Jersey Girl (song)
| "Jersey Girl" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Tom Waits from the album Heartattack and Vine | ||||
| Released | September 1980 | |||
| Length | 5:11 | |||
| Label | Asylum | |||
| Writer(s) | Tom Waits | |||
| Producer(s) | Bones Howe | |||
| Heartattack and Vine track listing | ||||
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"Jersey Girl" is a song composed and originally sung by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits from his 1980 album Heartattack and Vine.
Waits wrote the song with his future wife Kathleen Brennan, who had been living in New Jersey. It is one of Waits' most tender songs, and captures a feeling of romantic longing despite its somewhat gritty details.
Waits said in a 1980 interview that, "I never thought I would catch myself saying 'sha la la' in a song ... This is my first experiment with 'sha la la.'" Waits' recording includes drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and glockenspiel, in an arrangement that captures the feeling of the seashore by way of "Under the Boardwalk" or "Spanish Harlem".
The song is also included on Waits' compilation albums Bounced Checks (1981), Anthology of Tom Waits (1985), and Used Songs, 1973-1980 (2001). Waits also included a quiet performance of it during his 1999 appearance on VH1 Storytellers.
The song is also known as performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and released as the B-side of his 1984 hit single "Cover Me". Springsteen introduced the song in July 1981 during the encores of a special River Tour homecoming stand that opened Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey, saying "I just want to say that you guys made tonight for us ... this is something special that we learned for ya." He slightly rewrote it to replace a Waits line about "whores on Eighth Avenue" with "the girls out on the avenue", and added a verse about taking "that little brat of yours and drop[ping] her off at your mom's" (This line was originally written for "Party Lights", an outtake from The River, which wasn't officially released until 2015). The July 9 performance from this stand was used on the "Cover Me" release. A few weeks later on August 24, Waits joined Springsteen onstage at the Los Angeles Sports Arena to perform the song together. The July 9th performance of "Jersey Girl" was used as the closing track of Springsteen's 1986 box set Live/1975-85, as Springsteen and producer Jon Landau felt it accurately represented the final phase of the loose story arc that connected the songs on the album together.
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