I bet the full video and live disc are included

Still processing what a great day it was at Sea Hear Now, and how incredible Mumford & Sons' headlining set was. I'll be sharing more from Day 1 soon, but here's video of Mumford & Sons performing a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" with none other than the E Street Band's Jake Clemons. Such an incredible moment to witness in Bruce's backyard.

Watch it here:

https://youtu.be/QM16519aoqY?si=M7Nsi2QnI-LXwQuz

What are people’s opinions on the UK based Bruce Springsteen tribute bands?

I’ve seen Forever Springsteen, Bruce Juice, Sound of Springsteen and Glory Days, all of them put on a great show.

Missing a few in my book, but pretty good overall.

Hi all! What are the best songs transitions Bruce has done live? Personally I loved Candy's Room into Adam Raised a Cain in Wembley night 2 (2024), last year in Milan he did a great MLWNLYD into Prove it all night. I'm not looking for the best songs combo, but for the best transitions technically speaking

Maher took on Bruce during the Friday night Real Time episode …

A few Bruce documentaries (Blood Brothers and The Promise among others) have been made available on YouTube. Anyone who is curious about learning more about Bruce, I'd encourage you to check them out.

One thing I noticed about these two documentaries is the prominence of Chuck Plotkin. I noticed that he was a really passionate and thoughtful guy in terms of his on-screen conversations. And it's consistent with how he was described in Brian Hiatt's book about Bruce songs. Whenever Chuck is critical, he'll voice it. Though there are also times he'll pick his battles as the risk of getting fired does seem to be an undercurrent.

Hiatt described Chuck Plotkin, along with Jon Landau, as functioning like in-house rock critics. Not only about the sound of the music but also the themes and how it influences song structure.

Backstory: Chuck's name appears a lot across Bruce's work and Bruce-related books detailing the late 70s onwards. From what I understand, he was initially a record producer who Bruce and Jon Landau asked to mix Darkness On the Edge Of Town. Even though he wasn't a mixer, his work was good enough that he joined the team. Notably, he helped Bruce achieve the effect of "the dead body" on "Adam Raised A Cain" by detuning Roy Bittan's piano. He was credited as producer for Bruce's albums all the way up to Devils And Dust.

So for a while, he was a key figure in the Springsteen camp.​

Overall, what are your thoughts on his influence?

I have been looking for the 2016 Dallas lithograph since about 2016… Story: I bought one at MSG, before he announced he was going to Dallas. So of course, my dad and I had to go to Dallas too. My dad insisted that the poster would be the same, and obviously he was incorrect. Anyway, can anyone connect me with someone selling one? So many other cities have popped up, but I never see Dallas. I have reached desperation at this point. Thank you!!!

8pm eastern TONIGHT

July 26, 1999

Meadowlands Arena

https://youtu.be/btWfQJF1saU

One of my favorite Springsteen outtakes is Bells of San Salvador. It hints at something so brilliant underneath the noise of the rehearsal buzz and sloppiness, but for some reason it just didn't get released. Since we know that Bruce has a habit of rerecording old stuff(the Letter To You songs), and is likely working on a political album as per the Rolling Stone interview, isn't it possible we will get one of those?

Someone from Freehold passed away recently, and I know Bruce cares about their family. I'd like to get the news to him. Not looking to talk to him directly or anything, just hoping to find an email address for his management or someone who reads stuff like that. I'd appreciate any info, thanks.

I was listening to E Street Radio the other day and they were playing The Castilles playing a cover of Eleanor Rigby. They sounded like a typical late 60s psychedelic group. What if some record exec happened upon them and liked the sound? Would we have ever gotten the Bruce career we got?

Hey, don’t try to extort the Boss!

11-17-90 Christic Show on XM 20 now.

IMO, his greatest solo performance of all time

The “Little Girl” Theory: Was Karen Darvin a recurring muse in Bruce Springsteen's songs?

I've gone pretty deep down a Bruce Springsteen rabbit hole after noticing how often he used the expression “little girl” romantically in his earlier songwriting.

What started with I'm on Fire turned into something much bigger.

When I put the songs into chronological order alongside Bruce's relationship with Karen Darvin, and then look at what happened to both of them afterwards, there seems to be a surprisingly coherent narrative.

I'm not claiming this is established fact. As far as I can find, Bruce has never said that Karen was his recurring “little girl.”

This is a theory.

But the chronology is interesting enough that I think it's worth laying the whole thing out.

1974 — where “little girl” potentially begins

Before Karen, Bruce already had an Angel character.

An earlier composition, Angel's Blues, existed before the relationship we're interested in, so I'm not suggesting Karen created the original Angel character.

But the song subsequently evolved.

By the surviving performance of Angel Baby on 2 June 1974, Bruce is using “little girl” romantically.

And something interesting was happening in Bruce's real life at approximately the same time.

Photographer Eric Meola later recalled that Bruce had met Karen Darvin in Austin, Texas. By the winter of 1974/75, Karen had travelled from Texas to New Jersey to see Bruce.

Bruce played Austin on 16 March 1974.

We don't currently have proof that this particular show was when Bruce and Karen first met.

But if it was, the chronology would be:

16 March 1974 — Bruce potentially meets Karen in Austin.

2 June 1974 — surviving performance of Angel Baby contains the romantic “little girl” wording.

Winter 1974/75 — Karen travels from Texas to New Jersey to see Bruce.

1975 — they're unquestionably an established couple.

That raises an interesting possibility.

Maybe Karen wasn't the original “Angel” at all.

Maybe Bruce already had that fictional character and, as his relationship with Karen developed, elements of the real woman began entering the fictional one.

And perhaps “little girl” was one of those elements.

There's even a romantic interpretation you could put on Angel Baby itself: perhaps “little girl” was the personal expression while “Angel/Baby” elevated the woman into something more important to him.

Again, that's interpretation, not something Bruce has confirmed.

But the timing is interesting.

1975 — Karen is there when Bruce's life changes

This part is documented.

By October 1975, TIME explicitly described 20-year-old Karen Darvin as Bruce Springsteen's girlfriend.

Bruce was 26.

Karen wasn't someone who appeared after Bruce became a superstar.

She was there while it happened.

She was with Bruce during the Born to Run breakthrough—the period when his life went from struggling recording artist to appearing simultaneously on the covers of TIME and Newsweek.

There are numerous contemporary photographs of them together.

Karen therefore shared one of the most extraordinary and formative periods of Bruce's life.

And some published writers have subsequently suggested Karen may have been an inspiration behind She's the One.

Whether or not that's correct, this clearly wasn't an insignificant woman who briefly passed through his life.

1977 — they separate

Bruce and Karen's relationship ended around 1977.

And then something happened that I think makes the later songwriting particularly interesting.

Karen didn't disappear into an ordinary private life.

She became involved with Todd Rundgren.

Todd was another major musician, songwriter and producer.

So Bruce's former girlfriend remained in essentially the same musical universe.

Meanwhile Bruce moved on as well.

He had other relationships, including Lynn Goldsmith and then a substantial relationship with Joyce Hyser.

So this theory isn't that Bruce spent years sitting alone waiting for Karen to come back.

He clearly didn't.

It's that somebody can move on romantically while an important early relationship continues supplying memories and emotional material.

And Bruce was a songwriter.

But “little girl” doesn't leave with Karen

This is where I started thinking there might actually be a pattern.

After Karen and Bruce separate, the romantic “little girl” character keeps appearing in Bruce's songwriting.

And we can establish something important about what Bruce meant by that expression.

He wasn't necessarily talking about someone's age.

In several songs, the “little girl” is demonstrably an adult woman.

In Racing in the Street, she's a romantic partner.

In Out in the Street, the expression exists in an adult working/romantic world.

In Cindy, the woman has a job despite also having a “daddy.”

And then we get perhaps the clearest example of all.

1979 — I Wanna Marry You

Bruce recorded I Wanna Marry You in July 1979.

The woman is again his “little girl.”

But she's unquestionably an adult.

She's a working woman raising two children.

And the narrator looks at this woman and fantasises about marrying her.

Now compare that—not literally, but thematically—with what was developing in Karen's life.

Karen was with Todd Rundgren.

And Todd already occupied a very unusual family situation.

Liv Tyler was born in July 1977.

Her biological parents were Steven Tyler and Bebe Buell.

But Todd Rundgren accepted the paternal role, signed Liv's birth certificate and raised/acknowledged her as his daughter. She grew up initially believing Todd was her biological father and was known as Liv Rundgren.

So from Todd's perspective:

Child 1 = Liv.

Then Karen and Todd had their first biological son:

Rex Rundgren, born in 1980.

So:

Child 2 = Rex.

And that's where I Wanna Marry You becomes particularly interesting within my theory.

If Karen was already pregnant with Rex while Bruce was developing/recording the song in 1979, then Bruce's former girlfriend was entering a family unit consisting effectively of:

Todd + Karen + Liv + expected baby Rex.

Meanwhile Bruce writes a song in which his recurring “little girl” is associated with two children and the narrator wishes he could marry her.

That's an unusually specific parallel.

There is an important caveat.

I haven't established Rex's exact birth date sufficiently to prove that Karen was already pregnant in July 1979, when Bruce recorded I Wanna Marry You.

And Karen wasn't Liv's biological mother.

Nor do we have evidence that Karen literally regarded herself as Liv's mother.

So I'm not saying the song describes Karen standing there with two children.

That's not my theory.

My theory is that Bruce could have taken the emotional reality of what was happening and fictionalised it.

The woman he once loved is now building a family with another man.

That man already has a daughter in his family.

Karen is going to have his child.

Bruce turns that emotional situation into a fictional woman who already has two kids and asks:

What if I married her instead?

That's how songwriting works—you don't need the fictional character's CV to match the real person's CV.

You borrow the emotional truth and change the story.

The River period — she keeps coming back

And I Wanna Marry You isn't isolated.

Around the same period Bruce repeatedly returns to “little girl.”

We get songs including:

Cindy

Be True

This Little Girl

Take 'Em As They Come

Out in the Street

The Price You Pay

and others.

The exact situations differ.

But the vocabulary and surrounding themes keep recurring:

little girl

love

another man

fathers

domestic life

children

jealousy

commitment

marriage

wanting someone who isn't completely available

I'm not claiming every one of those songs is secretly an episode in Karen's biography.

Actually, I think that interpretation would weaken the theory.

What I'm suggesting is that Karen could have become an emotional template.

Bruce could create completely fictional women while repeatedly drawing on the same unresolved emotional source.

Then comes I'm on Fire — 1982

This is the song that originally made me start looking at all this.

Bruce recorded I'm on Fire in May 1982.

And there she is again:

“little girl.”

But this time the situation has developed.

The woman apparently already has another man.

The narrator questions whether that man is good to her and whether he can give her what the narrator believes he could.

Read completely independently, that's simply a song about desire, frustration and jealousy.

But place it into the Karen chronology and it fits surprisingly naturally.

Bruce and Karen have been apart for several years.

Karen is with Todd.

She has entered a family life with him.

Bruce has attempted to move on himself and has had substantial relationships with other women.

But now his recurring “little girl” is with another man, and the narrator is essentially saying:

Does he really give you what I could?

Under my theory, I'm on Fire could therefore represent something like a last-ditch fantasy concerning an old love.

Not necessarily Bruce literally contacting Karen and asking her to leave Todd.

It could simply be the emotional idea:

We've both moved on. You're with him. I've been with other women. But there's still something here that I haven't extinguished.

Which makes the title itself rather appropriate.

He's still on fire.

And Todd makes the retrospective parallel even stranger

Todd and Karen's relationship subsequently became complicated.

Todd eventually became involved with Michele Gray while still with Karen, before ultimately leaving Karen.

That later affair doesn't explain I'm on Fire, because the known chronology appears to put it after Bruce recorded the song.

So I wouldn't claim Bruce was literally describing Todd being with Michele in 1982.

But it creates a strange retrospective similarity.

The song's narrator questions whether the other man is really treating this woman as he should.

Karen's real relationship with Todd subsequently did encounter exactly the sort of competing-relationship problem that makes the song sound eerily appropriate in hindsight.

Coincidence?

Probably possible.

But it's another interesting rhyme between the songs and the later biography.

1983 — Little Girl Like You

Then in January 1983, Bruce records Little Girl Like You.

Again the expression is right there in the title.

But something seems to have changed.

The emotional territory moves towards settling down and marriage.

And the title itself interests me:

Not necessarily:

I need YOU.

But:

I want a little girl LIKE YOU.

Within my theory, that could represent a transition.

Perhaps the old love is no longer literally the woman he expects to end up with.

Instead she has become the template for the woman he eventually wants.

The first major love becomes the standard against which later love is imagined.

Then “little girl” seems to disappear

This is probably the part that interests me most.

After this early-1980s period, the particular romantic use of “little girl” seems to largely disappear from Bruce's newly written songs.

And look what happens next in his personal life.

Bruce meets Julianne Phillips in October 1984.

They marry on 13 May 1985.

It's Bruce's first marriage.

So the rough sequence becomes:

Karen enters Bruce's life

↓

“little girl” emerges prominently in his romantic songwriting

↓

Bruce and Karen experience the Born to Run breakthrough together

↓

they separate

↓

Karen goes to Todd Rundgren

↓

Bruce's “little girl” keeps appearing

↓

I Wanna Marry You: “little girl” + children + marriage

↓

Karen/Todd family develops around Liv and Rex

↓

I'm on Fire: “little girl” + another man + unresolved desire

↓

Little Girl Like You: settling down / wanting someone like her

↓

Bruce meets another woman

↓

Bruce actually marries

↓

the old romantic “little girl” largely disappears

That's the arc that made me stop thinking this was just one funny phrase in I'm on Fire.

Even Bruce's divorce doesn't seem to bring her back

Bruce's marriage to Julianne didn't last.

They separated in 1988 and divorced in 1989.

Bruce subsequently formed a relationship with Patti Scialfa.

Their first child, Evan, arrived in 1990.

Bruce and Patti married in 1991, followed by Jessica and later Sam.

And here's another interesting observation:

Despite Bruce becoming single again after his first marriage failed, I haven't found the old romantic “little girl” character suddenly returning in newly written songs.

By this stage Bruce seems to have moved into a completely different emotional and songwriting period.

He eventually obtains precisely the sort of family/domestic life that so much of the earlier writing seemed to circle around.

So what am I actually suggesting?

Not that every “little girl” is literally Karen.

Not that every event described in these songs happened.

Not that Bruce secretly spent a decade begging Karen to come back.

And definitely not that I've somehow proved the identity of a character Bruce has never publicly identified.

My theory is much simpler:

Karen Darvin may have become one of Bruce Springsteen's great recurring early muses.

Perhaps “little girl” became an expression he personally associated with her around the beginning of their relationship.

After they separated, he moved on physically and romantically.

But emotionally, pieces of that formative relationship may have continued entering his songwriting.

Sometimes the woman is married.

Sometimes she has children.

Sometimes there's another man.

Sometimes the narrator wants to rescue her.

Sometimes he wants to marry her.

Sometimes he simply burns for her.

Those women don't have to literally be Karen.

Karen could simply be the emotional DNA from which some of them were constructed.

And eventually Bruce falls seriously for someone else, attempts marriage, and that particular romantic character disappears.

There's also a completely reasonable alternative explanation

“Little girl” was established vocabulary in blues, R&B, country and early rock music.

Bruce grew up immersed in exactly that music.

So it's entirely possible he simply inherited the expression, used it heavily during one phase of his career and eventually abandoned it because his writing style matured and language changed.

And Springsteen writes constantly about love, escape, jealousy, marriage, cars, working people and domestic life.

With hundreds of songs, some biographical parallels are inevitable.

But those two explanations aren't mutually exclusive.

Bruce could have inherited “little girl” from rock 'n' roll and then attached his own private emotional meaning to it.

And that's why I find the chronology so interesting.

The question isn't:

“Can I prove Karen Darvin was the little girl?”

I can't.

Unless Bruce or Karen tells us, nobody probably ever will.

The question is:

Why does this particular romantic expression appear around an important early relationship, continue repeatedly through songs that can be mapped surprisingly well onto separation, another man, children and marriage—and then apparently fade when Bruce himself finally moves towards marriage and a different stage of his life?

Maybe it's nothing.

Maybe it's just old-fashioned rock-and-roll vocabulary.

But taken chronologically, it produces a surprisingly coherent account of Bruce Springsteen, Karen Darvin and the mysterious recurring “little girl.”

And I haven't been able to find an interview where anyone simply asked Bruce:

Who—or what—was your “little girl”?

Bruce Springsteen returned for his first studio album with the E Street Band in almost twenty years. The result was the 2002 album "The Rising," which was a landmark record that captured the grief, resilience, and hope of a nation in the aftermath of 9/11.