Brilliant Covers: Blinded by the Light

Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night ...

When a band takes on someone else's song as a cover, it is a risky thing.  Usually the author, if they are a singer songwriter, knocked it out of the park, and the rest are pale shadows of the greatness.  We think about 90% of the time this is the case.  But this comparison isn't one of those.  It is one where the cover of the song was so brilliant as far as being a hit, it isn't generally known (except by trivia buffs or true fans) that the band that made the song famous wasn't the one that wrote and performed it first.  Our white hot spotlight is highlighting one of these in what we hope to be a regular feature.   The classic rock anthem, "Blinded by the Light," was written and first performed by Bruce Springsteen early in his career.  The Manfred Mann's Earth Band picked the song up in the mid 1970's and turned it from an interesting if lesser known Bruce Springsteen song, into a white hot hit that defined that band to this day.

The Boss ... just before
they called him that

The story of the song is interesting. Bruce Springsteen was writing his first album and his producer liked the songs but told The Boss he needed a couple of hits.  He came back a few days later, haggard and with this one and "Into the Night" - which isn't bad for on demand song writing.

Early Springsteen is muddled in that he quickly found a sound for the instrumentation and arrangements that would serve him to this day, but his writing was derivative of Bob Dylan. It wasn't until he broke the Dylan mould that he was able become The Boss we all admired and loved.  This song was from that  Dylan-wannabe period.  Lots of wordplay, though much of it bereft of meaning.

Anyway, we have got it into our heads to compare these two songs - was the cover really the better rendition?  Does the original have a certain something that makes it the superior version?  We aim to find out, and we will name a winner!

Manfred Mann's Earth Band

Bruce Springsteen, The Boss

"It would be as if Buddy Holly wrote the Beatles' songs first and tried to do it.  It just doesn't work."
"Bruce and his thesaurus take on Bob Dylan.  And Lose."

With this song you clearly hear the tonality and instrumentation that would carry him and his band to superstardom. Yes, we know it was a "hit" for

him, but it sounded so labored that it lost it's fun factor, so for both of us it failed to draw us in.  We are both Bruce Springsteen fans, but we saw this as a struggle between trying to be like Dylan while still creating his own emerging big, almost bombastic sound.

We also felt the performance lacked the polish of his later years - the chorus was sung straight, and it sounded loose, as if he was driving with his windows down, belting out the song, and making up some of the words like we all do with this song, only a little less fun.  He is and was capable of so much more, but hadn't yet found his style and voice. 

Manfred Mann's Earth Band
They knocked the song out of the park.

After a careful listen, it is clear that the only way the song works is as a psychedelic romp  and Manfred Man delivered it. Manfred Mann's arrangement conjured an Alice in Wonderland type feeling - not holding on a thought long enough to finish it before moving on to the next one.  This is how the lyrics really turn into a sonic poem that wove in and out with the instrumentation. An artful use of the Moog and the Chorus was key to giving it a very contemporary 70's feel.  They also employed a number of tricks to keep the highly repetitive lyrics from getting boring:  key fadeouts of singing giving way to some excellent instrument playing, and singing parts of it in a round all enhanced the song.
Manfred Mann arranged the Dylan-like song into a more gauzy crazy hazy fun aspect that not only got pulled off, but realized the potential of the poem, and took it far far away from the slightly staid Dylan-derivative poem it looks like when you read the lyrics.

Conclusions
I think it is no secret that The Manfred Mann's Earth Band really was the superior of the two versions, which isn't all that surprising considering that they had a major hit on their hands, while Bruce Springsteen was left collecting a royalty check yet went on to be a bigger superstar than the band he gave the song to.

What we feel is important to underline, though, is that while Bruce Springsteen, The Boss, wrote the song that put Manfred Mann on the map, he himself couldn't quite arrange it and perform it in a way that would realize its potential. When Manfred turned it into a Psychadelic Alice in Wonderland type of poem and arrangement, they propelled the crazy poetry into superstardom.

Life is funny that way, eh?