Today marks the 45th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s appearance on the covers of the same week’s editions of both Time and Newsweek. The album Born to Run was his big break out album. The song “Backstreets” was never released as a single but it was a staple on rock radio. Roy Bittan not only plays both the piano and organ that open the song, he was an integral part of its production. He recalls that during rehearsals when they were having trouble coming up with an ending, he suggested to Bruce that they strip things down to just his piano and then build the music back up.
“He had a thing like, ‘Hiding on the backstreets,’ and he sort of sang me that line, ‘Hiding on the backstreets.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll play that on the piano and set it up, and then we’ll like add in and you sing over and we’ll build it up and let’s just try it.’ And we did and it just turned out to be something that just really capped off the tune. And that was just a great, great moment.”
