posted 05-26-2000 11:10 AM PT (US) 
I'm starting a new topic for anyone that feels 'Backstreets' has gotten too much attention here(brilliantly disguised?) and songs like 'Jungleland' haven't. A magical masterpiece?? absolutely! I just want to note that for me there is not one single track on BTR that I could 'skip over' as been said, I always play the album in it's entirety, it's the only way to get the full effect, especially with this finale! Hearing 'Jungleland' twice on this tour spoke to me again how incredible and amazing this song is! Clarence's sax solo never fails to bring me to tears, and don't anyone say this has got to be heard only 'live', coz for as long as I've been listening to BTR, I've always had to turn this song up really loud, it's a symphony!
and what about the content of these lyrics??
posted 05-26-2000 11:51 AM PT (US)
I agree completely. BTR is a complete package, you've gotta start with that harmonica and "The screen door slams..." and see it thru to " tonight.....in....Jun...gle...LLLAAANNNDDDD!!"
Can you confirm, Flamingo Lane, was this a soap opera?
Best bit for me, "or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light, da,da,da,da,da, Outside the STREETS on fire ...."
Just beautiful
posted 05-26-2000 12:01 PM PT (US)
this song is one of my favorites. But, please don't think I'm dense here, WHO kills MagicRat? I kind of used to think it could be the barefoot girl, which puts a really creepy twist on things, no? Is it the gangs? the cops? who? I'm sure I just haven't listened HARD enough and from what I've read on these boards, I know you all have had this figured out for ages! Thanks :)
posted 05-26-2000 12:02 PM PT (US)
Hey Karen,
Jungleland. WOW. From the very first time I heard it, it transported me. I felt like I was part of the story.
I am stealing from another topic, but if ever anyone were to make a musical with Springsteen songs, Meeting and Jungleland would be key. In fact, the whole btr album.
When I'm driving to/from work (it's an hour each way) I often mentally create a play/movie with the characters from BTR. Bruce and the ESB would be the ties to all these different lives: Terry & the singer, Eddie & Cherry, Magic Rat, the She's the One chick, all interwoven. Tenth Ave Freeze Out would be the big concert number showcasing the band.
Just my feeble mind wandering. If anyone happens to run across it, please drop in the nearest mailbox for return to owner.
kiddo
posted 05-26-2000 12:29 PM PT (US)
I hate to say it, but hearing Junglelamd now It seems so melodramatic and over the top. Dont hate me but......
posted 05-26-2000 12:49 PM PT (US)
I saw 8 shows this tour and only saw Jungleland once, the first show. This song cannot be ignored. It should be played nightly. I would take it over Promised Land, but before we remove Promised Land, take a look at some of the other nightly standards, lose Bobby Jean, Light of Day, Two Hearts. All great songs, but throw allitle JL...that will never fail.
posted 05-26-2000 01:21 PM PT (US)
Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh!! Jungleland! Here's my gushing....
Instruments: gorgeous, utterly lovely, violin solo; how often do you hear those in rock, anyway? Not often. Kudoes to Bruce for the arangement. I also love the dynamics of the song-- very soft to a cresendo. Very dramatic. Very classy. I also adore this sax solo. It's evocative and mournful, reinforcing the content of the lyrics.
Speaking of lyrics....my GOD, you all,I never realized lyrics like that could exist in a rock song. They are epic; there is no other word for it. Majestic and streewise and American and full of vivid cinematic images.
"...bareful girl sitting on the hood a a dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain...." Wow. This song is still so new to me that Bruce's imagination here, how specific and vivid it is, blows my mind.
"there's a ballet being fought in the alley" (sorry if I misquote, don't have the words in front of me)
"beneath the exxon sign that brings this fair city light"
Both of these, again, take everyday, sreet kind of images and gives them the same importance as epics or myths. No wonder the people who see themselves in his songs adore him for it.
"and they wind up wounded and not even dead...." Doesn't this line have IMPACT? They don't even get to die. They just have to live wounded. :(
"a real death waltz between what's flesh and what's fantasy and the poets down here don't write (right??) nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be...."
Poets and other artists are supposed to express emotions and clarify truth and kinda be the conscious of their society. Not these ones. They do nothing. That's how bad it's gotten with this "society??" in Jungleland. They just "let it all be"
Other excellent lines just cause they're cool: The hungry and the hunted explode into rock and roll bands.
The kids flash guitars just like switchblades. :)
SD
posted 05-26-2000 02:39 PM PT (US)
Jungleland is the one song I pick to play for non-Springsteen fanatics to try to get them over to "our" side. I say "Just listen to this." If that song doesn't change you, nothing will!
posted 05-26-2000 04:31 PM PT (US)
Ok, Tickbitty. You got me thinking. My gut response on the shooting of Rat was the Maxium Lawmen because they were chasing Rat and the barefoot girl. Then I remember the line actually says "the Rat's own dream guns him down" so the question becomes what/who is MR's own dream? Did MR go to Harlem for the Ranger's homecoming and is that part of his dream? Did a Ranger shoot him?
(I don't think MR is physically just dead spiritually: "wounded and not even dead.")
I think MR's dream is happiness with barefoot girl. For some reason, this puts him in danger. Forbidden love...very familiar theme for Bruce (Rosalita, Mary in TR). Maybe MR was trying to break away from the Rangers (bad influences in our lives) and start living his own life with barefoot girl, but they (Rangers) don't want to let him go?
These are just ideas. I wonder if Bruce knows?
My question is: in the bedroom locked, who's the girl? Is she the same one that shuts out the bedroom light? I don't think it's MR with the girl in the bedroom, because the next line is MR getting shot uptown. Is it barefoot girl? Is she turning out the light because she can't bear to look at what happened to MR? Or because it's past and over with and thus not worth looking at anymore.
Karen...I hope I'm following in the spirit of your original post. And I hope with all of these unanswered questions I'll be able to sleep tonight!!!
-kiddo
posted 05-26-2000 04:58 PM PT (US)
I always thought it was a coming of age story for the kids from Wild and Innocent, and not a happy one at that. Kind of says if you play hard enough, long enough, someone is gonna get hurt. Definitely inspired by West Side Story and shows Bruce in a real NY light.
posted 05-26-2000 06:27 PM PT (US)
Oh yes gkid, the spirit of 'Jungleland' is here and you're all giving me the chills!
Sherry Darlin'-- I always enjoy your perceptions, such a fine art of yours...
I wish everyone to feel the magic in this song, I couldn't think of better people to share it with, and that's the best part!
posted 05-26-2000 10:42 PM PT (US)
Jungleland is the ultimate rock opera so to speak. The words. The music. The romance. The smashed guitars...it's all there. But the question is 'why wasn't Suki Lahav credited on the album?' Not even mentioned and hearing the song on the album with the violin intro is awesome.
posted 05-26-2000 11:47 PM PT (US)
As is evident by the name that I use here, I absolutely love Jungleland. I was never very good in the interpretations department, but it is obvious to anyone who cares to listen that Jungleland is a composition more than a song. Whenever and wherever I hear it, it ALWAYS lifts me to that place. You know what place I mean, that out of body experience that you have when you get lost in an incredible song...anyway, someone above stated that they use Jungleland to try to get people over to "our side," so to speak. Well I tried that with my mom, a simple-minded woman who believes that all music should be a cheesy 50's love song. Well after I played it for her to try to make her understand why I love bruce, I of course was breathless. She, however, matter-of-factly stated that she could have written such a song herself. I nearly went through the roof! That's when I knew there really is no hope for my mom......
posted 05-27-2000 03:11 AM PT (US)
I absolutely cannot stop listening to SHE'S THE ONE/MEETING/JUNGLELAND lately...JUNGLELAND should close EVERY SHOW.
RAMROD? NAHHH....put that in the mix with rendezvous, promised land, etc.
As many times as I've heard that song I still am transfixed by the story. I always have kind of thought the girl from SHES THE ONE is BAREFOOT GIRL, and that she is some kind of femme fatale that brings about MAGIC RAT'S demise.
One thing that I wonder--how much input did Roy have in this song?? The piano simply makes the whole thing work--I'm lookin at some sheet music for the song and as usual, it says 'words and music by ' Bruce alone. Could Bruce have sat at a piano and written and played this by himself? I'm sure maybe now, but in 1975? Just wondering ...
DAMN! this board is soo cool--I love discussions about lyrics like we have here, but who else in our real lives would discuss like us??
barefoot girl--I love that you are so young [in age alone] and so insightful--your mom is hopeless i'm afraid. When I get a response like that that puts me kind of on the defensive, I wait until that person is listening to their 'drivel' and then I arrogantly sniff "huh...simple music for simple people..." not nice, but it damn sure makes me feel better!
posted 05-27-2000 08:43 AM PT (US)
Thanks Karen!! That made my day. :)
Mark: great point about West Side Story-- isn't "Incident" kinda WSS also? Or, to be more accurate, Romeo and Juliet?
Sherry Darling
posted 05-27-2000 11:39 PM PT (US)
Hey folks! How's everyone doing? Been following the postings sor a while now and figured it was a good time to enter the discussion. The song Jungleland is the final song of the album. In Dave Marsh's first book he mentions the idea that Bruce was trying to make BTR a concept album. The idea was a day in the life of the main character. The names change but the people stay the same. He mentions that the character who sings Rosalita is also singing Thunder Road. If this is the concept then the character in Meeting is also the sharacter in Jungleland. The Magic Rat is going to make his big score and leave town. Unfortunately he the deal goes bad and the character is killed. I've always also wondered if Jungleland's also a sign of the end of Bruce's innocence. This would reference the lawsuit and the hard, real world look on Darkness. Does the death of Magic Rat also signify the death of Bruce's rock and roll fantasy? what do you think?
posted 05-28-2000 02:38 PM PT (US)
A song well ahead of its time,groundbreaking,
timeless also my wife likes it when we are driving at night, she also cries during Streets of Philly, other than that she says to turn it down.
posted 05-28-2000 04:50 PM PT (US)
There's an interview in the Backstreets book where Bruce is still working out the lyrics for the song and in this version he has the girl and the guy (Magic Rat? sorry, I'm experiencing mental breakdowns all over the place and haven't seen my Born to Run CD in over a year while travelling) together in the bedroom at the end shutting out the bedroom light together. Also the guitars they "flashed like switchblades" he likened instead to "bayonets". Someone help me- does this change the story of Magic Rat and co. at all? This is the song that first stopped me in my tracks and although I had a blank tape in my dinky little red ten year old's cassette player ready to roll, I couldn't move even to press record.
AAAAH!
posted 05-30-2000 02:26 AM PT (US)
Wow... Jungleland. Here's how I look at it.
For all Bruce knew, this was going to be the last song on the last album he'd release. I agree and think it is a sort of coming of age of most of the characters up to this point. So far in the songs the character's talk about their dreams and how they "should" do something, or "come on, let's go."
In Jungleland, they're finally so desperate they go out and do it, and the shit goes down. Meeting always flow so nicely because it has a nervous feel of anticipation to it, and it's suddenly the "real thing."
Then enter the violin, with the sound of an overview that says young innocence is something that can't be had forever... in comes the piano, and flash to the present.
The Magic Rat and the Barefoot Girl do what the characters from Thunder Road and Born to Run only dream of- they take that stab at romance and disappear in a car. They'd been living something they didn't believe in, they took their stand and tried to break away from it. We all know their fate.
In light of Bruce's full catalogue of music, poignantly, after this song there is never again another Magic Rat or Spanish Johnny or Crazy Janey in his new material. On to Darkness on the Edge of Town.
"Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners desperate as the night moves on. Just one look, and a whisper, and they're gone."
And they are indeed gone.
posted 05-31-2000 07:01 PM PT (US)
Hey Lonely Rider you really hit that one on the head!! I love the passionate primal screams he does toward the end of the song as well.
I have enjoyed everyone's commentary on my favorite Bruce song that I have had the good fortune of hearing twice live.