Live 05 Feb 1975 version
[Spoken intro:] Rosie, come out tonight!
Yeah, spread out now, Rosie, doctor come cut loose her mama's reins
You know playin' blind man's bluff is a little baby's game
You pick up Little Dynamite, I'm gonna pick up Little Gun
Together we're gonna go out tonight and make that highway run
You don't have to call me lieutenant, Rosie, and I don't want to be your son
The only lover I'm ever gonna need's your soft sweet little girl's tongue
Rosie, you're the one!
Dynamite's in the belfry, baby, playin' with the bats
Little Gun's downtown in front of Woolworth's, tryin' out his attitude on all the cats
Papa's on the corner, waiting for the bus
Mama's home in the window, waitin' up there for us
She'll be there in that chair when they wrestle her upstairs, you know we ain't gonna come
I ain't here on business, I'm only here for fun
You're the one!
Rosalita, jump a little lighter
Senorita, come sit by my fire
I just want to be your lover, ain't no liar
Rosie, you're my stone desire, whoa!
Jack the Rabbit, Weak Knees Willie, you know they're gonna be there
Sloppy Sue and Big Bones Billy, comin' up for air
We're gonna play some pool, skip some school, act real cool
Stay out all night, it's gonna feel all right
Whoa, Rosie, come out tonight, Rosie, come out tonight
Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor
Closets are for hangers, winners use the door
Use it, Rosie! That's what it's there for!
Rosalita, jump a little lighter
Senorita, come sit by my fire
I just want to be your lover, ain't no liar
Rosie, you're my stone desire
Whoa!
Kill it, now!
[Spoken:] To the far left of the podium, we have on the electric piano and regular piano, The Professor, Mr. Roy Bittan! That's him! Better go! On the bass guitar, straight to you from Long Branch, New Jersey, The Funky Chicken, Mr. Garry W. Tallent! Garry, play! On the drums, flew in tonight specially just for you folks, from North Jersey, The Mighty Max! On the accordion and the magic organ, the mysterious Mr. Daniel Federici! All right! Last but certainly not least, the Duke of Paducah, the Kahuna of Surf and Soul, Mr. Clarence Clemons on the tenor!
Get it down!
Bring it up!
Now, I know your mama, she don't like me 'cause I play in a rock and roll band
I know your papa don't dig me, he never did understand
Papa lowered the boom, locked you in your room
I'm coming to lend a hand
Riding to liberate you, confiscate you, I want to be your man
Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny, na, na, na
Now you're sad, mama's mad
Your papa says (he knows that I don't have any money)
Oh, your papa says (he knows that I don't have any money)
Oh, your papa (says he knows that I don't have any money)
This is his last chance to get his daughter in a fine romance
The record company, Rosie, gave me a big advance!
My tires were slashed, almost crashed, the Lord had mercy
My machine, she's a dud, out stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey
Hold on tight, stay up all night, Rosie, I'm comin' on strong
By the time we meet the morning light, I will hold you in my arms
I know a pretty little place in Southern California down San Diego way
There's a little café, they play guitars all night and day
See 'em in the back room strummin'
Hold tight, baby, don't you know I'm coming
Everybody sing
Ohhhh!
Rosalita, jump a little lighter
Senorita, come sit by my fire
I just want to be your lover, ain't no liar
Rosie, you're my stone desire
Hey, Rosie!
Come on out tonight!
(Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!)
Hey, Rosie! Come on out tonight!
[Spoken outro:] Thank you! Oh!
The above lyrics are for the live 05 Feb 1975 performance of ROSALITA (COME OUT TONIGHT) at The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA, during what is considered The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle Tour. The song was played in a full-band arrangement, with band introductions and an instrumental snippet of Isaac Hayes' THEME FROM SHAFT in the midsection.
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) for the lyrics help.
List of available versions of ROSALITA (COME OUT TONIGHT) on this website:
ROSALITA (COME OUT TONIGHT) [Album version]
