Bruce Springsteen gave us a taste of his fifth album, The River, 40 years ago today — October 21st, 1980 — with the release of its first single, “Hungry Heart.”
It became his first hit, peaking at number-five on the Billboard 100, which is ironic, given he didn’t write it for himself.
“I wrote it for The Ramones originally. I saw The Ramones in Asbury Park [New Jersey] and ended up talking to them for a while and said, ‘Man, I’m gonna write The Ramones a song.’ So I went home that night and I sat at my table and I wrote it in about the time it took me to sing it and I think I brought it in — we either made a demo of it or I played it for [my manager] Jon [Landau] and he said, ‘No, you better keep that one.'”
With a title taken from a line in Alfred, Lord Tennyson‘s poem “Ulysses” — “For always roaming with a hungry heart” — Springsteen’s vocal was slightly sped up, and Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles sang background vocals.
