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4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

"4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)"
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) cover.jpg
Single by Bruce Springsteen
from the album The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle
B-side The E Street Shuffle
Released 1975 (Germany only)
Recorded 1973 at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, New York
Genre Folk rock
Length 5:36
Label Columbia
Writer(s) Bruce Springsteen
Producer(s) Mike Appel, Jim Cretecos
Bruce Springsteen singles chronology
"Spirit in the Night" "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" "Born to Run"
"Sandy (4th of July, Asbury Park)"
Single by The Hollies
from the album Another Night
B-side Second Hand Hang-Ups
Released May 1975
Genre Soft rock
Label Polydor
Writer(s) Bruce Springsteen
Producer(s) Ron Richards
The Hollies singles chronology
"I'm Down"
(1974)
"Sandy"
(1975)
"Boulder to Birmingham"
(1976)

"4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)", often known just as "Sandy", is a 1973 song by Bruce Springsteen, originally appearing as the second song on his album The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. It was released as a single from the album in Germany.

One of the best-known and most praised of his early efforts, the song remains one of his most popular ballads, and has been described as "the perfect musical study of the Jersey Shore boardwalk culture."

Set on, as the title suggests, the Fourth of July in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the song is a powerful love ballad, dedicated to one Sandy and describing the depressing atmosphere that threatens to smother the love between the singer and Sandy. Locals include the "stoned-out faces," "switchblade lovers" and "the greasers" who "tramp the streets or get busted for sleeping on the beach all night." The singer is tired of "hangin' in them dusty arcades" and "chasin' the factory girls."

The song begins with the line: "Sandy, the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight." Writer Ariel Swartley views the song's verses as depicting the narrator as something of an "adolescent loser ... [who's] ruining his chances with the girl: he can't stop telling her about the humiliations, about the girls who led him on, about the waitress that got tired of him." Nevertheless, Swartley observes the choruses to be warm, immediate, and portray an irresistibly romantic atmosphere.

You travel around [to] Nashville, Atlanta, Tennessee and [people say] 'Hey! What's Asbury Park like?' and I play them this number. This is a song based in New Jersey or actually anywhere along the coast.

Van Morrison's influence can be heard in this song, as "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" closely parallels his romanticization of Belfast in such songs as "Cyprus Avenue" and "Madame George" from the 1968 album, Astral Weeks.


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