Rendezvous

RENDEZVOUS - V1 2:47 DDO / DO-3 / LES / MT1 / AM / SYMKB
RENDEZVOUS - V2 2:36 PROMISE

Note: The same night in 1976 when Springsteen premiered "Something In The Night" at the Monmouth County Arts Center, Red Bank, NJ, he also played "Rendezvous" for the first time. The song remained a regular in the setlist throughout the remainder of the 1976–77 tour. When the Darkness sessions began on June 1, it was one of the ten songs recorded that evening, and additional takes were logged on June 2, 3, 8, and 17, 1977, all at Atlantic Studios. One of these was V1, an otherwise good take, but the audio is marred by a vocal drop-out during the first verse. According to Sony, V2 was recorded on September 29, 1977 at the Record Plant, and officially released on The Promise in 2010. This version has several apparently unique and curious lyric alterations to the first verse, including changing 'I had a dream, tonight my dream comes true' to 'I had a dream last night, she had a dream too' and 'We'll be riders, girl, on the night' to 'If I'm down then she'll make me feel right'. To our knowledge, these lyrics were never sung live prior to the release of The Promise, and never since. There are clearly some modern overdubs in the recording, and the altered lyrics raise questions about the lead vocal as well. A live version recorded December 31, 1980, at Nassau Coliseum, was used for Tracks, which may indicate Bruce wasn't satisfied with the available studio versions at the time (1998).

In a 1978 interview, Springsteen said the song was kept off Darkness On The Edge Of Town because it didn't fit thematically. Bruce personally taught the song to The Knack's drummer Bruce Gary in October, 1978, but it would be Greg Kihn who first recorded a cover (released in April, 1979). A few years later, Springsteen donated "Rendezvous" to Gary U.S. Bonds for his album On The Line. The E Street Band and an uncredited Springsteen recorded the backing track for Bonds, presumably at The Hit Factory in January or February 1982. Bonds's version was issued in June 1982.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License