Live 03 Mar 1974 (late show) version
[Spoken intro:] This is a song from our second album, and, uh, and you, you travel around, I'll be travelin' around, like, Nashville, and Atlanta, and Tennessee, and all sorts of different, a lot of different places. People say, "Hey! What's Asbury Park like?" (chuckles) And, uh... (coughs) We're playing this number, and, uh, this is a song for anybody that's from New Jersey, or actually, you know, anywhere along the coast, this is for you. It's a song called Sandy.
One, two, three, four
Oh, Sandy, the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight
Forcin' a light into all them stony faces left stranded on this warm July
Down in town the Circuit's full with switchblade lovers, so fast, so shiny, so sharp
And them wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark
And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovers along the shore
Chasin' all them silly New York girls by the score
Oh, Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us, girl
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Love me tonight, for I may never, 'cause I may, I may never see you again
Hey, Sandy!
Well, now the greasers, they tramp the streets or get busted for trying to sleep on the beach all night
Them boys in their high heels, ah, Sandy, their skins are so white
And me, I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades and bangin' them pleasure machines
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk, where they all promise to unsnap their jeans
And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night and my shirt got caught
And that Joey kept me spinnin'
I didn't think I'd ever get off
Oh, Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us, girl
Well, the pier lights our carnival life on the water
Running crazy 'neath the boardwalk with my old boss's daughter
Hey, I remember, Sandy!
Ah, Sandy, that little waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me
I spoke with her last night, she won't set herself on fire for me anymore
She works that joint underneath the boardwalk, she was always the girl you'd see boppin' down the beach with the radio
And the kids say last night she was dressed like a star in some cheap seashore bar, I saw her parked with lover boy on the Kokomo
You know the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin' fortunes better than they do
Ah, this boardwalk life for me is through
You know, you ought to quit this scene too
Oh, Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us, girl
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh, love me tonight and I promise I'll love you forever
Hey, Sandy, I mean it!
Hey, I swear, Sandy, girl!
[Spoken outro:] Thank you so much.
The above lyrics are for the live 03 Mar 1974 late show performance of 4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY) at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, during what is considered The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle Tour. The song was played in a full-band arrangement.
Bruce Springsteen and the band played two shows at Georgetown University on 03 Mar 1974: an early show at 7:30 p.m. and a late show at 10:30 p.m. Bruce Springsteen was the headliner and Orleans were the opening act. The shows were held at the university's 750-seat Gaston Hall. There is no known audio recording from the early show, but Springsteen's late show (minus the last song) was simulcast on the University's popular radio station WGTB-FM. The broadcast now circulates on several bootlegs in excellent soundboard quality.
The 03 Mar 1973 late show broadcast from Georgetown University was commercially released in Europe. Since 2005 some enterprising record labels in Europe (mostly in the UK) have been releasing Bruce Springsteen radio and TV broadcasts (and some soundboard recordings) from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Though these releases are not authorized by Bruce Springsteen or his record company, they are lawful due to a legal loophole in Europe.
Thanks Jake (ol'catfishinthelake at BTX and Greasy Lake) for the lyrics help.
Some of the above info about Springsteen's shows at Georgetown University is taken from Brucebase.
List of available versions of 4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY) on this website:
4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY) [Album version]
