Live July 2018 version
DNA, your natural ability, the study of your craft, a development of and devotion to an aesthetic philosophy. Balls. Naked desire for fame, love, adoration, attention, women, sex, a buck. And then, if you wanna take it all the way out to the end of the night, you will need a furious fire in your belly that just don't quit burning. These are some of the elements that will come in handy should you come face-to-face with 80,000 screaming rock and roll fans. Because these are fans who are waiting for you to pull something out of your hat, out of thin air, something out of this world, something that before the faithful were gathered here today was just a song-fueled rumor. Now I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with just a bit of fraud. So am I. 1972 I wasn't any race-car-driving rebel, I wasn't any corner street punk. I was a guitar player on the streets of Asbury Park. But I held four clean aces. I had youth, I had a decade of hardcore bar band experience already behind me. I had a great group of musicians and friends who really knew my playing style, and I had a magic trick. Now I'm here tonight to provide proof of life to that ever-elusive, never completely believable, particularly these days, us. That's my magic trick. And like all good magic tricks, it begins with a setup.
I stood stone-like at midnight suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade
I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch
I strode all alone into a fallout zone, came out with my soul untouched
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd, when they said "sit down" I stood up
Ooh, ooh, growin' up
Well the flag of piracy flew from my mast and my sails were set wing to wing
I had a jukebox graduate for first mate, she couldn't sail but she sure could sing
I pushed B-52 and bombed them with the blues with my gear set stubborn on standing
I broke all the rules, strafed my old high school, never once gave thought to landing
Hid in the clouded warmth of the crowd, when they said "come down" I threw up
Ooh, ooh, growin' up
Now I've never held an honest job in my entire life. I've never done any hard labor. I've never worked nine to five. I've never worked five days a week until right now. I don't like it. I've never seen the inside of a factory, and yet it's all I've ever written about. Standing before you is a man who has become wildly and absurdly successful writing about something of which he has had... absolutely no personal experience. I, I made it all up. That's how good I am. Now, how? I'm sure you're wondering how did this great miracle come to pass? Well, in the beginning there was a great darkness upon the waters. As a child, there was Christmas, your birthday, summer vacation, but the rest of life was a lifeless sucking black hole. A lifeless sucking black hole of homework, church, school, homework, church, school, homework, church, school, green beans, green beans, fucking green beans. But then, in a blinding flash of sanctified light, a human being and just a kid, just a kid from the southern sticks. But a... new kind of man. And he split the world in two. And suddenly, a new world existed. The one below your belt. And... above your heart. On a Sunday night in 1956, at 39 1/2 Institute Street, into a cold-water flat and into the mind of a seven-year-old kid, the revolution had been televised! Right under the noses of the powers that be, who, if they'd have known what was actually happening and the great changes, the changes that were about to come, they would have shut this shit down. Or more likely signed it up real quick. Because we, the unwashed, the invisible, the powerless, the kids, would want more. Now more life, more love and more sex and more hope, and more truth, and more power, and more soul, and most of all, more rock and roll. So I sat with my mom, my little seven-year-old mind on fire, staring into a blue tube as fun happened. Fun, the real kind. The joyful, life-affirming, hip-shaking, ass-quaking, guitar-playing, mind- and heart-changing, race-challenging, soul-lifting bliss of a freer existence. A freer existence exploded into unsuspecting homes all across America on a regular Sunday night. The world had fucking changed. In an instant. In a sweating wet orgasm of fun. And all you needed to do to get a taste of it was to risk being your true self. Because a rock and roll genie had been let out of the bottle and he told us that if you were born in the U.S.A., my fellow citizens, these feelings, these freedoms, this fun... was your birthright. I listened, I believed, and I heard a mighty call to action. So, I studied my new hero. I know that he's got the same two arms, two legs, two eyes that I got. Yes, he's a human Adonis. And I'm... pathetically creepy. But I'll figure that part out, all right? The one thing he had that I didn't have was strapped around his waist. It was the guitar! The guitar, or as my father had christened it, "that fucking guitar." But that fucking guitar was the key! It was the sword in the stone, it was the staff of righteousness, and they sell them at Western Auto downtown for 25 dollars! So I begged and I pleaded with my mother just to rent me, 'cause we couldn't afford to buy, a guitar from Mike Diehl's Music School on South Street. One Saturday afternoon, I brought it home. And I sat on the living room couch. And I unlatched its full alligator case. And I slowly opened it up. And up from the green velvet lining came the sweet smell of a cherry wood cocktail of power, pleasure, salvation, dreams, and dreams and dreams. So I took lessons, dedicatedly. I took lessons for two solid weeks. And I quit. It was too fucking hard. Learning the guitar, not only was it fucking hard, but the lessons were boring. Just give me the three magic chords, please! And let me twist, and shout. But I was a seven-year-old kid and my hands barely fit around the neck and I couldn't waste my mother's hard-earned cash week after week. So very shortly I knew that back it was gonna have to go. But the morning before I returned it, I strapped it on one more time. I took it out into the backyard where the neighborhood kids were, and I put on my first show. Whoa! I slapped it, I shook it, I shouted, I sang voodoo nonsense, I burned a hole in the grass, I shook my little seven-year-old ass. Most importantly, I posed with it! That's the shit! I danced with it, I did everything but play it. I couldn't do that. I sucked so bad and the kids laughed and laughed and laughed at my silly ass. And we brought it back that afternoon. But riding back home with my mom in the car, I sat in the backseat and I was quiet. I was thinking I was a little disappointed in myself. But somewhere inside, somewhere inside, I knew that for a moment, just a moment, in front of those kids in that backyard, hmm I smelled blood.
I took month-long vacations in the stratosphere, you know it's really hard to hold your breath
Swear I lost everything I ever loved or feared, I was the cosmic kid in full costume dress
My feet they finally took root in the earth but I got me a nice little place in the stars
I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd, when they said "sit down" I stood up
Ooh, ooh, growin' up
Ooh, ooh, growin' up
And it was bye-bye, New Jersey, I'm gonna be airborne!
The above lyrics are for the live July 2018 performance of GROWIN' UP at Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City, NY, during Springsteen On Broadway. The song was played solo on acoustic guitar.
This performance of GROWIN' UP was recorded on 17 or 18 July 2018 during the taping of the Springsteen On Broadway Netflix special. It was released on the Springsteen On Broadway album in 2018.
Springsteen On Broadway was a Bruce Springsteen concert residency held at Walter Kerr Theatre (in 2017-2018) and St. James Theatre (in 2021) in New York City, NY. The show consisted of Springsteen performing five shows a week, Tuesday through Saturday, at the Broadway theatres. The sold-out series of performances began with seven previews starting on 03 Oct 2017 and officially opened on 12 Oct 2017. It was extended three times after its initial eight-week run, running through 15 Dec 2018 and bringing the total number of performances at Walter Kerr Theatre to 238. On 10 Jun 2018, Springsteen received a special Tony Award for his Broadway show. In 2021, an additional limited run was announced, this time held at St. James Theatre instead of Walter Kerr Theatre. This new series of performances opened on 26 Jun 2021 and ran through 04 Sep 2021, bringing the total number of performances at both theatres to 268.
The show featured Springsteen, solo, playing guitar, piano, and harmonica, performing his music, restating incidents from his 2016 autobiography Born To Run, and performing other spoken reminiscences written for the show. His wife, Patti Scialfa, has also appeared at most shows, singing backing vocals on a total of three different songs.
Springsteen On Broadway, a Netflix special directed by Grammy- and Emmy-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny, was filmed during two special invitation-only shows on 17 and 18 Jul 2018. The film launched globally on Netflix on 16 Dec 2018 at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, just hours after the final Broadway performance at Walter Kerr Theatre closed. Two days prior, on 14 Dec 2018, Columbia Records released Springsteen On Broadway, an audio album encompassing the full film soundtrack. The audio was mixed by Bob Clearmountain and mastered by Bob Ludwig. The album is available physically as a 2-disc CD set or a 4-disc LP set, as well as digitally.
Side 1:
Side 2:
Side 3:
Side 4:
Side 5:
Side 6:
Side 7:
Side 8:
Disc 1:
Disc 2:
List of available versions of GROWIN' UP on this website:
GROWIN' UP [Album version]