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Tunnel of Love (Bruce Springsteen song)

"Tunnel of Love"
TunnelOfLoveSingle.jpg
Single by Bruce Springsteen
from the album Tunnel of Love
B-side "Two for the Road"
Released October 17, 1987
Format 7" single
Recorded Between January and May 1987 at Thrill Hill East (Springsteen's home studio)
Genre Rock
Length 5:10
Label Columbia
Writer(s) Bruce Springsteen
Producer(s) Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Plotkin
Bruce Springsteen singles chronology
"Brilliant Disguise"
(1987)
"Tunnel of Love"
(1987)
"One Step Up"
(1988)

"Tunnel of Love" is the title song by Bruce Springsteen from his 1987 Tunnel of Love album. It was released as the second single from the album, reaching number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Like the first single from the album, "Brilliant Disguise", "Tunnel of Love" reached number one on the Album Rock Tracks chart. The single had less commercial success in other countries.

Like much of the Tunnel of Love album, "Tunnel of Love" was recorded in Springsteen's home studio, called Thrill Hill East, between January and May 1987 with several members of the E Street Band. On this song, Springsteen played several instruments and is backed by Roy Bittan on synthesizers, Nils Lofgren on lead guitar and Max Weinberg on drums. Springsteen's future wife, Patti Scialfa provided backing vocals. Effects on the song include the sounds of a family riding a roller coaster in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

The song uses a fairground funhouse ride as a metaphor for marriage. The relationship described in the song has three principals - the singer, his wife, and all the things they are scared of. The singer feels that marriage should be simple ("man meets woman and they fall in love"), but recognizes that along the way the ride can become difficult and unpredictable. The characters in the song laugh when they see each other in the funhouse mirrors, but it is not clear if they are laughing out of humor, or laughing at each other in derision. The song notes that it is all too easy for two people to lose each other on the "funhouse ride" of marriage.

The music of the song echoes the lyrics. The music is complex and has half of the E Street Band playing on the song. Nils Lofgren's surging guitar sound has been likened to the sound of the bickering couple, and the percussion and synthesizer add to the carnival atmosphere. The chanted vocal bridge at 3:40 in the song borrows the melody from the bridge of the Moody Blues' song New Horizons (from their 1972 album Seventh Sojourn)


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