“Incident on 57th Street” by Bruce Springsteen

"Incident on 57th Street" sits on Bruce Springsteen's 1973 album The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, and it was the final track he cut for it, at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, New York. It spent its early life under the working title "Puerto Rican Jane", and it's where Springsteen stopped straining for effect and just watched his characters, letting the street opera spill out on its own. Redemption, he said, was the theme, and he'd keep coming back to it.

The band plays it like a slow-motion rumble: Clarence Clemons's sax, the pianos of David Sancious and Danny Federici, Garry Tallent and Vini Lopez holding it steady, with Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos producing. On the album its closing piano solo tumbles straight into the opening guitar of "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)". Critics hear a turning point in his writing, and fans rank it with his very best.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.