Bruce Springsteen – Dancing In the Dark
#quotefromthe80s
You can't start a fire
Worryin' about your little world fallin' apart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancin' in the dark
#BruceSpringsteen #DancingInTheDark
“Dancing in the dark” is definitely one of the iconic songs for the 80s and for the career of the great Bruce Springsteen. It came out on May 3, 1984, and came out almost by accident: Springsteen was ready to release his new album, “Born in the U.S.A.”, in July. For this album he wrote an embarrassing number of songs, maybe more than sixty, and with the record company he had chosen the best ones and included them on the album. But the producers were not yet satisfied: in their opinion all songs were beautiful, but he needed a superbeautiful hit, the one that would break through as the first single and would therefore be the driving the entire album.
And so there was a discussion, because Springsteen was already stressed, and so he was told to do one more song in a hurry, more appealing than all the others, because it still wasn’t enough. Well, let’s say that the tone of the discussion went higher and higher.
Springsteen agreed, maybe he had no choice, and he mentioned in the song his frustration and the fatigue of still having to find the spark that would start the fire.
We know how the story ends: “Dancing in the dark” hit the target. This hit really turned Springsteen’s career around, and drove not only the album snd the hit “Born in the U.S.A”, but the whole great career of the Boss. Just read the lyrics: it’s a very deep song, as Springsteen’s hits often are, and the overwhelming rhythm sometimes it could seem just a cheerful dance song.
The video looks simple but it is also the result of a lot of work. The director is Brian De Palma, who filmed a real concert, in Minnesota, at the end of June 1984. De Palma wanted to have several shots, so Springsteen performend the song twice that night, with the cameras being repositioned. And in fact in some scenes Springsteen seems a little sweaty and in others a little fresher, let’s say.
In the video, a girl in the front row is invited to climb on the stage. This is a constant of Springsteen’s concerts, if yu have been there you know it, and people go hours and hours earlier to have the best seats, but that night obviously nothing was left to chance, and there was an actress to play the role of the chosen fan. Did you recognize her? She was very young, but it is Courteney Cox, who would become famous a decade later by starring in “Friends” and in many films, such as “Cocoon”, “Ace Ventura” and others.
The lyrics say that you can’t start a fire if you just worry about your little world, you need a spark, and for Bruce Sprigsteen this song was the spark that really ignited his great career!
Bruce Springsteen on Wikipedia
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