It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City

Hit with the dreaded “New Dylan” label before his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, was released, it’s not hard to see why Bruce Springsteen was thusly tagged. His songs were bursting with the sort of free flowing lyrical ideas and wordplay that Dylan had introduced to rock and roll a decade earlier. The results were generally delightful, ranging from the touching and effective (“Growin’ Up”) to absurdly funny (“Blinded by the Light”) to somewhat self-defeating (“For You”).

But Springsteen tended to apply his seemingly stream of consciousness lyrics to straightforward narratives in a way Dylan seldom did outside his talking blues. And in a few of those cases, such as “Spirit in the Night,” his antecedent seems less Dylan than Chuck Berry, with the outlandish names or even going back further, to Woody Guthrie.

But on the final track—“It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City,” one of the least noted of the album's songs—Springsteen seems to reach back even further still. 

It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City

I had skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra

This is just about straight out of the Bo Diddley songbook, harkening, of course, to his classic “Who Do You Love?” But then things take a turn for the slightly cosmic.

I was born blue and weathered but I burst just like a supernova

When it comes to bragging, other than outright stating you’re a deity, it’s nearly impossible to top comparing yourself to a supernova. Where can you go from there? What can possibly live up to a supernova?

I could walk like Brando right into the sun

Ah, yes. Marlon Brando. That’s what.

Now we go past Bo Diddley and back to the early blues, as the song, despite its more modern references, is basically a one-sided version of The Dozens, the game of trading insults and/or boasting of one’s own prowess, maybe most familiar these days for its prevalence in hip-hop.

Then dance just like a Casanova
With my blackjack and jacket and hair slicked sweet
Silver star studs on my duds like a Harley in heat
When I strut down the street I could hear its heartbeat
The sisters fell back and said "Don't that man look pretty"
The cripple on the corner cried out "Nickels for your pity"
Them gasoline boys downtown sure talk gritty
It's so hard to be a saint in the city

The title stands out there. Where'd it come from? How did we get here? Other than the line which immediately precedes it, it’s the first time we’re not focusing on the narrator and how badass he is—even the ladies of the night and the cripples are awed by his very presence. What’s so hard? The narrator's so tuned in, he can even hear the street’s heartbeat. It seems, so far, as though he’s living the life…relative to his surroundings.

And as to those…

I was the king of the alley, mama, I could talk some trash
I was the prince of the paupers crowned downtown at the beggar's bash
I was the pimp's main prophet I kept everything cool
Just a backstreet gambler with the luck to lose

Now it starts to make a bit more sense. Note that even in this made-up world of his, he’s not the king of rock and roll, or even England—or, as Elvis Costello would later crown himself, of America—but the king of the alley, talking trash…as he’s doing here. The prince and the pauper? He’s the prince of the paupers. Earlier he compared himself to a supernova, or Marlon Brando. (But I repeat myself.) But look at how much more realistic he’s getting as the song progresses. He opened big, went bigger...but now, when going for grandiose, his dreams are, sadly, far more grounded.

And when the heat came down it was left on the ground
The devil appeared like Jesus through the steam in the street
Showin' me a hand I knew even the cops couldn't beat
I felt his hot breath on my neck as I dove into the heat
It's so hard to be a saint when you're just a boy out on the street

Things continue to get dicier as we go along. First he was a supernova, then the prince of paupers, and now the devil’s breathing down his neck.

And then the bridge appears, and the mask slips away for good.

And the sages of the subway sit just like the living dead
As the tracks clack out the rhythm their eyes fixed straight ahead
They ride the line of balance and hold on by just a thread
But it's too hot in these tunnels you can get hit up by the heat
You get up to get out at your next stop but they push you back down in your seat
Your heart starts beatin' faster as you struggle to your feet
Then you're outa that hole and back up on the street

Suddenly, the assured braggadocio is gone, replaced by something close to panic. Where he had been an astrophysical entity, now he’s not even a prince, treated more like one of his former subjects, a pauper, and even though he's going through the classic decent into hell, he's no classic mythological hero—he's barely even a hero in his own eyes any more, manhandled until he can break free and escape.

And them South Side sisters sure look pretty
The cripple on the corner cries out "Nickels for your pity"
And them downtown boys sure talk gritty
It's so hard to be a saint in the city

And once freed from the underworld he goes back to the earlier refrain…but why? Comfort? Unable to think clearly enough to come up with something else? The bragging is gone and doesn’t return. Instead, he laments—or, perhaps, simply states—the plain fact of the difficulty of being a saint in the city. In fact, he's now listing the various denizens he's running across and seems to count himself one of them, no longer one well above the rest. No more bravado, no more dozens. His voice almost cracks as he semi-whispers these lines. At the end of an album stuffed to the breaking point with wordplay, what he leaves us on is the just the facts, ma'am. Just the plain and simple reality: life in the city is hard, you’re beset on all sides, so you’d damn well better develop a tough shield, an impenetrable persona, or you're not going to make it. They'll get you. They'll win. 

Springsteen opened his debut claiming he was going to stare straight into the heart of the sun, over his mother’s admonitions, just for the fun of it. By the end of the record, he’s relieved to still be alive, and realistic about the chances of being the kind of person that, his boasts to the contrary, he’d like to be. The world's too challenging for that. You're lucky to just get by. 

He’d soon change styles, leaving this type of excessive wordplay and even the more fanciful music behind. But already on this first album, he’s setting up one of his major themes: the hardness of the world and what it does to people just trying to make their way in it.   

Comments

[fish]

So, do you think he can make it in the biz?

[DT]

"And in a few of those cases, such as 'Spirit in the Night,' his antecedent seems less Dylan than Chuck Berry, with the outlandish names or even going back further, to Woody Guthrie."

WOW. Dunno how you thought of that, but it's 100% on the money. Well done, you.

[David]

I waited a long time for that new post. It was worth it.