“The Fever” by Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen cut "The Fever" in a single take on May 16, 1973, at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, New York, and then left it on the shelf: the song, published under the title "Fever for the Girl", didn't get a proper release until the 1999 compilation 18 Tracks.

The band on the tape is the early crew: Danny Federici on organ, Garry Tallent on bass, Vini Lopez on drums and Clarence Clemons on sax and percussion, with Springsteen at the piano and Clemons lending his bass-baritone to the vocals. Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos produced. It never made The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle or any of the running orders drawn up for it, and nobody took another pass at it in the studio. On stage it seems to date back to a March 1973 residency at Oliver's in Boston, though with no tapes from those nights, that stays a best guess.

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