Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin’s biography of Bruce Springsteen
First book I found that talks about it
Bruce flipped a few pages, put his hands back on the keys, and laid out the first chords of what would become “Candy’s Room.” In this iteration of the song, the central image is a mysterious house; a walled-in mansion that draws the narrator to its gates, where he peers across rolling lawns to see a woman’s face gazing back through the glass.
LANDAU: That’s great. That’s really great. It’s got such detail, so sharp . . .
BRUCE: I’ m trying to work simpler, clearer images, really.
LANDAU: You got it, you really got it. This is just as vivid as in the past, only . . .
Bruce nodded happily and went back to singing.
LANDAU: This is great, the way she comes in here—
BRUCE: Yeah, it kind of gives it a sexual thing, like—
LANDAU:—the inside of the house is the female thing, and the outside of the house is the male thing.
BRUCE: Exactly.
LANDAU: The formal construction is unbelievable.
BRUCE: It’s a real cinematic thing. But the words aren’t really together; I can’t figure it out . . .
LANDAU: It’s very together.
When Bruce stopped playing, Landau smiled and nodded his head.
LANDAU: That’s great. It’s scary. It’s blowing my mind to hear all this stuff after so much time. And to hear
it sound so together . . . The combination of the first set you show me for “Come On,” and the first set
you show me for this . . .
BRUCE: “I think this is real. This is real. We got good stuff.”
Landau went back to the control room, and when Van Zandt wandered in, Bruce seemed
practically giddy when he told his aide-de-camp that more new songs were on the way.
BRUCE: We're gonna be rehearsin' this week.
VAN ZANDT: Are you crazy?
BRUCE: Nope, I'm serious.
VAN ZANDT: What are you gonna throw out?
BRUCE: I can't think of somethin'. But I'll think of somethin'.
He spun on his heel and hunched to play, pounding out chords while Van Zandt
grimaced and shook his head.
Bruce, from over his shoulder: “Remember, there's always room to throw something
out!”
Come On (Let’s Go Tonight)
When the sessions moved to the Record Plant, Bruce and Landau made straight for the studio floor, where they went over the songs still left to record, talking it all over in the stuttering shorthand of like minds. Bruce took up his Fender and played an early version of “Come On (Let’s Go Tonight),” while Landau snapped his fingers, bobbed his head, and pitched in a little harmony.
When Bruce looked up, Landau nodded excitedly. “That’s great. Really great. What else you got cookin’?” Bruce put down his guitar and led the way to the piano, where he opened his notebook and went back to playing the “Come On” verse, focusing on the passing references to Elvis Presley’s death. “The power of the images,” he said, “was that they weren’t the central part of the song, but sorta, you know
LANDAU: —tangential. It’s good. It’s very good. It’s sophisticated.
BRUCE: It kinda states it [Presley’s death] as a fact, but . . . I don’t know, it’s sort of strange.
LANDAU: [quoting from lyrics] “Some came to witness, some came to weep.” That’s a great line. A very
important distinction there, like, the curious and the . . . it’s great. Really great.