Happy Wednesday and welcome to another installment of my weekly feature that takes a deeper dive into a song I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all to date. I can’t believe it took 50-plus posts in this series before writing about one of my all-time favorite artists, Bruce Springsteen. Granted, I’ve covered The Boss on multiple occasions in the past and, yes, I’ve also briefly included today’s pick in a previous post. But I felt Jungleland deserves a dedicated take.
Written by Springsteen, Jungleland was first recorded as the epic closer of his breakthrough album Born to Run, which came out in August 1975. At a mighty nine-and-a-half minutes, obviously, it wasn’t well suited for mainstream radio. As such, not surprisingly, it wasn’t released separately as a single. Of course, they could have created a shorter edit, but it really would have been a shame to cut this masterpiece.
Jungleland started with its first recorded take in January 1974 and took until July 1975 to be completed. One of the song’s defining characteristics is a saxophone solo by the E Street Band’s Clarence Clemons, which starts at around 3:55 minutes and extends all the way until 6:05 minutes. In his 2016 Born to Run autobiography, Springsteen called it “Clarence’s greatest recorded moment”.
Evidently, capturing that greatest moment took some time. Wikipedia notes Clemons ended up spending up sixteen hours playing and replaying every note until Springsteen was completely satisfied – sounds like Donald Fagen and Walter Becker Steely Dan-like perfectionism on albums like Aja and Gaucho! “All we could do was hold on,” Clemons said. “Smoke a lot of pot and try to stay calm.” I’m glad the Big Man didn’t lose his cool. The outcome certainly is magnificent! Here’s a great live version, captured at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1975.
Speaking of live, Springsteen actually debuted Jungleland on stage long before its recording was finished. That moment happened on July 12, 1974 at prominent New York City venue The Bottomline. At the time, the song still sounded “like other jazzed-up mini-operas from The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, influenced by David Sancious,” according to Wikipedia. A multi-instrumentalist, Sancious was an early member of the E Street Band, who shortly left thereafter and was replaced by Roy Bittan.
The studio recording of Jungleland also features Israeli violinist Suki Lahav who briefly joined the E Street Band from September 1974 until March 1975, becoming the group’s first female musician. She played a lovely 23-note violin introduction accompanied by Bittan on piano. Lahav subsequently returned to Israel and became successful there as a violinist, actress, lyricist and author of screenplays. Here’s another more recent live version of Jungleland from New York City’s Madison Square Garden earlier this year, featuring Jake Clemons, nephew of the Big Man – what an amazing performance!
Following are some additional insights from Songfacts:
This is a poetic tale of life on the streets of New Jersey. Beginning with a simple piano intro, Springsteen goes through a series of abstract images and introduces a series of characters in the song, including Magic Rat and Barefoot Girl. It’s a song that led to comparisons with Bob Dylan, notably Dylan’s “Desolation Row.”
Born To Run came with lyrics to the songs, so listeners could follow along. Reflecting on the album years later, Springsteen singled out the last verse of “Jungleland” as an example of his work that had “a lot of overblown romance, but still contained the seeds of realism.”
Running 9:33, this song takes a lot of unexpected musical turns. After a 45-second intro and two verses/chorus repetitions, a guitar solo comes in around the three-minute mark, but instead of following form with a chorus and outro, we get a vocal bridge (“In the parking lot the visionaries dress in the latest rage”) followed by a sax solo that doesn’t abate until six minutes in, taking the song to silence before it comes back to life with a piano section and another verse and some wordless wailing to close things out.
Note how little of the running time can be considered chorus, which is really just the line “down in Jungleland,” or at the end, “tonight in Jungleland.”
Springsteen and the E Street Band performed this live for over a year before they recorded it. It developed into a longer song with a grand sax solo when it was finally released.
This features the piano of Roy Bittan. He joined The E Street Band for Born To Run after playing in orchestra pits on Broadway.
This was a highlight of Springsteen’s 1999 reunion tour with The E Street Band. The tour went very well, and the band continued to play and record together.
Clarence Clemons played a long sax solo on this track. With his bright suits and large stature, he was the most notable and popular member of The E Street Band, and when it came to this song, he wasn’t demure. “That’s one of the classic saxophone solos in the history of the world, if I may say so myself,” he said. Clemons was disappointed when the song was not included on the 1995 Greatest Hits album.
As seen in the documentary Wings For Wheels on the 30th anniversary package of the album, one take of the song had a dramatic flamenco-style intro.
This song was a huge influence on Bob Seger, who completed “Night Moves” after hearing it. Seger had two verses of that song written, but struggled to finish it until he heard “Jungleland” and realized he could stretch out the song and explore different dynamics. “Night Moves” was released the following year (1976).
Melissa Etheridge said in Rolling Stone magazines 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time issue: “When Bruce Springsteen does those wordless wails, like at the end of ‘Jungleland,’ that’s the definition of rock & roll to me. He uses his whole body when he sings, and he puts out this enormous amount of force and emotion and passion.”
Springsteen didn’t play this song live for over a year after Clarence Clemons died on June 18, 2011. When he did finally put the song back in rotation, it was at a show in Gothenburg, Sweden on July 28, 2012, with Clemons’ nephew Jake playing the famous saxophone part. Springsteen dedicated it to “the big man” when he introduced it.
Stephen King quoted the final verse in the epigraph to his 1978 novel The Stand. In the book, a group of survivors prepare to confront an evil tyrant after a plague eradicates most of the US population, echoing Springsteen’s lyric “They reach for their moment, and try to make an honest stand.”
King also references Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and Bob Dylan’s “Shelter From the Storm.”
Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube