Live 05 Feb 1975 version
Hmm hmm oh oh
Ooh ooh oh oh
Oh oh
Oh oh
Whoa oh oh
Whoa oh oh ah ah yeah
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Whoa oh ah ah
Ah ah ah ah
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Billy, he's down by the railroad tracks
Sitting low in the back seat of his Cadillac
Diamond Jackie, she's so intact
And she falls like an angel beneath him
Jackie's heels are stacked
Billy's got cleats on his boots
They're gonna boogaloo down Broadway
And come back home with the loot
It's midnight in Manhattan, this is no time to get cute
It's a mad dog's promenade
So walk tall
Or don't walk at all
Fish lady, oh, my fish lady baits them tenement walls
She don't take the corner boys, because they got no money, they got no cars, and they're so easy
Ah, take my hand, girl, I'm easy, waltz with me down Broadway, baby
Take my hand, little one, move with me down Broadway yeah-eh
I'm a young man, I talk it real loud and
Hey babe, I walk it real proud for you
I'll be proud with you
I'll be proud with you
Oh I'll be proud with you baby
I'll be so proud with you baby
I'll be proud with you baby
I'll be proud with you baby
I'll be proud with you baby
I'll be proud with you baby
So come on and hook it up
Hook up to the night train
Hook up to the silver train
But I know that she won't take the train
She won't take the train
She won't take the train, (no she won't take the train)
She won't take the train, (no she won't take the train)
She's afraid them tracks are gonna blow her down
When she turns around, he'll be gone
Baby so long
Sometimes you gotta walk on, walk on, walk on
Walk on, ooh, walk, ooh, whoa
Vibes man, hey jazz man in the alley, play me your serenade
Any deeper blue, you'd be blowing that horn in your grave
Save your notes: don't spend 'em on the darling blues boys
Save your notes: don't go getting wasted with them darling yearling star boys
Straight for the church note, ring it
Vibes man sting a trash can
Listen, listen to your junkman
Ah, listen to your junkman
Hey, just listen to your junkman
'Cause he's singing, (singing)
Singing, (singing)
He's got your money in his pocket, he's all dressed up, walking down the alley, (singing)
He's standing there in the cold, he's singing, (singing)
He's singing, singing, singing, singing, singing, singing, singing, yeah
Whoa, oh, whoa, all right, ah, ah, ah, la, la, la, la, la
Oh, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, whoa, no, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, la, la, la, la, la, la slip away
Out on the street tonight, there ain't a sound
Take me in my arms
Out on the street tonight, there ain't a sound
Out on the street tonight, there ain't a sound
I want to take you in my arms
And it's hey, little stranger, what you doing tonight, you know you're looking and you've lost my face
You're just some crazy, running, running crazy in the streets
Well baby I know a place, I know a place where maybe we can go
Nobody knows it
And it's hey, little stranger, what you doing tonight, you're looking and you're lost
You just some crazy, just running through the streets
Baby I know a place where we can go where it's warm and dry
Ah it's still safe there, nobody ever goes there
Nobody ever goes there, nobody ever goes there
You can hear the kids crying all night long, nobody knows there, nobody knows there
And I just got this, um, I just got this new stereo, and, uh, I painted my place
I mean, hey, little stranger, what you doing tonight, you're looking and you're lost
Ah... so stand in the rain in the street
And ah... so stand in the rain in the street
And that joker's standing on the corner selling dreams that can't come true
And oh I laughed at you baby, I, oh but at night, I bought 'em too
Oh at night I bought 'em too
At night I bought 'em too
And uh, down and down and down
Down and down and down and down we go
I mean hey little stranger what you doing tonight
Woah 'round and 'round, down and down and down and down we go
The TV, the TV's on with the sound turned off
TV's on, and, uh, TV's on and the sound turned off, uh, Johnny Carson on, he's
And ah down and down and down we go
Down and down, down
Ed McMahon's sitting on the couch
And down and down, all inside, down and down we go
Hey, little stranger, what you doing tonight
Woah down, down, down, down we go
You said you'd never go
Honey outside the cops sitting on the corner, drinking coffee in the squad car
While inside, down and down and down we go
Honey, outside the girls walking down the street come up to ya,
"Hey mister, you got a girlfriend?", uh
"Hey mister, uh you wanna go out tonight?"
Down and down inside, down and down we go
Whoa inside 'round and 'round and 'round we go, down and down
Oh, down and, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
Baby, baby, we could slip away
We could slip away
Oh we could steal away
We could slip away
Ah, come, I was thinking I could take all my money out of the bank and um
Baby we could slip away
Baby we could slip away
Hey, hey little stranger, what you doing tonight, wanna steal away
Now baby we could steal away
Baby we could steal away
But don't tell your mom, don't tell your pop
We could slip away
(Baby, we could slip away)
(Baby, we could slip away)
(Baby, we could slip away)
(Baby, we could slip away)
(Baby, we could slip away)
(Baby, we could slip away)
(Baby, we could slip away)
I got my car parked outside on the street
(Baby, we could slip away)
Pack your bags baby, whoa
(Baby, we could slip away)
We could shake this city life
(Baby, we could slip away)
We could shake it, you can quit your job, and
(Baby, we could slip away)
Baby I can make it
(Baby, we could slip away)
Ah, baby
So!
(Baby, we could slip away)
So!
(Baby, we could steal away)
So!
(Baby, we could steal away)
Aw!
(Baby, we could slip away)
Ha!
(Baby, we could slip away)
Slip away!
(Baby, we could steal away)
Slip, ha, slip away
Whoa, oh, oh
Slip away, whoa, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh
Slip away ah, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
Whoa!
Slip away!
Ah, ah, oh, oh, oh, ah, la, la, oh, all right, oh, all right, all right, na, na, oh, all right
Oh, ah, oh, all right, whoa, oh, all right
Who's gonna miss us, who's gonna miss us
The above lyrics are for the live 05 Feb 1975 performance of NEW YORK CITY SERENADE at The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA, during what is considered The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle Tour. The song featured Roy Bittan on piano, Max Weinberg on drums, and Suki Lahav on violin, and was played in a majestic extended full-band arrangement with the "slip away" coda and a full-band, violin-led introduction.
The Main Point was a small coffeehouse venue on Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, PA. It was formed in 1964 by Jeanette and William Campbell and four other couples as a small folk-based coffeehouse venue inspired by the Philadelphia Folk Festival. The venue was famous for its small intimate atmosphere, homemade food and home baked goods, and inexpensive ticket prices. Over the years, various styles of music were presented; the venue hosted many famous performers in its heydeys, including Bruce Springsteen who performed there on no less than 25 dates between 1973 and 1975. He started as an opening act during a 4-night residency in January 1973 and returned in April as a headliner.
Soon after The Main Point's opening, Bill Scarborough became co-owner and booking director from 1964-1975. When Philadelphia's Sunday Bulletin asked him in September 1973 how he made booking decisions, Scarborough cited several factors but admitted that occasionally his own musical tastes influenced him. "I think that the booking of a singer named Bruce Springsteen is the best example I can give you of personal taste and hunch entering into my final choice. Here was a new act out of nowhere, who happened to sign with a major label, and put out an album that reminded me of the best of Dylan. I decided to book him as a headliner, even though he was barely known. We did alright with him, but not as well as we'd hoped. I still feel, though, that he's going to be a big star."
The venue was popular among both musicians and listeners. Clarence Clemons commented in a special Main Point 10th anniversary publication, "The whole band had the flu. Bruce had 103 degree temperature. If it was any other place but the Main Point, any concert or club in the country, we would have cancelled."
The Main Point constantly ran into financial problems related to its intimate size. Ironically, it was its size that made it so popular. Musicians gave benefit concerts for the coffeehouse to help it out of its financial straits. Some of these concerts were broadcast over the local progressive rock radio station WMMR-FM, and many well known bootleg recordings have been made from these performances. Bruce Springsteen's 05 Feb 1975 benefit concert stands out as a particularly legendary event. The Main Point finally closed its doors in 1981.
At the request of Philadelphia's WMMR-FM disc jockey Ed Sciaky, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed a 05 Feb 1975 concert at The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA. This was a benefit show held for the financially struggling club, with Bruce and the band being the sole act on the bill. The show was MC'd by Sciaky and was broadcast by WMMR-FM on the same night. The station solicited for donations to be made by phone during the broadcast.
Shortly before he passed away in January 2004, Sciaky told Backstreets magazine (issue #82, Spring 2005) that the now-famous broadcast almost never happened. After a promise from Bruce Springsteen and Mike Appel to do a broadcast of the 02 Feb 1975 Main Point benefit, Springsteen decided the day of the show that he didn't want it to air. He was playing some new songs, which would soon appear on his upcoming Born To Run album, and many of them were still unfinished. Sciaky had to call Springsteen, despite Appel's objections, trying to convince him to at least do a shortened broadcast. In the end, Springsteen decided to do the whole show on the radio.
The show was not broadcast live-as-it-happened. "We didn't have a phone line from The Main Point, so they had to tape the show in hour-long segments and then drive them to the station and put them on the air," Sciaky explained to Backstreets. "And after the final reel had played, Bruce's lighting guy, Marc Brickman took all of the tapes. So we never got a good copy of the show. But it was a classic show, and it's collected to this day, and I'm glad."
This famous Main point concert was taped off the airwaves and immediately started circulating among a number of fans. In the late seventies, an edited from of the broadcast became available on vinyl bootlegs. This changed in the digital era, when pioneering Italian label and Springsteen specialists Great Dane Records released the show in 1990 on the 2-disc CD bootleg The Saint, The Incident & The Main Point Shuffle.
The Saint, The Incident & The Main Point Shuffle utilized the commonly circulated recording of the broadcast, but a couple of years after its release, a 10-inch reel-to-reel tape containing the first 90 minutes of the pre-FM recording of The Main Point show made its way into collectors' hands. On this recording, the sound quality is far superior to the much more compressed off-air recording. The last 70-plus minutes of the performance, or what's presumably on a second reel, were never found from the pre-FM source. The discovery of the pre-FM reel-to-reel tape spurred a host of new bootleg releases, including the first "Masters Plus" reissue by Great Dane Records itself, which paired the new 90-minute pre-FM recording with the original FM-sourced remainder of the show.
The 05 Feb 1975 broadcast from The Main Point was commercially released in Europe. Since 2005 some enterprising record labels in Europe (mostly in the UK) have been releasing Bruce Springsteen radio and TV broadcasts (and some soundboard recordings) from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Though these releases are not authorized by Bruce Springsteen or his record company, they are lawful due to a legal loophole in Europe.
Thanks Jake (ol'catfishinthelake at BTX and Greasy Lake) and Wessley McGrath for the lyrics help.
List of available versions of NEW YORK CITY SERENADE on this website:
NEW YORK CITY SERENADE [Album version]
