Held Up Without A Gun by Bruce Springsteen

Album: Hungry Heart single (1980)

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This song contains a reference to Springsteen's difficulties in extracting himself from his his contract with his manager Mike Appel - hence the title. Appel could be the man with a cigar mentioned in the lyrics. >>
Suggestion credit:
Graham - Australia
This does not appear on an album - It was released as the B-side of "Hungry Heart." This started a tradition of Springsteen using non-album tracks for B-sides.
Small wonder that this was a non-album cut; it's only one minute and fifteen seconds long. The studio version has never - repeat never - been released in CD form, so that's why there's so many live versions of it on YouTube and no original.

While we're on live performances on YouTube, another band known as "Miami & The Groovers" are out there with a medley of this song together with the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." It's alarming how well they go together.
In the 2012 elections, Springsteen, a staunch Democrat all his life, put a mighty effort into free publicity concerts around the United States in support of the campaign to re-elect US president Barack Obama. Former president (and fellow Democrat) Bill Clinton even came along with Bruce to stump for Obama as well.

In the aforementioned rally tour, Springsteen told a Seattle Times interviewer: "For 30 years, I've been writing about the divide between the American dream and the American reality." Come to think of it, that does summarize his work quite well.
In the beginning minutes of the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, two criminal characters discuss a method used to hold up a bank without a gun, by robbing a bank with a telephone which supposedly had a hostage held remotely. Just for example.

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Comments: 1

Steve from Ottawa, OnThe song also appears on Essential Bruce Springsteen - that version is from his well-known New Year's Eve 1980 concert at Nassau Coliseum.

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