Bruce Springsteen Talks "Working on a Dream:" "There Was Enough Fuel for the Fire to Keep Going"

Bruce Springsteen posted a note on his official Website this morning detailing how the spark that eventually became his new album Working on a Dream was ignited. "During the last weeks of mixing Magic, we recorded a song called 'What Love Can Do,' " Springsteen writes, "It was a great track but felt more like a first song of new record rather than something that would fit on Magic. So our producer Brendan O'Brien said, 'Hey, let's make another one right now!' I thought, no, I haven't done that since my first two records came out in the same year." But that night at an Atlanta hotel, Bruce found there was "more than enough fuel for the fire to keep going" and started to write five songs that would lay the groundwork for Dream, due out January 27th. Be sure to check out the issue of Rolling Stone on newsstands January 7th for the full story behind Springsteen's next album.

Last night Springsteen made a surprise appearance at the Hope Concert IV in Red Bank, New Jersey, sharing the stage with Jon Bon Jovi for "Run Run Rudolph" before leading the house band with his own five-song set. Jon Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny were the announced headliners for the benefit concert, which raises proceeds for the Parker Family Health Center (Springsteen took part in the Hope festivities in 2006, as well). Springsteen continued the caroling with a medley of "Merry Christmas Baby" and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town." After a performance of "634-5789," Bon Jovi came back out to join Bruce on "10th Avenue Freeze-Out," followed by the set-closing "Having A Party." Other performers at the fourth annual Hope show included Gary "U.S." Bonds, the Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon and Nicole Atkins.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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