Bruce Springsteen has accomplished just about everything you can imagine in the world of music. But a No. 1 single, one that he recorded himself, has always eluded him during the course of his illustrious career.
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He came tantalizingly close once. Here’s the story of how Springsteen went all-in for a pop smash but was denied the ultimate prize.
Not the Pop Charts’ Boss
We should preface this by stating that Bruce Springsteen has indeed written a No. 1 pop song. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band released a proggy cover of Springsteen’s “Blinded By The Light” that hit the top of the charts in 1976.
For the first decade of his recording career, Springsteen mostly focused on his albums as a whole instead of worrying about hit singles. “Hungry Heart”, released in 1980, was one exception. It made it to No. 5 on the pop charts.
In 1982, Springsteen released the album Nebraska, which featured nothing but stark folk songs. He enjoyed the experience so much that he thought about continuing in that vein. But his producer Jon Landau and others in his camp persuaded him to follow the path of some of the catchier rock songs he had been writing. This led to the Born In The U.S.A. album, released in 1984.
“Dancing” Shoes
Even before he released it, Bruce Springsteen understood that Born In The U.S.A. would dramatically raise his profile in the pop music world. He was a bit reluctant to make that move. Still, he was close to finally settling on a running order for the album after making it for the better part of three years when he received a fateful request from Landau.
The producer worried that there wasn’t a song that Springsteen had recorded that spoke to where the artist was in his life. At first, Springsteen, feeling he had done enough for the album, rejected the request. But that night, he went home and penned the song “Dancing In The Dark”.
Once they took the song to the studio, Springsteen and Landau applied the most modern recording touches to it, including a prominent synthesizer part and effects-laden drum sounds. Upon its completion, “Dancing In The Dark” went from a latecomer to the album to being chosen as the first single.
If he was going to play the pop game, Springsteen figured he might as well go all the way. After an initial attempt at a studio-shot video proved misguided, director Brian DePalma was contracted to do a concert-performance clip. Courting MTV for the first time, Springsteen was taking his best shot ever at an elite pop chart performance.
Those Darned “Doves”
Springsteen released “Dancing In The Dark” in May 1984, a full month ahead of the album. By the end of June, it pulled up at No. 2 behind Duran Duran’s “The Reflex”. No. 1 seemed a foregone conclusion. But then Prince’s massive single “When Doves Cry” came along and leapfrogged it into the top spot. After four weeks at No. 2, “Dancing In The Dark” started dropping down the charts.
That was as close as Springsteen ever came to the No. 1 spot. But he managed to nab a pretty good chart-based consolation prize. “Dancing In The Dark” proved to be the first of an incredible seven Top 10 singles from the Born In The U.S.A. album.
Photo by David Tan/Shinko Music/Getty Images
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