SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE

Official studio version

---

One! Two! Three!

There's flying angels on your fire escape
They lie to your mama for you, try to keep you safe
You're with them fire alley virgins on a midnight vamp
Lost your heart on Main Street to a beautiful tramp
You lost your mind
Yes, she's sent from above
You're so young and in love (so young and in love)
Alright (so young and in love)
Alright (so young and in love)
Alright (so young and in love)

Rat trap's filled with soul crusaders
They're sopping and bopping and mopping with Little Melvin and The Invaders
Missy's on the dance floor doing her stuff
Leroy's dancing doing the Continental Strut
Sent from above
So young and in love
So young and in love
So young and in love
So young and in love

Everybody's reeling when the band hits the ceiling
Don't you know you wanna go
The kids start rocking when the boys start knocking
And everybody wants to go
Let's go!

Joint's shut down but you don't wanna go home
You're in the shady side of town and you're all alone
Papa's chewing your ear off, you ain't got no cash
Mama's chewing your ear off about hanging out with trash
So fine, sent from above
So young and in love
So young and in love
So young and in love
So young and in love

---

Info

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and first released on the Tracks box set in 1998. The above lyrics are for Bruce Springsteen's official studio version of SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE as released in 1998.

Writing and Recording

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE and A LOVE SO FINE share the same music and basically the same lyrics for the first three verses. The chorus is different and the fourth (and last) verse of SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE is similar to that of the earlier versions (Sep 1974 to Mar 1975) of A LOVE SO FINE but different from that of the later versions (Jul 1975 to Sep 1975). See A LOVE SO FINE for more details. The line "Rat traps filled with soul crusaders" would later be used in NIGHT.

Only one studio version of SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE has surfaced; the one that was officially released on the Tracks box set in 1998. According to the Tracks booklet liner notes, the song was recorded on 06 Jan 1974 at The Record Plant in New York City, NY, with Jimmy Iovine as engineer. But this date is definitely incorrect because Springsteen and the band were in Cambridge, MA for a series of three concerts over that weekend.

In his 2012 book E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days Of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Clinton Heylin assumes that the correct date is 01 Jun 1974. He notes that engineer Louis Lahav, being an Israeli, "would have almost certainly used European dating when logging tapes, making 6/1/74 June 1, not January 6." Heylin also writes that "the song was initially cut as a basic instrumental track, with vocals then added to the E Street equation, possibly on June 26, as something marked 'Bruce Springsteen Voice Track' was recorded on that date." But Heylin's date would still contradict the song's musician credits in the Tracks liner notes which mention Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg; the two joined The E Street Band in August 1974. It would also contradict the recording location (The Record Plant) and recording engineer (Jimmy Iovine) listed in the Tracks liner notes. The album's recording sessions started at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, NY (with Louis Lahav engineering) and did not move to The Record Plant in New York City, NY (with Jimmy Iovine engineering) until mid-April 1975.

In a bonus booklet that accompanied issue #61 (Winter 1998) of Backstreets magazine, Erik Flannigan and Christopher Phillips conclude that SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE "was probably recorded soon after Max and Roy joined the band, most likely October of 1974 at 914 Sound Recording in Blauvelt, NY." Indeed, the backing track for SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was likely recorded on 16 Oct 1974 at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, NY ─ see A LOVE SO FINE for more details. But this would still contradict the recording location and recording engineer listed in the Tracks liner notes.

In interviews promoting the Tracks box set, Springsteen seemed consistent and confident that SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was recorded during the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions. Though it's possible that he's mistaken or misremembering, he had just recently finished working on the Tracks project in which he'd been very involved. In a Billboard interview published in November 1998, Springsteen said, "The editing on Darkness was based around creating a record that had a seriousness of tone. Meanwhile, there were all these bar-band records that we had cut, [such as] 'Give the Girl a Kiss' and 'So Young and in Love.' So I had all this music that I couldn't use at that time that just got put to the side." Springsteen also told Mark Hagen in an interview for Mojo magazine published in January 1999: "When I went in to make Darkness I had very specific ideas of the record I wanted to make. I'd bring the band in and say, 'OK, tonight we do Give The Girl A Kiss... or So Young And In Love', anything to break the tension in the studio. [...] There were [...] other things that were just terrific but would have been very out of context on that particular record, like to 'Give The Girl A Kiss' or 'So Young And In Love', which were great bar party songs."

In the above mentioned Mojo interview, Springsteen also said, "Basically the second half of the first CD of Tracks were all things that occurred off the Darkness On The Edge Of Town." Indeed, the Tracks track list is loosely chronological and SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE is the 15th track on that disc, a spot right in the middle of a number of outtakes from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions.

Today it remains unknown whether SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was recorded during the Born To Run sessions or during the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions. Evidence supporting the Born To Run sessions include the fact that the lyrics are more similar to the earlier versions (Sep 1974 to Mar 1975) of A LOVE SO FINE and that the song sounds more like it's from around 1974-1975 than it's from around 1977-1978. If that's the case, it's possible that it was recorded on 16 Oct 1974 at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, NY, together with the circulating (instrumental-only) studio version of A LOVE SO FINE, but that would contradict the recording location (The Record Plant) and recording engineer (Jimmy Iovine) listed in the Tracks liner notes. Alternatively, it could have been recorded later during the Born To Run recording sessions, in mid-April 1975 or later, after the sessions had moved to The Record Plant in New York City, NY (with Jimmy Iovine engineering), but Sony's logs of Bruce Springsteen's studio sessions do not show that the song was recorded at The Record Plant.

Evidence supporting the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions include Springsteen's comments and the song's position on the Tracks box set. In that case, a very plausible date would be 06 Jan 1978. Springsteen and the band were at The Record Plant in New York City, NY around that time, and such date would mean that the only typo in the Tracks booklet liner notes is the year ("1974" instead of "1978"). Moreover, it makes sense that Springsteen would use written down lyrics (and improve the chorus if needed) and not count on his memory if he is to record a song years after the last time he performed it in concert, which can explain the lyrics similarities between SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE and the earlier versions of A LOVE SO FINE.

Tracks

In the liner notes of his Tracks box set, Bruce Springsteen introduces the box set as follows:

During long intervals between my record releases, as I was spending more and more time in the studio, when I met a fan out on the street I was often asked, "What are you guys doing in there?" I regularly pondered that question myself.

What we were doing in there was making a lot of music, a lot more music than I could use at any one time. As a result, my albums became a series of choices — what to include, what to leave out? I based my decisions on my creative point of view at the moment — the subject I was trying to focus on, something musical or emotional I was trying to express. In certain instances, as on Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska, and The Ghost of Tom Joad, these choices crystallized the album I was making. On some of my other records the reasons I had for choosing one song over another, in hindsight, feel a good deal less significant. One of the results of working like this was that a lot of music, including some of my favorite things, remained unreleased.

This collection contains everything from the first notes I sang in the Columbia recording studio, my early and later work with the E Street Band, through to my music in the 90s. It's the alternate route to some of the destinations I travelled to on my records, an invitation into the studio on the many nights we spent making music in search of the records we presented to you. I'm glad to finally be able to share this music; here are some of the ones that got away.

- Bruce Springsteen, September 1998

Bruce Springsteen's albums were thematically linked even if they were not strictly concept albums; so some tracks that didn't fit the theme of the album ended up orphaned, not necessarily because they didn't meet his high standards, but because, he says, they didn't fit in with the tone or themes he mined for each set. Many of these unreleased studio outtakes got under the hands of bootleggers. Discussing that issue in 1984, Springsteen told Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder, "We record a lot of material, but we just don't release it all. [...] I always tell myself that some day I'm gonna put an album out with all this stuff on it that didn't fit in. I think there's some good material there that should come out. Maybe at some point, I'll do that."

During a break in The Ghost Of Tom Joad Solo Acoustic Tour, Springsteen thought that "if it's gonna be a year or longer in between records, I have all this music that I know is very good that I never released and I should release some of it whether it was just a CD or something. In that period of time, I should put something out because people would like to have it and I'd like to see it get out." He told Toby Scott (his audio archivist and recording engineer), "send me all the archives, send everything that we recorded". Scott then went to work gathering the potential material from Springsteen's massive audio library (located, along with Sony's sound archives, in the high-tech Iron Mountain facility near Buffalo, NY). "For a week or so," he told Billboard in a Nov 1998 interview, "I just listened to everything that I'd done that we hadn't put out. I made some very brief notes in a notebook, and then I just put it away. It was something that I could do at some point when I get to that place in a new project where I'm not sure how long it's going to take and it would be nice to sort of fill the gap so the fans wouldn't be so long without hearing any music from me".

Springsteen told Mark Hagen in an interview for Mojo magazine published in January 1999, "So it began just with that idea and we listened to about 250 songs, maybe more, I made quick notes in a notebook and put it away. A year went by, more maybe, and I came off the Tom Joad tour and I began to write acoustically again and I wrote about half a record. Then I got stuck and said, 'Well, I'm going to put this aside for a while.' Then I wrote half of an electric record, and hit the same place. So I thought, instead of waiting for another year to put something out I'll put some of this music together. So once again I went back to the archives." According to interview comments made by engineer Toby Scott (Springsteen's audio archivist and recording engineer), it was in February 1998 during solo sessions being conducted at Thrill Hill Recording (Springsteen's home studio) in Colts Neck, NJ, that Springsteen told Scott that the time was right to proceed with the long-anticipated box set of archived, unreleased studio takes. Thrill Hill Recording served as the main operational center for all Tracks project activities. Note that the "Thrill Hill Recording" name is used for whatever home studio Springsteen is recording at, whether it's in Rumson, NJ, Colts, NJ, or Beverly Hills, CA.

Springsteen told Billboard that the songs were culled from between 200 and 300 tunes. According to Toby Scott, the number was down to about 128 songs by late June 1998. It was then narrowed down yet again in July to about 100 songs that were prepped for the Tracks release. Although the project was originally projected to be a 6-disc set, there was a commercial decision made later in the summer to reduce the size of the release to a 4-disc (66-track) set. The package was delivered to Sony in mid-September in order to facilitate the mid-November 1998 release schedule.

Unreleased songs from the Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ sessions were not included on the box set due to ongoing and still-unresolved court proceedings involving most of these unreleased 1972 recordings. The court battle wasn't resolved until in 2001 (April 2001 in the UK and June 2001 in the U.S.), and those recordings are now free for release at any time. The opening four tracks of the box set — which were culled from Springsteen's 03 May 1972 Columbia Records audition — were not part of the court proceedings.

On 16 Jul 1998, Springsteen attended a convention for Sony Music Entertainment Inc. in Miami, FL, where he officially announced that a box set was the works and he played a tape of three songs: WHERE THE BANDS ARE, LOOSE ENDS, and I WANNA BE WITH YOU.

The Tracks box set was released on Columbia Records on 10 Nov 1998. It was issued on both compact disc and audio cassette formats. It's a 4-disc (or 4-cassette) set consisting of a total of 66 tracks (almost 4.5 hours long), 10 of which were heretofore unavailable single B-sides, 6 were demos and alternate versions of already-released material, and 50 (48 studio and 2 live) were never-before-released songs recorded during the sessions for Springsteen's many albums. Some tracks were treated with a recent touch-up here or there to give the older recordings a fresh polish.

• Disc 1 consists of material from 1972 to 1980, including Springsteen's very first Columbia Records audition for legendary A & R executive John Hammond. This disc also features additional songs most of which recorded for (but never released on) Springsteen's first four albums.
• Disc 2 consists of material from 1979 to 1983, taken primarily from the recording sessions of The River, Nebraska, and Born In The U.S.A.. Springsteen describes this disc as "almost the completely other album from 'The River'."
• Disc 3 consists of material from 1982 to 1987, taken primarily from the recording sessions of Born In The U.S.A. and Tunnel Of Love.
• Disc 4 consists of material from 1989 to 1998, taken primarily from the recording sessions of Human Touch.

Live History: on-tour

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was performed once during The Rising Tour (120 dates, August 2002 to October 2003), on 23 Nov 2002 in Miami, FL.

In preparation for the Magic Tour, SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE is known to have been practiced during at least one of the private rehearsals that took place in February 2008 in Asbury Park prior to the tour's second U.S. leg.

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was performed twice during the Magic Tour (100 dates, October 2007 to August 2008).

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was performed 3 times during the Working On A Dream Tour (83 dates, April to November 2009). On 22 Apr 2009 in Boston, MA, the song featured a guest appearance by Tim Brennan of the Dropkick Murphys. See the live 22 Apr 2009 version for more details.

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was performed twice during the Wrecking Ball Tour (133 dates, March 2012 to September 2013).

Live History: off-tour

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was performed during both 2000 Asbury Park holiday shows, two of the five 2001 Asbury Park holiday shows, and two of the three 2003 Asbury Park holiday shows. These concerts were billed as "Bruce Springsteen with The Max Weinberg 7 and Friends", with The Max Weinberg 7 serving as the house band, and Springsteen bringing guests on and off the stage throughout the shows.

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE was performed off-tour on 07 May 2008 at Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ, during a benefit show for the historic theatre. The song was played with The Mighty Max Horns.

Covers

As far as it's known, no artist has recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE.

Available Versions

List of available versions of SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE on this website:

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE [Official studio version]
SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE [Live 22 Apr 2009 version]

---

Page last updated: 01 Jan 2021