The Bruce Springsteen Lyric That Insists That Happiness Only Comes via Hard Work

Bruce Springsteen possesses a catalog with a bevy of songs that have become classics without being big hits. “Prove It All Night” has not only become a radio staple, but it has also enjoyed a long life as one of Springsteen’s live showcases.

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While Springsteen has never quite pinned down the origins of the song, it tells a story of two people potentially earning a lifetime of happiness. But it also makes it clear it takes a certain amount of effort to get there.

Something to “Prove”

Darkness On The Edge Of Town, released in 1978, presented a much different songwriting side of Bruce Springsteen. Gone, for the most part, was the excessive wordiness and elongated running times of his first three albums. They were replaced by a more concise lyrical style and a more simplified, intensified musical attack.

The tenor of the lyrics also changed dramatically. Springsteen had written serious songs before. But he had done so in the midst of outsized situations, including a heavy reliance on gangs brawling out on the streets. Darkness features folks doing hard work and often failing to get their just rewards for it.

In a musical sense, “Prove It All Night” stands out as one of the brightest songs on the album. Both Springsteen on guitar and Clarence Clemons on saxophone rip off impassioned solos. Meanwhile, the lyrics touch on some of the same romantic wanderlust that characterized the Born To Run album in 1975.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the song looks through rose-colored glasses. The narrator believes that a happy ending could be in the cards with his lover. But he also insists that it won’t just be granted to them. They’ll have to believe in it with all their hearts and work overtime to make sure it happens.

Explaining the Lyrics of “Prove It All Night”

Springsteen sets the laborious tone in the opening line. “I’ve been working real hard, trying to get my hands clean,” he begins. That suggests that he might have once been taking the easy, perhaps illegal, way out to earn money. He promises the girl a road trip and some gifts if she’ll buy into his plan: “Baby, just one kiss will get these things for you/A kiss to seal our fate tonight.”

In the second verse, Springsteen briefly reaches out to the audience and their own struggles. “There’s so much that you want, you deserve much more than this,” he explains. Waiting for dreams to come true won’t get it done. Instead: “And girl, you want it, you take it, you pay the price.”

The final verse brings it back to the personal level, as the guy once again implores the girl to join him. “You hear their voices, telling you not to go,” he says of the naysayers. “They made their choices and they’ll never know/What it means to steal, to cheat, to lie/What it’s like to live and die.”

Springsteen is drawing a comparison between stale lives and those lived out on the edge by people who are longing for true bliss. “Girl, there’s nothing else that we can do,” he insists in the chorus. To get where you want in life, The Boss suggests, you have to “Prove it All Night”. And then you have to wake up in the morning and start the process all over again.

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