Songfacts®:

• In this song, Springsteen plays the dangerous romantic trying to navigate New York City. This being the '70s, the city is filled with pimps, gamblers and tough guys, and Springsteen's character is trying to find his place.
  
  As the album title suggests, Springsteen is very much a New Jersey guy, but he spent a lot of time in New York City when he was getting started, taking lots of road trips to perform and record (the album was actually done in Blauvelt, New York, about 25 miles north of Manhattan). With his observer view of New York City, he was able to craft different stories around the setting, which kept him from becoming a character in his own songs. Another track on the album, "Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?," is also set in the City.
• This was the first song Springsteen played for John Hammond at his audition for Columbia Records in 1972. What was to be a short meeting turned into a 2-hour audition and earned him a record deal. Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. was his first album.
• David Bowie recorded this in 1974, but his version was never released. It can be found on his 1989 rarities box set Sound + Vision. Bowie also recorded another track on the album, "Growin' Up," around this time, but that one also got shelved.
• This was one of the songs that convinced Springsteen's first manager, Mike Appel, that he was going to be a star. The contract Springsteen signed with Appel would come back to haunt him, as a legal dispute kept Bruce from releasing any material for three years after Born To Run in 1975.
• Springsteen wrote the lyrics first and filled in the music later. The only time he wrote this way was on his first album.