Down In Jungleland!
Saturday, April 1, 2023 Entry #57
As amazing and exciting as it was to be at a Bruce Springsteen concert in Madison Square Garden, Springsteen was still performing more or less the same songs I had heard in the five shows I had attended over the last few months. But, as we were getting close to the usual extended encore, Springsteen called a very special audible, announcing “something special for New York City!” The audience alternated between jubilant cheers and hushed reverence as Soozie Tyrell’s plaintive violin and Roy Bittan’s pristine piano notes filled the arena. This unmistakable musical introduction signaled a delightful surprise, the tour debut of one of Bruce Springsteen’s most beloved songs, “Jungleland.”
The video that begins this post is a mash-up. It starts with a clip from YouTube of that moment described above, as Springsteen and the E Street Band launched into “Jungleland.” Then, I wove in the very brief video I took during the song from the pit. Once I realized I was about to hear the majestic “Jungleland,” I quickly made the calculation (such are the machinations many concert attendees go through in the age of iPhone camera ease) that I wanted to be completely present at first, then only after letting it all sink in, I would take a few minutes of footage for personal documentation, and finally put the damned phone away for the rest of the song. Luckily, hearing “Jungleland” is around a 10 minute experience so I had time for all of the above.
As I have written, it was hearing “Jungleland” at my first Springsteen concert in 1980 that truly ‘sealed the deal’ for me. It’s operatic in scope, transforming those common slices of adolescent freedom in fresh bloom into an epic teenage drama that every kid imagines they are actually living through. As the song suggests, the kids are toggling between “what’s flesh and what’s fantasy.” Springsteen has referred to “Jungleland” as a spiritual battleground gripping the city at night, rock and roll instead of violence propelling its living pulse. The yearning for romanticized adventure surging through the youth helps redeem the desolate urban landscape. From the quiet beginning to Springsteen’s primal wail concluding the song, “Jungleland” is meant to send the listener to an evocative alternate landscape. Works for me every time.
The song has a few unique musical “movements,” Springsteen’s passionate poetry and vocals only matched in their artistry by the intricate and lengthy saxophone solo that Springsteen painstakingly composed with the late Clarence Clemons. Clemons has said he labored over for 16 hours to satisfy “phrase by phrase” the detailed musical roadmap Springsteen laid out for him. One very sweet moment occurred after Clemons’ nephew Jake replicated that solo at Madison Square Garden. Springsteen stared intently at Jake with fatherly wonder, pride and affection, and Jake looked up to the sky as if paying homage to his his late uncle
It is challenging to pull out illustrative “Jungleland” lyrics without selecting almost every single word, but here are some of my favorite phrases from this truly epic song:
“Barefoot Girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge, drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain. The Rat pulls into town, rolls up his pants, together they take a stab at romance.”
“And the kids out here look just like shadows, always quiet holding hands.”
Tonight all is silence in the world, as we take our stand…The midnight gang’s assembled, and picked a rendezvous for the night. They’ll meet ‘neath that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light.”
“Man, there’s an opera out on the Turnpike, there’s a ballet being fought out in the alley.”
“Kids flash guitars just like switchblades, hustling for the record machines. The hungry and the hunted explode into rock ‘n’ roll bands, they face off each other out in the street, down in Jungleland,”
“In the parking lot the visionaries dress in the latest rage….Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners, desperate as the night moves on…Beneath the city, two hearts beat, soul engines running through a night so tender. In a bedroom locked, whispers of soft refusal, and then surrender.”
“Outside the street’s on fire in a real death watch between what’s flesh and what’s fantasy. And the poets down here don’t write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be.”
“And in the quick of then night, they reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand. But they wind up wounded, not even dead. Tonight in Jungleland.”
It was for me a true peak moment to hear “Jungleland” this night at Madison Square Garden from the stage rail. I have visual proof of my enthrallment, by the way. Not long after the concert, I received a text from one of my new tour friends, letting me know that my front-row mug was all over the YouTube videos of the “Jungleland” performance that had already been bubbling up from the concert:
Yes, and not only that, I was right there, basically in the throes of spiritual ecstasy, on the thumbnail of the video from which she garnered this intel.
Much more on my unintentional appearance throughout this video in a later post. For now, here are some screen captures from it of what really counts, Springsteen in “Jungleland” mode: