Album version
Well I had the carburetor baby cleaned and checked
With her line blown out she's humming like a turbojet
Propped her up in the backyard on concrete blocks
For a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks
Took her down to the carwash, checked the plugs and points
Well I'm going out tonight, I'm gonna rock that joint
Early North Jersey industrial skyline
I'm an all-set cobra jet creeping through the night time
Gotta find a gas station, gotta find a payphone
This turnpike sure is spooky at night when you're all alone
Gotta hit the gas, baby, I'm running late
This New Jersey in the morning like a lunar landscape
Now the boss don't dig me, so he put me on the night shift
It takes me two hours to get back to where my baby lives
In the wee wee hours your mind gets hazy
Radio relay towers, won't you lead me to my baby
Underneath the overpass, trooper hits his party light switch
Good night good luck, one two power shift
I met Wanda when she was employed
Behind the counter at Route 60 Bob's Big Boy Fried Chicken
On the front seat, she's sitting in my lap
We're wiping our fingers on a Texaco road map
I remember Wanda up on scrap metal hill
With them big brown eyes that make your heart stand still
Hoo hoo, whoa!
Ha!
Oh, hey
Well at 5 a.m. oil pressure's sinking fast
I make a pit stop, wipe the windshield, check the gas
Gotta call my baby on the telephone
Let her know that her daddy's coming on home
Sit tight, little mama, I'm a-coming around
I got three more hours but I'm covering ground
Your eyes get itchy in the wee wee hours
Sun's just a red ball rising over them refinery towers
Radio's jammed up with gospel stations
Lost souls calling long distance salvation
Hey mister deejay won't you hear my last prayer
Hey ho rock 'n roll deliver me from nowhere
Hey da da di da, di da da
Oh hey da da di da, di da da
Oh hey da da di da, di da da
Oh hey da da di da, di da da
[Fades out]
OPEN ALL NIGHT is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and released on his 1982 album Nebraska. The above lyrics are for Bruce Springsteen's album version of OPEN ALL NIGHT as released in 1982.
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Following The River Tour, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band were scheduled to start recording the next album in New York City in February 1982. Springsteen felt that the upcoming band studio sessions would progress faster than they had for his previous three albums if he first records finished demos and demonstrates them to the band. He decided to record multi-channel, professional sounding, finished demos of some songs he had written during the period.
To achieve his goal, Springsteen asked his guitar technician, Mike Batlan, in December 1981 to set up a recording facility in a spare room at his home in Colts Neck, NJ. Some modification work was done to the room making it more receptive to achieving a decent sound. Batlan purchased a Teac Tascom Series 144 4-track cassette recorder, two Shure SM57 microphones, and two microphone stands. The sound was mixed through an old Gibson Echoplex and an old Panasonic boom box acted as the mix-down deck.
Batlan told journalist David McGee, "Springsteen began organizing his work for Nebraska during the first week of December 1981 — that's when I was directed to buy the four-track... actual recording began on 17 or 18 December and ended around January 3." Some of the songs were recorded two or three times in slightly different arrangements. A cassette tape was compiled and edited at the end of the sessions, likely on 03 Jan 1982. It contained fourteen songs recorded during these late December 1981 / early January 1982 sessions plus what is almost certainly a live recording of a fifteenth song, JOHNNY BYE-BYE. It also included seven alternate takes and five alternate mixes. The first person to listen to the tape was Jon Landau. Two or three months later, Springsteen recorded two additional songs (MY FATHER'S HOUSE and THE BIG PAYBACK) at home on the same equipment — thus making a total of 17 different songs.
The solo demo tape was never conceived to result in a commercially released album, as the songs were recorded by the E Street Band with multi-instrument arrangements, during what's known by fans as the "Electric Nebraska Sessions". It should be noted that most of the songs were not recorded in "rock" arrangements. Instead, Springsteen and Max Weinberg just added light percussion, or Roy Bittan added a synth pad.
During the E Street Band sessions it became apparent to Springsteen that a majority of these songs did not lend themselves well to a full band arrangement. He later wrote in his 1998 book Songs, "I went into the studio, brought in the band, rerecorded, remixed, and succeeded in making the whole thing worse." At one point he even went back into the studio with an acoustic guitar to try and re-record the songs solo, but the result lacked the atmosphere and feeling of isolation only found on the original home demos. According to Toby Scott, Springsteen handed him the original solo demo tape in April 1982 and asked him if it was possible to just master off the tape, with the intention to release some of the songs as a solo album. It took Scott a few weeks before eventually saying yes and in May a decision was taken to release a solo album ahead of the still-in-progress E Street Band album.
Most of the E Street Band arrangements of these songs were discarded and ten of the original solo demos from the tape were released on the Nebraska album. Max Weinberg revealed to Rolling Stone in June 2010 that the recording of the "Electric Nebraska Sessions" does exist. He said that "the E Street Band actually did record all of Nebraska and it was killing [...] It was all very hard-edged. As great as it was, it wasn't what Bruce wanted to release. There is a full band Nebraska album, all of those songs are in the can somewhere."
"Open All Night" and "January 3, 1982" were considered as titles for the album, but ultimately "Nebraska" was chosen. The album was produced by Bruce Springsteen and was commercially released on 20 Sep 1982 by Columbia Records.
Nebraska features 10 new Springsteen compositions and clocks at 40:50.
The OPEN ALL NIGHT single was only released in Europe, where it was pressed in Holland, Spain, and the UK.
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Other versions of OPEN ALL NIGHT were also officially released.
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Bruce Springsteen has been performing on almost all the annual Stand Up for Heroes benefits since 2007. OPEN ALL NIGHT was performed during the fourth (2010) and fifth (2011) annual benefits. The song was played solo acoustic.
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At least 12 artists have recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's OPEN ALL NIGHT.
List of available versions of OPEN ALL NIGHT on this website:
OPEN ALL NIGHT [Album version]
