In 1973, David Bowie discovered Bruce Springsteen via the New Jersey singer/songwriter’s debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J, and liked what he heard, to the extent that he decided to cover not one, but two, songs from the record.
In November ’73, during the early sessions for Diamond Dogs, Bowie recorded a version of Growin’ Up with The Faces’ (and future Rolling Stone) Ronnie Wood on guitar, and a year later, while recording at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia for what became his Young Americans album, the English star taped a version of the closing track on Greetings…. It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City. A DJ who’d been supportive of Bowie’s past releases was invited to drop into Sigma Sound to hear the work-in-progress, and when Bowie mentioned that he was recording a Springsteen cover, the DJ asked, “Do you want me to get Bruce down?”
Calls were duly made, and Springsteen took a Greyhound bus down to Philadelphia to hang out, arriving on the morning of November 25, at around 1am. The 25-year-old American was doubtless bemused to find that Bowie wasn’t actually there when he arrived… and perhaps even more bemused when the English star showed up an hour later “out of my wig”, as Bowie later admitted, with a hint of embarrassment, in a 1987 interview with Musician magazine.
Joking with writer Scott Isler, Bowie said he “vaguely remembered” Springsteen’s visit, and added, “I remember chickening out of playing [It’s Hard To Be A Saint…] I didn’t want to play it to him ’cause I wasn’t happy with it anyway.”
“I used to go and see him,” Bowie continued. “I hated him as a solo artist, when he came on and did this Bob Dylan thing. It was awful, so cringe-making. He’d sit there with his guitar and be folky, have these slow philosophical raps in between the songs. As soon as the band came on, it was like a different performer and he was just marvelous.”
Of the night itself, Bowie admitted, “I just couldn’t relate to him at all. It was a bad time for us to have met. I could see that he was thinking, ‘Who is this weird guy?’ And I was thinking, What do I say to normal people? There was a real impasse.”
Springsteen departed at around 5am, right around the time, according to an onlooker, that Bowie started banging on about UFOs: the young American didn’t get to hear his song. In fact, Bowie’s version of It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City remained unreleased until it surfaced on the Sound + Vision box set in 1989. His take on Growin’ Up emerged on the Ryko reissue of Pin Ups and, subsequently, on the 30th anniversary reissue of Diamond Dogs.
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