Everybody’s got a h-h-hungry heart! To some, it may be difficult to imagine anyone other than The Boss singing his twinkling 1980 hit, “Hungry Heart.” It’s even harder to imagine the tune getting an “I Wanna Be Sedated” bent from its originally intended.
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Blue-collar rocker Bruce Springsteen and punk music don’t immediately go hand-in-hand, but despite their lack of similarities, Springsteen originally wrote “Hungry Heart” for punk legends the Ramones.
“I saw the Ramones in Asbury Park,” the singer recalled on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (via Entertainment Weekly) in 2015, remembering the New Jersey gig that featured the band on the same bill with punk rock songstress Patti Smith.
Springsteen had previously assisted Smith with her 1978 chart-topper “Because the Night,” and the Ramones’ frontman Joey Ramone wanted in on the Springsteen magic. After the Asbury Park Convention Hall show, he reportedly asked Springsteen if he could write a song for the Ramones and he did.
“And we were talking for a while and I was like, ‘Man I’ve got to write the Ramones a song,’” Springsteen continued to detail to the late-night host. “So I went home and I sat at my table and I wrote it in about the time it took me to sing it.”
The result was “Hungry Heart,” a soon-to-be dazzlingly doo-wop-tinged pop rock hit and a perfect foil for Springsteen’s romantically gruff baritone, but an unusual one for the Ramones’ furiously ripping punk.
“I brought it in and we went to make a demo for it or I played it for [Johnny Ramone],” Springsteen remembered, “and he said, ‘Nah, you better keep that one.’ He was right about that. It did pretty well.”
However, some reports insist it was Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau and not the Ramones who advised he keep the tune. Either way, “Hungry Heart” became his biggest hit at the time and peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 when the rocker released it as the lead single from his acclaimed fifth album, The River.
It has since remained an enduring classic in the legend’s repertoire; and while it would have been an interesting listen from the Ramones, it may not have had the same staying power.
(Photo Credit: Rob DeMartin / Courtesy of Shore Fire Media)
