This is wrong.

November 18, 2022 3:38 PM

Flogging his new album on the Tonight Show, Bruce Springsteen settles a nearly 50-year-old argument.
posted by chavenet (36 comments total)

The dress sways.
posted by clavdivs at 3:57 PM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

I sing “waves.” (I love this song.)
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 4:44 PM on November 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Eppur si muove.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:00 PM on November 18, 2022 [6 favorites]

The dress is blue and black.
posted by kozad at 5:01 PM on November 18, 2022 [17 favorites]

I thought for sure it would be about “Blinded by the Light.”
posted by TedW at 5:29 PM on November 18, 2022 [20 favorites]

…Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.
posted by Edward L at 6:29 PM on November 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

I think he wrote and originally sang "waves," but has been singing "sways" for so long because it rhymes with "plays."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:05 PM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Sort of a side comment, but how tf do people stand Jimmy Fallon?
posted by Ayn Marx at 7:24 PM on November 18, 2022 [35 favorites]

Like iocane powder, taken in very small doses over a long period of time.
posted by swift at 8:03 PM on November 18, 2022 [7 favorites]

The first thing I sang to my daughter was "sways", so that's the word.
posted by Etrigan at 8:27 PM on November 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

> Sort of a side comment, but how tf do people stand Jimmy Fallon?

I was torn whether or not I should post "The only thing that would have made this interview better was if Jimmy Fallon wasn't there", and almost didn't, but now that I'm not the first to bring it up, why not?
posted by milnak at 8:43 PM on November 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

For those who find Fallon's shallowness grating, the recent two hour Springsteen interview by Howard Stern truly plumbed the depths, and is coming to HBO on November 27th.
posted by fairmettle at 9:06 PM on November 18, 2022 [7 favorites]

I loathe Jimmy Fallon.

I've never met him myself.
posted by philip-random at 9:52 PM on November 18, 2022 [5 favorites]

When Springsteen said he'd been a sociopath fifty years ago, I thought the punchline was that he'd been singing it both ways just to confuse people, but it was not to be. Oh, well.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:13 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

“And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken.”
posted by terrapin at 4:26 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

first of all - my god bruce is a handsome man

secondly - "sways" makes so much more sense than "waves" so i'm glad to know that the album is wrong and bruce is right.
posted by entropone at 5:05 AM on November 19, 2022 [6 favorites]

For those who find Fallon's shallowness grating, the recent two hour Springsteen interview by Howard Stern truly plumbed the depths, and is coming to HBO on November 27th

I heard most of that interview and yes, it was revealing. The story about Clarence's last hours was something I had never heard before and for an old fan like me, it got pretty dusty in the room.
posted by Ber at 5:45 AM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

But is the Backstreets summer “sultan-fisted” or “soft infested?”
posted by gubo at 6:24 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Perhaps now people won’t be wrapped up like a douche about this anymore.
posted by vorpal bunny at 6:26 AM on November 19, 2022 [19 favorites]

And what the hell is a "Tenth Avenue Freezeout"?

(Bruce has commented on that in the past: I believe his exact words were, "I don't know what it is, actually, but I know it's important!")
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:44 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

And what the hell is a "Tenth Avenue Freezeout"?

I always read that song as "We went from being blacklisted to being cool."
posted by entropone at 6:59 AM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

And what the hell is a "Tenth Avenue Freezeout"?

Sometimes words are just words.
posted by tommasz at 7:10 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Flogging his new album on the Tonight Show

I miss Johnny. :(
posted by mikelieman at 7:52 AM on November 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

Sometimes words are just words.

You mean like "waves" and "sways"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:51 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

For those who find Fallon's shallowness grating, the recent two hour Springsteen interview by Howard Stern truly plumbed the depths, and is coming to HBO on November 27th

This will be good. I can never recognize Stern out of blackface.
posted by pxe2000 at 9:08 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Huh. I never realized this was a controversy, even with years and years of following his tours around the west. I had always assumed that it was waves because that’s what it said on the album, which I still have because it was one of the vinyls I could never get rid of.

Regarding fucking Fallon, there’s this perennially popular clip on Tumblr of Jack Black playing a toy saxophone or something, and rocking out with the band. I just love the clip, I have to watch it every time, but I also have to hold my hand up on the right side of the video because I can’t stand watching him sit there trying to act cool and dance in his chair, he’s just so freaking obnoxious.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:57 AM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

TedW: “I thought for sure it would be about “Blinded by the Light.””

vorpal bunny: “Perhaps now people won’t be wrapped up like a douche about this anymore.”

It's obviously, "Held up like a loofa by the foreman of the night."
posted by ob1quixote at 3:41 PM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

And what the hell is a "Tenth Avenue Freezeout"?

Never mind that -- what the hell does 'wrapped like a douche' even mean? How does one wrap a spray of water? Oh, you mean a bad person in a clear plastic raincoat? Man, vorpal bunny, whatever else you do, never open a burrito stand. Or a douche wash.
posted by y2karl at 4:58 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

"revved up like a deuce"
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:09 PM on November 19, 2022 [7 favorites]

It's a shame there's no separate audio of just Lin-Manuel reacting to it; yes, people have trimmed him out, but the original audio of Lin-Manuel's first reaction only exists intermingled with Jimmy's bombastic me-me-me-it's-all-about-ME reaction.

I feel the same way about how Fallon inserted himself into a pre-recorded segment in which movie-goers got to say how much Black Panther means to them not knowing Chadwick Boseman was behind a curtain listening to them. He’d come out to meet them and thank him. And Jimmy “All About Me” Fallon came out with him every time to hijack the interaction between Black filmgoers and an emerging Black pop culture icon. It was incredible insensitive and unnecessary.
posted by Ranucci at 7:21 PM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

"revved up like a deuce."

*blush* My ignorance betrayed. Well, thank you Iris Gambol. Once again I see the twisted claw marks of autocorrect, enemy of all that is good and clear online and whatever else.
posted by y2karl at 7:44 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

A reference to a song lyric I have never heard is my mondegreen how?
posted by y2karl at 7:38 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

He's a great storyteller. Here he is on the Graham Norton show talking about:

The time a swarm of locusts interrupted his concert.

The time he had dinner with a fan and his mom.

posted by ishmael at 7:57 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

Well, one thing we can agree upon is his character. There are a whole lotta whole better angels in his nature.
posted by y2karl at 11:53 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hey MollyRealized - you can find a good Fallon-free version of Lin Manuel Miranda here!
posted by evadery at 6:59 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

> And what the hell is a "Tenth Avenue Freezeout"?

I always read that song as "We went from being blacklisted to being cool."

Was the E Street Band ever blacklisted, though? Or was it just that they needed Clarence Clemons to join in as the last missing piece?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:49 AM on November 21, 2022 [1 favorite]