

In fact, Springsteen hadn't even rehearsed the song until Sancious joined in. Albee Tellone, sound manager on Springsteen's road crew from November 1972 to December 1973, told Brucebase that the song was in its infancy when David Sancious joined the recording sessions on 22 June 1973. THE E STREET SHUFFLE was written in mid-1973 it was one of the final songs written and recorded for The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle album. The Curtis Mayfield song he was referencing is likely MOVE ON UP. He meant to say THE MONKEY TIME, not MICKEY'S MONKEY. So it was a crazy piece of music." Of course, Springsteen was mistaken. So I took the riff from 'Mickey's Monkey' and I wrote my own song around it, with my crazy lyrics, and it ended up─ and then I took this little sort of last part where the band jams like crazy from a Curtis Mayfield song that I was into at the, at the end of the time, sort of a funk jazz (imitates the music vocally). That's basically, (singing:) 'There's a place across the tracks, whenever you're ready,' it's 'Mickey's Monkey'. So 'E Street Shuffle', where I took the main riff from 'Mickey's Monkey', the Major Lance song (imitates the music vocally). It was a very eclectic group of musicians at that moment. We played rock and soul and funk and a little bit of jazz. You know, the band was a rock and soul band at the time.

So I put in front the tune, because I thought it was funny, and then basically the tune is funk soul. And that's the sound that we ended up with. All these different guys played what they knew of horns. Mainly Mad Dog Vincent Lopez, Albee Tellone played the sax or something. First of all, comes on with that Salvation Army horn sound, which was played by the guys in the E Street Band. Springsteen replied: "That's a quirky tune, you know, quirky song. In an October 2020 interview on BBC Radio 2, Dermot O'Leary asked Springsteen about THE E STREET SHUFFLE. It was just the dance you did every day and every night to get by." I wanted to describe a neighborhood, a way of life, and I wanted to invent a dance with no exact steps. The cast of characters came vaguely from Asbury Park at the turn of the decade. It was the early 70's: blues, R&B, and soul on Major Lance's '60s hit 'Monkey Time,' a dance song. In his 1998 book Songs, Springsteen wrote: "The opening cut, 'The E Street Shuffle,' is a reflection of a community that was partly imagined and partly real. Little Angel picks up Power and he slips on his jeans Oh, Little Angel hangs out at Easy Joe's, it's a club where all the riot squad goes when they're cashin' in for a cheap hustleīut them boys are still on the corner loose and doin' that lazy E Street ShuffleĪnd as them sweet summer nights turn into summer dreams When the sparks light on E Street when the boy-prophets walk it handsome and hotĪll them little girls' souls grow weak when the man-child gives them a double shot (Come on, baby!) (Come on, baby!) (You gotta get ready!) (Come on, girl!) (Oh!) (Whoa, oh, oh, oh, everybody form a line) She's deaf in combat down on Lover's Lane Little Angel steps the shuffle like she ain't got no brains The newsboys say the heat's been bad since Power Thirteen gave a trooper all he had in a summer scuffleĪnd Power's girl, Little Angel, been on the corner keeping those crazy boys out of trouble
Springsteen the wild the young e street shuffle full#
Now those E Street brats in twilight duel flashlight phantoms in full star streamĭown fire trails on silver nights with blonde girls pledged sweet sixteen Well, the kids down there either dancing or hooked up in a scuffleĭressed in snake-skin suits packed with Detroit muscle Them teenage tramps in skin-tight pants do the E Street dance and everything's all right Them schoolboy pops pull out all the stops on a Friday night Sparks fly on E Street when the boy prophets walk it handsome and hotĪll the little girls' souls grow weak when the man-child gives them a double shot
