Released 1982 Recorded 1982 Length 4:00 | Format 7" Genre Folk rock | |
Label Columbia
CBS 2794 (UK, 7") | ||
"Atlantic City" is a song written and recorded by Bruce Springsteen, which first appeared on Springsteen's 1982 solo album Nebraska. Springsteen has often played the song in a full band arrangement in concert.
Contents
History
Springsteen wrote in his Greatest Hits sleeve notes that he recorded the track in his bedroom "for $1,050 (the cost of the four-track Tascam recorder), mixed through an old Gibson guitar unit to a beat box."
The song depicts a young couple's escape to Atlantic City, New Jersey, but it also wrestles with the inevitability of death as the man in the relationship intends to take a job in organized crime upon arriving in the city. The opening lines of "Atlantic City" refer to mafia violence in nearby Philadelphia, with Springsteen singing: "Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night, now they blew up his house too" (the "chicken man" was Philadelphia crime family mafia boss Philip Testa, who was killed by a bomb planted at his Philadelphia house in March 1981). The song evokes the widespread uncertainty regarding gambling during its early years in Atlantic City and its promises to resurrect the city, as well as the young man's uncertainty about taking the less-than-savory job: "Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back."
Although the song came out around the same time as the film of the same name, the two works are unrelated.
The song is also included on his 1995 Greatest Hits album and on the 2003 compilation The Essential Bruce Springsteen.
"8 Years", a 2006 episode of the television series Cold Case, was based around nine Springsteen songs, with "Atlantic City" played during its climactic murder scene. In 2012 following Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie quoted the song's chorus during a cameo on Saturday Night Live.
Music video
A music video, directed by Arnold Levine, was produced for "Atlantic City", which received moderate play on MTV in the United States. Springsteen does not appear in the video, which features stark, black and white images of Atlantic City.
Live performances
From the Born in the U.S.A. Tour on, "Atlantic City" has made fairly regular appearances in Springsteen's band concerts, with a soft-hard-cycle arrangement very similar to that of "Darkness on the Edge of Town". Such live versions appear on Springsteen's In Concert/MTV Plugged (1993) and Live in New York City (2001) albums. For the 2006 Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour, "Atlantic City" was drastically rearranged and featured multiple outros; as such it appears on the Live in Dublin (2007) album.
Covers
The song "Atlantic City" has been covered by other artists, here presented in chronological order: