Unofficial studio version
[Instrumental]
A LOVE SO FINE is a song written by Bruce Springsteen. He performed it live in 1974 and 1975 and recorded it in studio during the sessions of the Born To Run album. The song has not yet been officially released. It's original working title was "A Night Like This".
A LOVE SO FINE is among 25 songs compiled for a 1993 project that never came to fruition. See the "1993 Concept Album" section below for more details.
A LOVE SO FINE was performed live between September 1974 and September 1975 (see the "Live History" section below). Springsteen originally used the lyrics "a night like this" in the chorus (September 1974) and later replaced it with "a love so fine" (from October 1974 on), hence the two alternative titles for the song. From July 1975 on, the song had a rewritten fourth (and last) verse.
According to a studio log, a song titled "A Night Like This" was recorded during the Born To Run sessions, on 16 Oct 1974 at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, NY. This is documented in the second edition (1992) of Charles R. Cross book Backstreets: Springsteen, The Man And His Music. He writes, "Studio records show a song with this title was recorded by Bruce on October 16th, 1974 from 10:00PM to 1:00AM." Of course, this is none other than A LOVE SO FINE, possibly with the original "a night like this" chorus.
Only one studio version of A LOVE SO FINE has surfaced. It's an instrumental-only track and is possibly the one cut on 16 Oct 1974 at 914 Sound Studios. It may have included vocals but only the instrumental track leaked to bootleggers, or it could also be that it was initially cut as a basic instrumental track with the intention of recording the vocals at a later stage.
SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE, which was released on the Tracks box set in 1998, uses this same instrumental track. It's unknown if it (the vocal track) was mixed in at a later stage or if it was recorded at the same time as this same instrumental track.
A LOVE SO FINE and SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE share the same music and basically the same lyrics for the first three verses. The chorus is different and the fourth (and last) verse of SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE is similar to that of the earlier versions (Sep 1974 to Mar 1975) of A LOVE SO FINE but different from that of the later versions (Jul 1975 to Sep 1975) of A LOVE SO FINE.
| SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE 4th verse: | Joint's shut down but you don't wanna go home |
| You're in the shady side of town and you're all alone | |
| Papa's chewing your ear off, you ain't got no cash | |
| Mama's chewing your ear off about hanging out with trash | |
| (example taken from the official studio version) | |
| A LOVE SO FINE (Sep 1975 to Mar 1975 versions) 4th verse: | Bar's closed down, it's time to go home |
| You walk to the dirty side of town all alone | |
| Papa's chewing your ear off, he wants some cash | |
| Mama's screaming at you about hanging out with trash | |
| (example taken from the live 29 Oct 1974 version) | |
| A LOVE SO FINE (Jul 1975 to Sep 1975 versions) 4th verse: | Three o'clock and the bar's close down |
| You're walking with your baby to the bad side of town | |
| All the little kids, they're asking for her number | |
| Calling her up, trying to drive you under | |
| (example taken from the live 22 Jul 1975 version) |
A LOVE SO FINE was been a candidate track for Born To Run, as evidenced on Springsteen handwritten lists of proposed tracks for his third studio album.
Two lists titled "New Album #3 (Songs)", one containing 10 tracks and one containing 13, were on display at the From Asbury Park To The Promised Land 2009-2010 exhibition at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame And Museum in Cleveland, OH. They date from 1974 and were written on the same notebook page, but it's unknown whether the two were composed at the same time or if Springsteen returned to the same page some time later to add the second. The below scan is taken from issue #89 (Summer 2010) of Backstreets magazine in which a typed version of the lists is reproduced. A LOVE SO FINE is on both lists. Springsteen listed "Jr. Walker Groove - A Love So Fine" as the ninth track on the first list and "A Love So Fine" as third track on the second list. "Jr. Walker Groove - A Love So Fine" on the first list may mean that he was undecided which song to include as the ninth track, JR. WALKER GROOVE or A LOVE SO FINE, or simply and more likely that A LOVE SO FINE is a Junior Walker-influenced song. Junior Walker was a multi-instrumentalist (primarily saxophonist and vocalist) who recorded for Motown during the 1960s and, in early 1974, Springsteen regularly played a snippet of Walker's SHOTGUN in the midsection of ROSALITA (COME OUT TONIGHT) in 1974.
A set of two untitled lists, one containing 8 tracks and one containing 11, was auctioned online in July 2019. Springsteen wrote the two lists on an 8.25x6-inch piece of a lined notebook page using multiple ballpoint pens. He wrote the recording times next to the tracks, which means that they were already recorded in studio. This, and the fact that the three songs added to the second list using different pens were recorded late in the Born To Run sessions, indicates that these two lists likely date from around Spring 1975. Springsteen listed "The Night - (Love So Fine)" as the first track on the second list with running time of 3:00. This may mean that he was undecided which song to include, NIGHT or A LOVE SO FINE.
In his 2012 book E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days Of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Clinton Heylin revealed that in 1993 a 25-song compilation was produced for an archival project, which presumably became the Tracks box set released in 1998. According to Brucebase, the archival concept "album" was produced in-house, presumably following the conclusion of World Tour 1992-1993, perhaps to demonstrate the quality of Springsteen's unreleased archive.
Many of these 25 songs have been subsequently released, either on the Tracks box set or as part of other projects, and some others are known outtakes that are yet to circulate among fans. However, two are only known from this 25-song list: ARNIE and THAT'S OKAY.
This unofficial studio version of A LOVE SO FINE can be found on several bootlegs, including Born In The Studio (Archive Productions) [track 07] and War And Roses (E. St. Records) [track 01].
A LOVE SO FINE is known to have been performed at least 24 times during what is considered The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle Tour (September 1973 to March 1975). Some of that period's setlists are incomplete or unknown, and therefore, the song must have been played on some more dates during The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle Tour; it was possibly played at every single show from September 1974 until the end of the tour. The "a night like this" chorus was used for the first two known performances (19 and 22 Sep 1974) and the "a love so fine" chorus was used for the rest.
A LOVE SO FINE is known to have been performed at least 10 times during the Born To Run Tour (73 know dates / 81 known shows, July to December 1975). Some of that period's setlists are incomplete or unknown, and therefore, the song may have been played on some more dates during the Born To Run Tour. By the time the tour started, the song had a rewritten fourth (and last) verse.
As far as it's known, no artist has recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's A LOVE SO FINE.
List of available versions of A LOVE SO FINE on this website:
A LOVE SO FINE [Unofficial studio version]
