Live 01 Nov 2016 version
[Spoken intro:] Old man is in a gym. He's in a gym. This great looking gal comes in, and uh... a young gal. And uh, he says to his trainer, uh, "Quick, quick, quick, tell me, tell me uh, which one of these machines should I be on to get this girl's attention?" He says, "Well, if I was you, it'd be the ATM."
Last night I stood at your doorstep trying to figure out what went wrong
You just slipped something into my palm, then you were gone
I could smell the same deep green of summer, above me the same night sky was glowing
In the distance I could see the town where I was born
It's gonna be a long walk home
Hey pretty darling, don't wait up for me, gonna be a long walk home
A long walk home
In town I passed Sal's grocery, the barbershop on South Street
I looked into their faces, they were all rank strangers to me
Well the Veteran's Hall high upon the hill stood silent and alone
The diner was shuttered and boarded with a sign that just said "gone"
It's gonna be a long walk home
Hey pretty darling, don't wait up for me, gonna be a long walk home
Hey pretty darling, don't wait up for me, gonna be a long walk home
It's gonna be a long walk home
Here everybody has a neighbor, everybody has a friend
Everybody has a reason to begin again
My father said, "Son, we're lucky in this town, it's a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you, nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone
You know the flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"
Well it's gonna be a long walk home
Hey pretty darling, don't wait up for me, gonna be a long walk home
Yeah pretty darling, don't wait up for me, gonna be a long walk home
It's gonna be a long walk home
It's gonna be a long walk home
The above lyrics are for the live 01 Nov 2007 performance of LONG WALK HOME at The Theater At Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY, during the tenth (2016) annual Stand Up For Heroes benefit. The song was played in a solo acoustic guitar arrangement.
Bruce Springsteen played a four-song acoustic set during the benefit concert: WORKING ON THE HIGHWAY, I'LL WORK FOR YOUR LOVE, LONG WALK HOME, DANCING IN THE DARK. Given that the event was part of the New York Comedy Festival, Springsteen told a dirty joke between each two songs. After his set, a signed replica of Springsteen's famous Born To Run Fender Esquire guitar was auctioned and realized $280,000 for the Bob Woodruff Foundation. Springsteen had upped the prize by offering to take the winner and three friends on a two-hour trip in his 1967 Cadillac from his house to the Jersey Freeze restaurant in Freehold, NJ, for a dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers. He also threw in his mother's lasagna.
Stand Up For Heroes is an annual benefit organized by the Bob Woodruff Foundation to raise money for injured U.S. servicemen, veterans, and their families. Robert "Bob" Warren Woodruff is an American television journalist. He was the newly appointed co-anchor of ABC World News Tonight when on 29 Jan 2006, while reporting on U.S. and Iraqi security forces in Iraq, he was critically injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and spent 36 days in a medically induced coma. He was not expected to survive, but he recovered and started the Bob Woodruff Foundation, a non-profit helping other Americans who were similarly wounded in war.
Bruce Springsteen has been appearing on almost all of the annual benefits since they started in 2007, playing a handful of songs each time and offering for auction one of his guitars or motorcycles to benefit the foundation.
List of available versions of LONG WALK HOME on this website:
LONG WALK HOME [Album version]