Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen song)
| "Glory Days" | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Single by Bruce Springsteen | ||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Born in the U.S.A. | ||||||||||||||||||
| B-side | "Stand on It" | |||||||||||||||||
| Released | May 31, 1985 | |||||||||||||||||
| Format | 7" single | |||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | April 3, 1982 | |||||||||||||||||
| Genre | Pop rock | |||||||||||||||||
| Length | 4:15 (album version) 5:31 (alternate mix) |
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| Label | Columbia | |||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Bruce Springsteen | |||||||||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt | |||||||||||||||||
| Bruce Springsteen singles chronology | ||||||||||||||||||
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| 12 tracks |
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"Glory Days" is a 1984 song, written and performed by American rock singer Bruce Springsteen. In 1985, it became the fifth single released from his massively successful album Born in the U.S.A.
"Glory Days" was recorded in April or May 1982 (sources differ) during the first wave of Born in the U.S.A. sessions. Even though the album went through several different phases of what would be on it, "Glory Days" was always seen as one of the cornerstones.
The song is a seriocomic tale of a man who now ruefully looks back on his so-called "glory days" and those of people he knew during high school. The lyrics to the first verse are autobiographical, being a recount of an encounter Springsteen had with former Little League baseball teammate Joe DePugh in the summer of 1973.
The music is jocular, consisting of what Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh called "rinky-dink organ, honky-tonk piano, and garage-band guitar kicked along by an explosive tom-tom pattern." There is also a subtle mandolin accompaniment from Steven Van Zandt that can be heard doubling the organ part during the instrumental interlude in the middle of the song and the fadeout at the end.
The single peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles charts in the summer of 1985. It was the fifth of a record-tying seven Top 10 hit singles to be released from Born in the U.S.A. Marsh named the second volume in his biography after the song.
An alternate mix of the song includes an extra verse about the narrator's father, who worked at the Ford auto plant in Metuchen, New Jersey, for twenty years and who now spends most of his time at the American Legion Hall, thinking about how he "ain't never had glory days." However, after Springsteen realized that this verse did not fit with the song's storyline, it was cut out. The second verse of the original demo of the song (which had a different chorus from the final version and only two verses) also focuses on the narrator's father's hardships.
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Wikipedia