1997-05-15 Auditorium Maurice-Ravel, Lyon, France

Scheduled: 20:30 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

"No Surrender" features the extended guitar introduction. First ever performances in France of "Highway Patrolman", "Growin' Up", "Red Headed Woman", and "Long Time Comin'".

Bruce Springsteen

Intro to "Atlantic City"
´´(?)….thank you…thank you….je suis content de vous revoir….uh….je suis heureux d´etre à Lyon ce soir….thank you very much, I´d just like to say, uh, one other thing, uh, ce soir je vais avoir besoin de votre attention pour vous donner le meilleur de (?) merci….´´

Intro to "Straight Time"
´´Thank you….this is a song about a fellow who gets out of prison, trying to find his way back into his family and back into the world, everybody´s, uh, struggled with a little straight time….´´

Intro to "Growin´ Up"
´´Merci…I´ll try this one, uh, voici un chanson pour mes vieux amis (chuckles)….I hope I said that right….´´

Intro to "Red Headed Woman"
´´Oh yeah!….alright, thank you….thank you….got a nice song here, this song, uh, the next song is one of my favorite songs, it´s a song about cunnilingus, a sexual practise very popular in the United States….but actually they probably invented it right here, I got a feeling, I´m not sure (chuckles) but uh….anyway, uh….I don´t know what to say about cunnilingus except that I hope that right now it´s being practised all over Lyon (chuckles) make it a very happy French city, right (chuckles) and I do mean practising because, uh, as everybody knows, uh, that´s not as easy as it looks, you know (chuckles) uh, it, uh, but the good thing about it is it´s like riding a bicycle: once you get it down, you never forget it even if you change bikes (chuckles) so anyway….uh, what can I say? l´amour, l´amour (chuckles) sex, sex (chuckles) (?) est-il une femme au cheveux roux dans la (?)(chuckles) are there any red headed women in the house? (chuckles)….´´

Intro to "Two Hearts"
´´Merci…thank you….this is for my red headed woman….´´

Intro to "Born In The U.S.A"
´´(?) there was a little park down at the end of the town I grew up in, a little, right where the main street forked, there was a little park that had a series of white crosses in it that I remember from when I was a kid and, uh, the main thing that I knew about it was that whenever we passed it, we were coming back home and, and, uh….it was always very beautiful to me….and I remember as I got older I said, you know, I asked my mother, there was writing on the crosses and I asked my mother what it was….she told me that, uh, those are the names of all the men from our town, all the men from our town that died in all the wars….so….´´

Intro to "Dry Lightning"
´´Alright (?)….this is a song about men and women, uh….let me see….sex (some applause) huh? no? yes? trés difficile….un homme, une femme (?) sex….(?) very necessary (chuckles) …this is, uh, uh, a song about one of those relationships where you don´t quite get it….and, uh, you know, there´s a lot of good things going on, might´ve worked out if you hadn´t been so busy sort of fucking it up all the time (chuckles) it might´ve been alright….but, uh….uh…. one of those almost relationships….where, you know….about ten years later you´re always going ´Hey, wonder, wonder where she is tonight´….not that you´d really wanna know but (chuckles)….so this is a song about, uh….I guess one thing I did find out about men and women is that in l´amour (chuckles) ´almost´ never makes it….this is called ´Dry Lightning´ ….´´

Intro to "Long Time Comin´"
´´This is, this is a song about men and women, I guess, this is, uh (chuckles)(?) some love, has sex too (?)(chuckles) but this is a happy song, uh, I don´t generally like to write happy songs, I found out that the public doesn´t like them, in general (chuckles) and, uh, also they come back later and they bite you in the ass, you know, when you´re not, when you´re feeling kind of down, ´Heh, Mr. Happy Song, what do you think now?´ (chuckles) so I try to avoid that kind of thing but anyway this is a song about, uh, I guess it´s about, uh, kind of getting, everybody sort of has a chance to not do unto others as was done unto you (chuckles) that´s what this song is about, trying to not do unto others as was done unto you, this is, uh, you know, you….kids come along and you think that´s your opportunity to sort of go back and set some of the record straight and to try and correct some of what, you think…. mistakes were made in your life, you know, and, uh, that´s a pretty good….that in some fashion you get that chance every day too….that´s a pretty good opportunity to have, it really gives you, uh….it allows you to break that chain of….shit that gets handed down (chuckles) so, uh, that´s what this is about, that´s what this is about, this is called, uh, ´Long Time Comin´,´ uh, don´t get too happy, just get mildly happy when the song is (chuckles)(?)….´´

Intro to "Sinaloa Cowboys"
´´This is, uh, Kevin Buell, my buddy, my compadre….(?)….these next, uh….four songs were all set in the Southwestern part of the United States and uh….an interesting part of the country right now….when I, when I used to get a chance, I´d travel on and get off the interstate, travel on all these little state- and county roads in Arizona and Utah and Nevada and New Mexico and I was in this little Arizona town, uh, about six years ago, I guess, with these three buddies of mine and it was one of those little desert towns were there´s just, there´s four corners and there´s a gas-station on one and there´s a grocery store on the other one and there´s a motel on the other one and then of course there´s a bar, you know, that´s all the, uh, necessities for human life to flourish and do well, you know, in one spot (chuckles) and uh….that´s what they´re gonna find on those little Marsian rocks when they look real close, there´s gonna be a little bar and a store (chuckles) but, uh, I was, it was late at night and, uh, I was sitting outside my room, it was one of those rooms where you can lay down on the end of your bed and, if the door´s open, reach out and touch your vehicle in the parking lot, you know, and, uh….these two Mexican men come in from the west and they were driving a truck out of California and took the room next to us and the fellow come over and start looking at our…motorcycles and started talking about this younger brother that he had that died in a motorcycle accident in Southern California….and, uh, there was something in his voice and the way he talked about his brother that always, it stayed in my head for a long time and many years later when I was, I was writing this song on the Central California drug trade where Mexican gangs come up and hire migrant workers in the Central Valley to drug labs and they´re the ones that get busted or blown up and it was a song about two brothers and, uh….I kept hearing my friend´s voice in my head when I was writing it so I dedicate this to him every night wherever he may be….this is called ´Sinaloa Cowboys´….´´

Intro to "The Line"
´´Thank you….this, uh, this next song was set on the, uh, San Diego-Tijuana border, you get, there´s, uh, a lot of young guys that come out of the army in Southern California and they end up going to work for the California border patrol….it´s a confusing job, it was an issue that was abused very badly, the immigration issue, in the last American election, there´s always been people coming across the southern border, doing jobs that nobody else wants to do for a pay that nobody else wants to take at the behest of American businesses and in return their kids get a little medical care or a chance at a better education but, anyway, this is a song about a young border patrolman, uh, trying to figure out where that line really is down there….this is called ´The Line´….´´

Intro to "Balboa Park"
´´This, uh….this is a song about kids, uh, about these young kids that come across the border, across the Tijuana river into San Diego and, uh, once you have your own kids, you get extra sensitive to anything that you see or hear about children, I guess, I always like to say that kids have this window onto the grace that´s in the world and, uh, that comes as their birthright, birthright of all children, you know, and, uh, I guess it´s the adults´ job, the parent´s job is sort of to protect that grace that surrounds them until they´re able to protect themselves, so this is a song about kids that don´t have somebody to do that for ´em and uh ….this is what happens when that grace gets violated and you end up lost and on your own, uh…at an age when you shouldn´t be, when there should be somebody hovering over you….´´

Intro to "Across The Border"
´´Thank you, I, uh, I grew up in a house where there wasn´t, wasn´t a whole lot of talk about culture or books or film or, or what the part that those things were supposed to play in your life, you know, and uh….the first thing I really remember that had any impact on me was I was a little boy and my mother was young and she liked that rock´n´roll music and so she´d have the radio on in the kitchen every morning when I came down, I´d come down in my little Catholic school uniform, my green tie and my green pants and, uh, uh (somebody whistles) uh, it wasn´t that sexy (chuckles) but uh (chuckles) but, uh, and I´d sit there, I´d hear, you know, all these records before I went to school and, uh, morning after morning and suddenly I thought I heard a message, uh, sort of saying ´There´s a party going on, little boy, and you´re missing it, you know (chuckles) don´t go to school´ (chuckles) but uh, uh, but there was something in that, in the happiness, the soulfulness of all those singers´ voices that pointed to a world of possibility that I….hadn´t imagined, that it was possible that there was life outside my little town and that there was another way to live than all my friends had lived or my folks before me, you know, and that´s what culture´s supposed to do for you, it´s supposed to open your vision and present you with the world, you know, and then your choices and your own inner possibilities and that´s what all those cheap little records did for me, you know….and then later as I got older, a friend showed me John Ford´s Grapes Of Wrath and when I saw that film, I remember I bought the Steinbeck novel, there was something in the film and the book that resonated for me the way those records did, something, uh….I guess I recognised that character, somebody who was trying to not just save himself, you know, but was, but was in service of an idea that….that was bigger than he was and was educating himself and was trying to then salvage, create and salvage what community that, that he knew, he knew….and I´ve always gone back to the film and that novel for inspiration since I´ve seen it twenty years ago and….and, uh….so this is a song about holding, I guess, onto that hope, which is easy to let slide as you get older, about after the world shows its unreasonableness and its senselessness and deals its darkest blows, how people hold on to hope because it´s the only thing that, that makes you human in the end, whether it makes sense or not….and uh….in the end everyone falls back on love and faith and ultimately on one another, that´s all there is, anyway, I wanna do this tonight, uh, I hope I say this right, uh, je vous dédica cet chanson (?)….´´

Intro to "This Hard Land"
´´(people yell)(chuckles)….aah, aw, shut up (chuckles)….´´

Intro to "No Surrender"
´´This is for all my young fans out there….´´

Intro to "Galveston Bay"
´´Thank you, I´d like to thank everyone for coming down to the show tonight here in Lyon, thank you very much, merci….it´s always an amazing audience here, they´re putting something in the water, I´m not sure (chuckles) but uh….this is a song set on the Gulf Coast of Texas, it´s, uh….at the end of, uh….in the mid-´80s….uh, I guess this is a song about how the older you get, you know, you start out pretty idealistic, then the world can beat that out of you along the way, but I guess when I wrote this song, I was, uh….trying to write about the idea that….whatever choices you make make a difference….uh, it´s a song about at the end of the Vietnam War there were a lot of Vietnamese refugees that settled in the Gulf Coast of Texas and they went into the fishing industry, which was, uh….and they came into a lot of, there was a lot of trouble between the Vietnamese fishermen and the Texas fishermen, many of whom had served in the Vietnam War….so….´´

^{Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi.}

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