killer setlist, but it was prior to Born In The USA so Bruce was playing theaters and smaller venues where you could still feel like you were in on something that everyone else who wasn't there was missing out on.  I love listening to and watching shows from this era, and "She's The One" is a great example of why.  For over 13 mins Bruce and The E Street band have fun jamming on the classic Bo Diddley Riff that makes up the intro, including covers of Van Morrison and Buddy Holly, respectively, and then the song builds up to a perfect crescendo at the end.  It's no wonder this song has been a staple of Bruce setlists since 1975, but this era seems to be where he's having the most fun with it.

Key Lyrics:

"With her long hair falling,
And eyes that shine like the midnight sun
Oh, she's the one."

I know it's a bit easy to go for the chorus, but man do these lyrics just stick out for me.  When I reviewed the book "Tietam Brown", I wrote about how Bruce's lyrics may not seem to make the most sense literally, but there's something about Bruce's genius way of phrasing it that it makes perfect sense.  I think I can speak for just about every guy out there that when they read that lyric a certain special girl pops into their mind.  I don't even know what a midnight sun would look like, but I know exactly what Bruce meant when he said her eyes shine like one.

Overall:

"She's The One" is a strange song that is revered by Springsteen fans, that I never think I'm that big a fan of it.  But whenever I am at a Springsteen concert and hear that distinct organ intro, I start clapping and dancing along and really getting into it.  When I wrote about "Night" last week I wrote about how it was an oddity in the sense that Bruce never seems to capture the spirit of the song live as he did in the studio.  "She's The One" is the exact opposite.  I usually skip the studio version of this song when it pops up randomly when listening to music but I will spend hours seeking out different live versions on YouTube.

Under the Influence - Bruce Springsteen!

The music world has been rocked by recent "rip-off" scandals, such as Sam Smith/Tom Petty, Robin Thicke/Marvin Gaye, and (after 30 years) Guns N Roses/Australian Crawl.  We here at Legends of Springsteen have previously chided artists for trying their best at aping Springsteen, too.  However, it is in this author's personal opinion that we shouldn't judge music "rip-offs" that harshly, as artists generally wear their influences on their sleeves.

So, today, instead of spotlighting an artist that Springsteen has influenced, we'll spotlight a few artists that have influenced the Boss.  There are obvious ones like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, but this time, we'll take a look at some Springsteen songs that sound suspiciously like previous hits.  First up, let's take a look at some classics from Born To Run.

Bo Diddley Beat / "She's The One"





In "She's The One", Bruce uses the classic Bo Diddley beat.  This beat has been used in a ton of pop songs, but the ones I hear the most with just the beat are Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" and George Michael's "Faith".  It's an iconic beat, so it's no shame in Bruce stealing from the best (you can also sorta hear this beat on "High Hopes" as well).

"Tiny Dancer" / "Jungleland"





Specifically, we are talking about the piano introductions on both songs.  I guess I kinda see this one, but it is fleeting.  The songs are just four years apart, so I'll leave it up to you to make the call.

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / "Badlands"



The video above is just a small excerpt from Bruce's 2012 keynote speech at SXSW.  The first five minutes is dedicated to his love of The Animals, pointing exactly how they inspired him.  At the end of the video, however, Bruce clearly illustrates how "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" directly influenced "Badlands".  As Bruce says at the end, "Listen up youngsters!  This is how successful theft is accomplished!"

Now, you may be saying, "Hey goober, all these examples are from Bruce's early career!  Of course a young artist is going to rely a lot on his influences."  Fairly noted.  So, let's take a look at some examples from later on down the line.

"867-5309 (Jenny)" / "Radio Nowhere"



Hard to argue with this one - it's one of the more blatant offenders I've heard in the last ten years.  But kudos to Mr. Tutone for letting it go and not lawyer-ing it up.

"I Was Made For Lovin' You" / "Outlaw Pete"



We here at Legends of Springsteen are no fans of "Outlaw Pete", which has come up with a disturbing amount of frequency on this blog.  However, we have previously noted that KISS has taken from the Boss, so turnabout is fair play, I say.

"Small Town" / "Just Like Fire Would"





Ok, let's see if you can follow this one.  You have Bruce Springsteen, who inspired John Mellencamp.  Then, years later, Bruce Springsteen is inspired by a punk band called The Saints.  He covers the band, using an arrangement similar to John Mellencamp.  Can you really rip someone off who has been ripping you off?  Like the KISS example above, turnabout is still fair play.

So, there we have it.  In this humble author's opinion, I believe we need to relax whenever one song sounds somewhat similar to another song.  Often in these scenarios, people like to get on a very high horse.  Sometimes they'll criticize a particular artist mainly because they have an axe to grind against them (which happened a lot with Lady Gaga's "Born This Way").  More often, I've seen this old chestnut - "There's no original music anymore!"  Well, next time you hear some fuddy-duddy complaining about originality in music, please direct them to this post.  As you can see, every artist is guilty of being, let's say, "overly-inspired" by their predecessors.