15.02.77 Detroit, MI, intro to ‘It’s My Life’:
”I grew up in this small town, was about ten thousand people….about twenty miles inland from the coast….and uh…..I lived in this two-family house….it was on this main….main street in town….and my mother she was a….secretary….and she worked downtown for all the lawyers…..in the big office buildings….and my pop, he was…. he was a guard at the jail for a while and sometimes…..sometimes he worked in a plastics factory…. and …. sometimes he got some jobs driving trucks but….a lot of times he was just home…. and….we used to live next door to this , uh….this gas-station, I remember in the summertime….I used to….there was this little roof…..off of my room, I used to open the window and drag my mattress outside and…..lie on the roof and sleep outside…..at night….. and that station used to close up about…..close up about one o’clock…..I remember all night long, there’d be these different guys, different cats pulling in….some cats were older cats I knew from school…..other guys I didn’t know, I seen them around town, they’d pull in…..all night, meet each other there, drive off….down the highway, on towards the beach, on towards the coast….and I’d lay there at night (?)….as soon…. soon as I hit 16, I started to head out to…..to New York City as much as I could….. me and this friend of mine, this guy named Steve (cheers)….we used to get these jobs downtown, we worked down in Village for a while….in cafes or we would….just hang around in Port Authority till we ran outta money….or till the cops (?) us and sent us back home on the bus….call our folks….and I remember my pop, I used to hate going back home because the old man every…..every night at nine…..nine o’clock every night, he’d shut off all the lights in the house and…..he’d sit in the kitchen in the dark with just a six pack of beer, smoke cigarettes…..and my mom, she’d just sit in the frontroom with all the lights out, just watching TV all night till she fell asleep….. woke up next morning, go to work…..and I knew no matter what time I got home or whether I’d been gone…..for a few days or….if I was just coming in late at night, I knew the old man would be sitting at that table waiting for me…..and he used to lock up the front-door so that me and my sister couldn’t come in…..couldn’t come in ‘round the front so we used to have to go ‘round the side through the kitchen…….(?)….I’d stand there in that driveway, I could look through the screen door and see the light of his cigarette…. I’d stand there and I’d slick my hair back real tight so he couldn’t tell how long it was…..I’d get up on the porch and try to make it through the ….kitchen….and he’d wait every night, he’d wait…..he’d wait till I hit that bottom step…. just about heading upstairs, thought I’d make it to my room….he’d call my name to come back and sit down with him at that kitchen table…..and then if it was early, it wasn’t too bad ‘cause he hadn’t been sitting there too long , but if it was late and he’d been sitting there all night, drinking and all that…..I’d sit there in the dark, he’d be telling me….telling me things….I remember I could always….sitting there, I could always hear his voice….. but I remember I could never see his face…..(?)….he’d start off talking to me about….. nothing too much, how things was going…..if I was making it out all right….pretty soon he´d be asking me….pretty soon he’d be asking me where I’d been getting my money from….or what I thought I was doing with myself…..and before long we’d end up screaming at each other…..my mother’d end up running in from the frontroom crying…..trying to keep him off me, trying to keep us from fighting with each other…..I’d end up screaming….screaming, running out the backdoor….telling him…..telling him….telling him…..telling him he’s gonna have to understand….that it’s my life and I was gonna do what I wanted to do….”
15.02.77 Detroit, MI, intro to ‘Thunder Road’:
”This is for the Duke and the (?)….and everybody that’s been waiting so long…..”
15.02.77 Detroit, MI, middle of ‘Backstreets’:
”Just me and you, baby…..just me and you, girl….I remember….well, I remember….. I was gonna take all my money out of the bank……and you were gonna quit your job and I was quit my job too….and….I remember you promised…..I remember you swore that you was never…..you said you was never, never gonna go anyplace….without me….I remember you promised that….we both swore that….that you was never gonna go anyplace…..without me…..I remember….I remember….I remember it was sunny, I was standing at the bus station….standing there in the rain….and the rain came tumbling down….I remember your bus was gone and….I was standing and I remembered you promised…..you were never gonna go anyplace without me…..and the rain came tumbling down….I was standing there, I remember I was just thinking, all I was thinking ‘bout was how you promised….you never gonna go anyplace without me…..and the rain came tumbling down…..and the rain came tumbling down…..and I was standing there…..that’s when I knew….I was standing in the rain…..and I figured it all out….. I had it all figured out…..except…you lied!….you lied!….you lied!…..”
15.02.77 Detroit, MI, intro to ‘Rosalita’:
‘‘This song is uh…..hard to play song, little bit like….’cause this song is like connected to one of the big….. tragedies in my life, you know, so like….it’s like a very seriously depressive number ….it’s like every time I go out to West Coast…..my mother….I used to go out with this girl…..down along the shore….and like yeah, it was….she wrote all this stuff, you know, in my yearbook when I was graduating and stuff……stuff ‘I love you forever and we’ll never break up, at least my part won’t’ (cheers)….you know what kind of stuff so it was like (cheers)….please no applause, you know, it’s like so (chuckles) …..and so, uh…..I go out west and my mom, she makes me look at it everytime I go out there, teaching me a lesson……it’s because she, she broke up and ran away with this guy that owned this gas-station down along the coast…..and uh…..and uh…..what the fuck, right? (cheers)…..I get philosophical about stuff like that…..
(….) On the piano….of all these luminaries tonight…..to the far left…..of the stage …. the man with all the degrees and all the keys…..Professor Roy Bittan (cheers)…..play it, Roy!….and he can do that stuff all day long, let me tell you….on the guitar….how can I say it?….author….composer…producer….man who brought you such great hits as…. ‘I Don’t Wanna Go Home’….’Sweeter Than Honey’….poet of the soul, master of rock and roll…..the magnificent Miami Steve Van Zandt (cheers)….oh yeah…..on the bass guitar, you all know him , you all love him…..from Long Branch, New Jersey, Mr.Garry W.Tallent (cheers)….on the drums, all the way from North New Jersey ….this guy's been with me for two years…..and if I can help it….I’m gonna fire his ass tomorrow, no…..Mighty Max (cheers)….on the organ Phantom Dan Federici (cheers) … play it, Danny….in the background, coming to you all the way from Philadelphia ….. (?)….the magnificent Miami Horns…..last but not least…..king of the goddamn world…. master of the motherfucking universe…..Mr. Hollywood…..stage of star and screen….. no, of stage and screen….the magnificent….on the saxophone….the Big Man, Clarence Clemons (cheers)…..”
15.02.77 Detroit, MI, intro to ‘Detroit Medley’:
”We ain’t done this song in a while, we’re gonna do it for uh…..somebody that’s here tonight, hope I remember all the words (?)…..”
15.02.77 Detroit, MI, intro to ‘Born to Run’:
”This is for uh…..Bob Seger….”
Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi
