I'm On Fire by donnica59

donnica59 - I'm On Fire

donnica59

May 20, 2024 01:45pm

<ul><li>Springsteen came up with this song in the studio during recording sessions in early 1982. </li><li>He was playing around with a slow Johnny Cash rhythm which he put to some lyrics he had already written. </li><li>The song was recorded in May 1982, and originally intended for the Nebraska album, but it was not released until Born In The U.S.A. was finished in 1984. </li><li> </li><li>Springsteen, pianist Roy Bittan, and drummer Max Weinberg recorded the first version of this song themselves because the rest of the band was taking a break when inspiration struck.</li><li>The song is about a man who wakes up with night sweats lusting for a woman - he feels like he's on fire when he suddenly awakes. </li><li>Springsteen writes using the voice of many different characters, and they often have some kind of unpleasant ordeal to endure. </li><li>The stark lyrics went well with the Johnny Cash-inspired rhythm, and didn't hurt the song commercially, as it made the Top 10 in both the US and UK.</li><li>This was the fourth of seven US Top 10 singles from the Born In The U.S.A. album.</li><li>In England, this was released as a double A-side with "Born In The U.S.A."</li></ul> <ul><li>The lyrics leave a lot of wiggle room for interpretation, but the video lays out a pretty clear story: The singer is an auto mechanic who desires the upper class married woman who keeps bringing her car in to him for service. </li><li>One night, he drops off her car, considers ringing her bell, then thinks better of it.</li><li> </li><li>This was the first time Springsteen acted in a music video; it has a similar theme to Billy Joel's "<a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/billy-joel/uptown-girl" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Uptown Girl</a>" clip, where Christie Brinkley plays the socialite Joel's mechanic is after.</li><li> </li><li>Springsteen was just getting comfortable with music videos, and with the clip's director John Sayles, whom he worked with on "<a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/bruce-springsteen/born-in-the-usa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Born In The U.S.A.</a>" </li><li>The music-less intro worked in part because the song is so short, so adding the dialogue made it about average video length. </li><li>MTV is based in New York and was run by rock radio veterans who thought very highly of Springsteen, so it wasn't too surprising when "I'm On Fire" won for Best Male Video at the second MTV Video Music Awards, held in 1985.</li><li> It was just the second awards ceremony - "Uptown Girl" was nominated for the award the previous year, but lost to David Bowie's "<a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/david-bowie/china-girl" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">China Girl</a>."</li><li>We never see the face of the woman in the video, which implies that she could be a fantasy, as Springsteen's character has a lot going on in his head. </li><li>The woman's voice is Maggie Renzi, who produced the clip.</li><li>In 2000, Johnny Cash, who inspired this song, covered it on Badlands: A tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska.</li><li>Many radio stations stopped playing this after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. </li><li>The image of fire was considered too sensitive.</li><li> </li><li>Tori Amos covered this in May of 1996, and it appeared on VH1's Crossroads album in October of 1996. </li><li>The New Zealand rock/metal band Head Like A Hole (The band name derives from a Nine Inch Nails song) covered this in 1996. </li><li>AWOLNATION covered this in 2015 for the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack. </li><li>Mainman Aaron Bruno told Billboard magazine: "It's a song I've always loved, and someone gave me an opportunity to interpret it my way and see what happens."</li><li> </li><li>"If you give me the task of just doing my own version of a beautiful, perfect song, it's an easy experience," he added. </li><li>"I just made it moody and kind of lo-fi and trippy and dark, and in my mind there was no way they were going to use it. But they liked it, and I felt blessed to have a reason to do that song my way."</li></ul>