Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
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| "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" | ||
|---|---|---|
| Song by Bruce Springsteen | ||
| From the album The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle | ||
| Album released | September 11, 1973 | |
| Recorded | 1973 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Song Length | 7:02 | |
| Record label | Columbia / Sony | |
| Producer | Mike Appel Jim Cretecos |
|
| Track Number | 6 | |
"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" is a 1973 song by Bruce Springsteen, from his The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle album, and is especially famed as a concert number for Springsteen and The E Street Band.
The song is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Its music video occupies the #71 spot on Rolling Stone's 1993 list of the top 100 videos [1].
Contents |
[edit] Themes
The song is a story of forbidden love between the singer and Rosalita, who apparently lives with her parents and needs encouragement to "come out tonight," as this is the crux of the song. The singer wants to spend the night out on the town, and convince Rosalita to "cut loose her mama's rein." The singer suggests picking up "Little Dynamite" and "Little Gun." Both Dynamite and Gun quickly separate, to play with the bats in the belfry and try "out his attitude on all the cats," respectively.
Meanwhile, Rosalita's parents wait up for her and she is presumably worried about their reaction. The singer entices by mentioning the presence of "Jack the Rabbit" and "Weak Knees Willie," along with "Sloppy Sue" and "Big Bones Billy" and promising that they will "play some pool" and "skip some school." The singer explains that he understands why her parents don't like him (because he plays "in a rock 'n' roll band"), and claims that her mother locked her in her room. The singer wants Rosalita to tell her father (who is worried that he doesn't have any money) that the "record company just gave (the singer) a big advance" (a line which broke the fourth wall and invited autobiographical comparisons).
On his way to pick Rosie up, however, the singer's "tires were slashed" and he "almost crashed." His car is "stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey." He begs that Rosie stay up for him and that, when they meet in the "morning light," he will hold her in his arms and take her to a cafe in southern California "down San Diego way," where "they play guitars all night and all day."
Springsteen once famously declared this song to be "the greatest love song I ever wrote." The seven-minute song starts with a jolt out of a segue from "Incident on 57th Street", the preceding track on the album. The music is a long progression of tempo changes, build-ups and slow-downs, guitar- and saxophone-driven riffs, and general exuberance.
[edit] Commercial performance
Never released as a single and generally unknown upon its initial album release, "Rosalita" began to get FM radio airplay when an advance version of "Born to Run" was given out to rock radio stations. As Springsteen gained commercial success, "Rosalita" became one of his most popular airplay tracks, and is still heard on classic rock radio.
[edit] Music video
In the early 1980s, many years after the song's initial release, MTV began showing a music video for the song. The video was a straight concert performance (from a Darkness Tour performance on July 8, 1978 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona) that included band introductions and numerous adoring females rushing the stage. While only adequate technically, the video captured the energy and playfulness of Springsteen and the E Street Band in concert, and was the first such introduction many casual fans had.
[edit] Live performances
For many years, dating back virtually to when the song was written, "Rosalita" always closed the regular set in Springsteen concerts, often elongated to incorporate extended band introductions. It was the one "sure thing" in a Springsteen set list and celebrated as such. However, on October 19, 1984 in the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington, during the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, this suddenly changed; "Rosalita" was dropped from the show, not to reappear. Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh said this was done to "disrupt the ritual expectations of the fanatic fans [...] establishing through a burst of creativity just who was boss [...] he'd liberated the show from an albatross, a song that was too long and had long since stopped breathing." [Glory Days p. 275]
"Rosalita" has ever since generally only made rare appearances. This has led to fans campaigning for the song to be played, such as holding banners or placards saying "Let Rosie Come Out Tonight!" during shows, perhaps sometimes to Springsteen's annoyance. (Parallel to Deadheads longing for "Dark Star".) Springsteen has occasionally granted the wish, though, such as during the last show of the abovementioned tour in 1985 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, or on most of the quick American leg of the 1988 Tunnel of Love Express (it was dropped before the end, and did not appear on the European leg), or on the last night of a 15-show stand at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey on the Reunion Tour in 1999. Finally, during the U.S. outdoor stadium portion of The Rising Tour in Summer 2003, "Rosalita" was inserted into the encores and appeared in all 33 of those shows.
