DOES THIS BUS STOP AT 82ND STREET

Live 19 Feb 2003 version

Hey bus driver, keep the change, bless your children, give them names
Don't trust men who walk with canes
Yeah, drink this and you'll grow wings on your feet
Broadway Mary, Joan Fontaine, advertiser on a downtown train
Christmas crier bustin' cane, he's in love again

Where dock worker's dreams mix with panther schemes to someday own the rodeo
Tainted women in VistaVision perform for out-of-state kids at the late show

Wizard imps and sweat sock pimps, interstellar mongrel nymphs
Rex said that lady left him limp
Yeah, love's like that
Queen of Diamonds, Ace of Spades, newly discovered lovers of the Everglades
Take out a full page ad in the trades to announce their arrival
Yeah!
Whoa!

And Mary Lou, she found out how to cope, she rides to heaven on a gyroscope
The Daily News asks her for the dope
She says, "Man, the dope's that there's still hope"

Senorita, Spanish rose, wipes her eyes and blows her nose
Uptown in Harlem she throws a rose, to some lucky young matador
Say yeah!
Whoa!

[performs GROWIN' UP]

[Spoken:] Thank you! Let's see, uh, early songs, very... Well, let me, take me to the, take me to the top of Bus Stop and I'm gonna go through this sucker line by line and explain just what the hell I was doing. Alright, so, I'm sitting at the piano, with the hairdryers on each side. Actually, that's, I, not so, I didn't write that there, I wrote that...

Hey bus driver, keep the change -- I was on the bus, going up to 82nd Street, where a friend of mine had a crash-pad that he used to let me stay at. So I'm sitting on the bus watching everybody.

Hey bus driver, keep the change, bless your children, give them names -- I just liked that.

Don't trust men who walk with canes, drink this and you'll grow wings on your feet -- I just liked that.

Broadway Mary, Joan Fontaine -- those New York City girls!

Advertiser on a downtown train -- poor working stiff.

Christmas crier bustin' cane, he's in love again -- and that's self-explanatory.

Where dock worker's dreams mix with panther schemes to someday own the rodeo -- that's equal opportunity for all.

Tainted women in VistaVision perform for out-of-state kids at the late show -- young New Jersey boy in pre-Disney Times Square.

Wizard imps and sweat sock pimps, interstellar mongrel nymphs -- 42nd Street.

Rex said that lady left him limp, love's like that -- self-explanatory.

Queen of Diamonds, Ace of Spades, newly discovered lovers of the Everglades -- let me, uh, refer to my notes. [pause] Nothing special.

They take out a full page ad in the trades to announce their arrival -- that's, New York, here I come.

Mary Lou, she found out how to cope, she rides to heaven on a gyroscope -- balance, Libra, the whole... damn. It's a talent! [laughs]

The Daily News asked her for the dope, she says, "Man, the dope's that there's still hope" -- That's the song. Without that, without that, the song doesn't get on the album, I don't have it, you know? I got close to it, but I didn't have it. But, somebody once said that a, a good rock song is really only one good line, you just need one good line that takes you where you want to go, and the other stuff is like, kinda getting there, you know? And, uh, I think that's true. As long as you find that, that one good one, man, that, that takes it and puts it on the record. So!

Senorita, Spanish rose -- my first girlfriend.

Wipes her eyes and blows her nose, uptown in Harlem she throws a rose, to some lucky young matador -- That's, uh, love, kisses, some fantasy I got of myself as some spanking uptown dude, uh, [laughs] and, uh, just good things, all the joy in life!

La la la, la la. That's it!

Page last updated: 02 Oct 2010

Info

The above lyrics are for the live 19 Feb 2003 performance of DOES THIS BUS STOP AT 82ND STREET at Somerville Theatre in Somerville, MA, during the first of the two DoubleTake Magazine benefit shows. The song was played solo on acoustic guitar and harmonica and was followed by a line-by-line explanation.


Ticket stub for the 19 Feb 2003 show at Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA

DoubleTake Magazine Benefit

Founded by Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles, DoubleTake Magazine has been in business since 1995, but started facing financial problems a few years later. Springsteen's relationship with the publication goes back to late 1997 when he was interviewed by Will Percy (nephew of the late Walker Percy, a writer/novelist Springsteen admired) at Springsteen's farmhouse in Rumson, NJ. Part of the audio-recorded interview was printed in the March 1998 issue of the magazine. The interview is probably one of the most philosophical of Springsteen's career -- it dealt with the effect books and movies have on Springsteen's writing and the culture of celebrity, among other things. Springsteen also became friend with magazine founder Robert Coles when the two met in 1998. He praised his book A Secular Mind, and even attended one of his classes in Harvard. In November 2004 Coles published in his book Bruce Springsteen's America - The People Listening, A Poet Singing.

Tickets for the two fundraisers were priced at $500 and billed as "An Intimate Evenings Of Music And Conversation With Bruce Springsteen". These were solo acoustic shows, played on acoustic guitar (or piano on a few songs), held at the small Somerville Theatre (900 seats capacity). Springsteen chatted between songs, and closed out each night with a Q&A session, taking questions from the audience. The unprecedented "conversation" element of the shows made them unique to Springsteen fans.

The almost one million dollars raised from the ticket sales went to the non-profit DoubleTake Community Service Organization Corporation, publishers of DoubleTake Magazine, which owed $600,000 to vendors and contributors. "The concert was a success beyond our wildest dreams," managing editor Kirk Kicklighter commented, "[But] we never really had a plan for what we were going to do after the concert." By the fall of 2004, the magazine was no longer publishing, officially put on "hiatus".

Available Versions

List of available versions of DOES THIS BUS STOP AT 82ND STREET on this website:

Credits

Thanks Jake (ol'catfishinthelake at BTX and Greasy Lake).
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