Everyone remembers who did what first. No one remembers who did anything second.
Usually, that is.
When Michael Jackson hit the Top 40 with seven hit singles from "Thriller" between 1982-84, many music fans figured this was never going to happen again and that what the Prince Of Pop did was just an anomaly where everything just came together at the right time.
But while "Thriller," the seventh Top 40 (and Top 10) hit from the album was fading into the musical sunset, a new album by a New Jersey-born and raised rocker was about to be released in the early summer of 1984 with the first single flying up the Top 40 en route to its peak position of No. 2.
The song was "Dancing In The Dark," and the album -- "Born In The U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen. It easily became the biggest hit in the then-34-year-old rocker's career, passing up the No. 5 peak of "Hungry Heart" in early 1981. The best, though, was yet to come.
"Cover Me" went to No. 7. "Born In The U.S.A.," the powerful third single and title track that caused a bit of political controversy back in that Summer of '84, went to No. 9. "I'm On Fire" went to No. 6, followed by the fifth Top 10 hit, the nostalgic "Glory Days." Then there was the sixth Top 10 hit from the mega-selling album, the No. 9 "I'm Goin' Down."
Maybe Columbia Records, Springsteen's record label, was thinking of stopping at six Top 10 smashes from the album. But it was now November 1985 and the hit well seemingly had run dry. But the label had one more trick up its sleeve ... and it was going to market a seventh single rather sharply.
They made the decision to release "My Hometown." Unlike the other six releases from the album, "My Hometown" was darker and far more moody. Springsteen wrote the song about his recollections of growing up in his native Freehold, N.J., and the racial tension that took place in his town as well as other cities in the Garden State during the 1960s, a trying time for most everyone growing up in that time period.
He brings up the line "They're closing down the textile mills across the railroad tracks. Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown." What Springsteen was referring to was the 1964 closing down of the A&M Karagheusian rug manufacturing plant in Freehold on Center and Jackson streets after being open for 60 years.
At the end of the song, Springsteen sings about being married and having a family of his own and talks about heading south. Then he sings, "I'm 35, we got a boy on our own. Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said, 'Son take a good look around. This is your hometown.'" All the while, he never really gives you an idea that he actually moved saying he and (wife) Kate "packing up their bags maybe heading south."
It hit a nerve for the 30- and 40-somethings who grew up in the 1960s and remembered that time period all too well, especially in the Garden State. Springsteen made it his business to play that song during the 1984-85 Born In The U.S.A. Tour every night, so it was ripe to be released.
But Columbia Records went one step further. For the late November release of the song as the seventh Top 40 release, they paired it up with a Springsteen classic that radio stations had played for years since they got their hands on the recording. It was Springsteen's famous 1975 live performance at C.W. Post College in Long Island, N.Y., of the Christmas classic, "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," a version in which he's joking around, having a good time talking to the band ("Hey Clarence, you been good this year!? Is Santa getting you a new saxophone?" he yells to longtime E Street member Clarence Clemons).
On the American Top 40 for December 21, 1985, "My Hometown" debuted at No. 32, the highest debuting song of the week and the record-tying seventh Top 40 hit from "Born In The U.S.A.," tying Springsteen with Jackson for most Top 40 hits from one artist's album. The song would race up the Top 40 and hit the Top 10 six weeks later, peaking at No. 6. But more amazingly, "My Hometown" was also racing up the Adult Contemporary chart ... all the way to No. 1, Springsteen's one and only No. 1 song on that chart.
It was the perfect song and the perfect end to a perfect run on the singles chart for The Boss. By 1986, Bruce Springsteen was a mega-superstar and wasn't afraid to sing about any subject.
Even the dinginess of his hometown.
Not a bad way to be remembered as "the second" to do something.
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