Bruce Springsteen Lyrics: TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT [Live July 2018 version]

TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT

Live July 2018 version

Now, a real rock and roll band evolves out of a common place and time. Bands come out of towns, out of a city, out of a neighborhood. And they come along at a particular moment, you know. Bands are all about what happens when musicians who come from the same streets, with the same passions and influences, go in search of lightning and thunder! They come together in a whole that is greater than the sum of their parts. They may not be the best players. That's not necessary. They need to be the right players and when they play together, there is a communion of souls. And a natural brotherhood and sisterhood manifests itself. And a quest, a quest is begun. You're in search of something, an adventure's undertaken. And you ride shotgun. In a real band, the principles of math get stood on their head. And one plus one equals three.

Now one plus one equals two, that happens every day. That is not magic. That's the grind. That's when you get up, one, go to work, one, go to bed... (audience: "Two"). Two, geniuses, two. But when one plus one equals three, that's when your life changes and you see everything new. And these are days when you are visited by visions, when the world around you brings down the spirit, and you feel blessed to be alive. It is the essential equation of love. There is no love without one plus one equaling three. It's the essential equation of art. It's the essential equation of rock and roll. It's the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible. It's the reason "Louie Louie" will never be fully comprehensible. And it's the reason true rock and roll and true rock and roll bands will never die.

Teardrops on the city, Bad Scooter searching for his groove
The whole world walking pretty and you can't find the room to move
Everybody better move over, that's all
I'm running on the bad side with my back to the wall

Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out

I'm stranded in the jungle trying to take in all the heat that was giving
Till the night is dark but the sidewalk bright and lined with the light of the living
From a tenement window a transistor blasts
Turn around the corner, things got real quiet real fast

I walked into a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out

And I'm all alone, I'm all alone
And I can't go home
I can't find my way back home now

Now, Gary, Danny, Little Steven, Mighty Max, Professor Roy, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, that is my one plus one equals (crowd: "Three!"). Excellent, grasshopper. But nobody captured my audience's imagination or their hearts like Clarence. Clarence was, Clarence was a figure out of a rock and roll storybook and together we told a story that was bigger than any of the ones I'd written in my songs. It was the story where, not only did Scooter and the Big Man bust the city in half, but we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn't have been such an exceptional thing. First night I saw Clarence, he came walking out of the shadows towards the bandstand, nodded to me, got up, stood to my right for the very first time. He picked up his saxophone. And when he played... When he played, he whispered that story in my ear. And then we whispered it into your ear. And we carried it together for a long, a long good time. The Big Man was big. Everything about him. His personality, his size, his laugh, the sound of his saxophone. When I first heard it, I thought it was the biggest sound I ever heard. It was. His heart, his problems, they were big. But he was elemental in my life. And losing him was like losing the rain. If I were a mystic, if I were a mystic, I guess Clarence and my's friendship would lead me to believe that we, we stood together in other older times. You know, in uh, in other lives. Along other rivers. In other ancient cities. In other fields... working side by side, with the sun setting, doing our modest version of God's work. I'll see you in the next life, Big Man.

When they made that change uptown and the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city all the little pretties raise their hands
I'm gonna sit back right easy and laugh
When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half

With a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out

Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for the biggest man you ever saw. Clarence "Big Man" Clemons! And the legendary... E! (crowd: "Street! Band!") That's it.

Oh yeah, it's alright

Whoa!

Info

The above lyrics are for the live July 2018 performance of TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT at Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City, NY, during Springsteen On Broadway. The song was played solo on piano.

This performance of TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT was recorded on 17 or 18 July 2018 during the taping of the Springsteen On Broadway Netflix special. It was released on the Springsteen On Broadway album in 2018.

Springsteen On Broadway

Springsteen On Broadway was a Bruce Springsteen concert residency held at Walter Kerr Theatre (in 2017-2018) and St. James Theatre (in 2021) in New York City, NY. The show consisted of Springsteen performing five shows a week, Tuesday through Saturday, at the Broadway theatres. The sold-out series of performances began with seven previews starting on 03 Oct 2017 and officially opened on 12 Oct 2017. It was extended three times after its initial eight-week run, running through 15 Dec 2018 and bringing the total number of performances at Walter Kerr Theatre to 238. On 10 Jun 2018, Springsteen received a special Tony Award for his Broadway show. In 2021, an additional limited run was announced, this time held at St. James Theatre instead of Walter Kerr Theatre. This new series of performances opened on 26 Jun 2021 and ran through 04 Sep 2021, bringing the total number of performances at both theatres to 268.

The show featured Springsteen, solo, playing guitar, piano, and harmonica, performing his music, restating incidents from his 2016 autobiography Born To Run, and performing other spoken reminiscences written for the show. His wife, Patti Scialfa, has also appeared at most shows, singing backing vocals on a total of three different songs.

Springsteen On Broadway, a Netflix special directed by Grammy- and Emmy-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny, was filmed during two special invitation-only shows on 17 and 18 Jul 2018. The film launched globally on Netflix on 16 Dec 2018 at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, just hours after the final Broadway performance at Walter Kerr Theatre closed. Two days prior, on 14 Dec 2018, Columbia Records released Springsteen On Broadway, an audio album encompassing the full film soundtrack. The audio was mixed by Bob Clearmountain and mastered by Bob Ludwig. The album is available physically as a 2-disc CD set or a 4-disc LP set, as well as digitally.