"Jersey Girl" is a song composed and originally sung by American singer-songwriter

Tom Waits Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...

from his 1980 album ''

Heartattack and Vine ''Heartattack and Vine'' is the seventh studio album by Tom Waits, released on September 9, 1980, and his final album to be released on the Asylum Records, Asylum label. "On the Nickel" was recorded for On the Nickel, the Ralph Waite film of the ...

''.

Waits original

Waits wrote the song for his future wife

Kathleen Brennan Kathleen Patricia Brennan (born 1955) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and artist. She is known for her work as a co-writer, producer, and influence on the work of her husband Tom Waits. Biography Brennan was born in Cork, ...

, who had been living in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Waits said in a 1980 interview that, "I never thought I would catch myself saying 'sha la la' in a song ... This is my first experiment with 'sha la la.'" Waits' recording includes drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

, in an arrangement that captures the feeling of the seashore by way of " Under the Boardwalk" or "

Spanish Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fif ...

". The song is included on Waits' compilation albums '' Bounced Checks'' (1981), '' Anthology of Tom Waits'' (1985), and '' Used Songs, 1973-1980'' (2001). Waits also included a quiet performance of it during his 1999 appearance on ''

VH1 Storytellers ''Storytellers'' is a television music series produced by the VH1 network. In each episode, artists perform in front of a (mostly small and intimate) live audience, and tell stories about their music, writing experiences and memories, somewhat ...

''.

Springsteen version

The song, performed by

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...

and the

E Street Band The E Street Band is an American rock band, and has been musician Bruce Springsteen's primary backing band since 1972. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. For the bulk of Springsteen's recording and performing caree ...

, was released as the

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

of the 1984 single " Cover Me". Springsteen slightly rewrote it to replace a Waits line about "whores on Eighth Avenue" with "the girls out on the avenue", and added a verse about taking "that little brat of yours and drop

ing Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...

her off at your mom's" p. 55. (This line was originally written for "Party Lights", an out-take from '' The River'', which was not officially released until 2015). The July 9, 1981, performance from this stand was used on the "Cover Me" release. A few weeks later on August 24, Waits joined Springsteen on-stage at the

Los Angeles Sports Arena The Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena was a multi-purpose arena at Exposition Park, in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was located next to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and just south of the campus of the University of ...

to perform the song together. The July 9 performance of "Jersey Girl" was used as the closing track of Springsteen's 1986 box set ''

Live 1975–85 ''Live/1975–85'' is a live album by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, consisting of 40 tracks recorded at various concerts between 1975 and 1985, and released as a box set by Columbia Records on November 10, 1986. It broke the record for ad ...

'', as Springsteen and producer

Jon Landau Jon Landau (born May 14, 1947) is an American music critic, manager, and record producer. He has worked with Bruce Springsteen in all three capacities. He is the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and recei ...

felt it accurately represented the final phase of the loose story arc that connected the songs on the album together. "Jersey Girl" would become a Springsteen favorite, played often in New Jersey and sometimes

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

shows during the 1980s and early 1990s. Its appearances then became even rarer, being picked to open the last of 15 Meadowlands shows in 1999 on the

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour The Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour was a lengthy, top-grossing concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that took place over 1999 and 2000. The tour was the first set of regular concerts given by Sp ...

– as what ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' termed "a reward for he fans'faith and perseverance," close the last of 10 shows at New Jersey's

Giants Stadium Giants Stadium (sometimes referred to as Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands or The Swamp) was a stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The venue was open from 1976 to 2010, and it primarily hosted sp ...

in 2003 on

The Rising Tour The Rising Tour was a lengthy, worldwide, top-grossing concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that took place in arenas and stadiums over 2002 and 2003. It followed the release of their 2002 album '' The Rising''. Itin ...

, and be the next-to-last song in the three-show run at Giants Stadium in 2008 on the Magic Tour. The song was played as the first fan requested song at his October 3, 2009, show and was the final song performed during the last October 9, 2009, show before the demolition of Giants Stadium. Because the Springsteen version of the song was more played on radio and because Springsteen was often associated with New Jersey, it was not unusual for people to mistakenly think Springsteen had written it. The song is sometimes erroneously associated with the "Jersey Girl" cultural stereotype, but in fact it makes no mention of most of the traits — such as

big hair Big hair is a hairstyle that emphasizes large volume or largely styled hair, especially when those styles make the hair occupy a large amount of space above and around the head. The label "big hair" for such styles originated in the late 1970s, wh ...

— usually associated with that stereotype. One writer for ''

'' stated that "the Jersey girl, the one Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen sing about, knows she'll get what she wants," and listed Springsteen's wife

Patti Scialfa Vivienne Patricia Scialfa ( ; born July 29, 1953) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Scialfa has been a member of the E Street Band since 1984 and has been married to Bruce Springsteen since 1991. In 2014, Scialfa was inducted into ...

and Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman as examples that befit the song.

Personnel

According to authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon: *

– vocals, guitar *

Steven Van Zandt Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He is a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin ...

– guitar, backing vocals *

Roy Bittan Roy J. Bittan (born July 2, 1949) is an American musician best known as a long-time member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Nicknamed "The Professor", Bittan joined the E Street Band in 1974. He plays the piano, organ, accordion and synthe ...

– piano, backing vocals *

Clarence Clemons Clarence Anicholas Clemons Jr. (January 11, 1942 – June 18, 2011), also known as The Big Man, was an American musician and actor. From 1972 until his death in 2011, he was the saxophonist for The E Street Band. Clemons released several s ...

– maracas, saxophone, backing vocals *

Danny Federici Daniel Paul Federici (January 23, 1950 – April 17, 2008) was an American musician, best known as the organ, glockenspiel, and accordion player and a founding member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. In 2014, Federici was posthumously induct ...

– organ, glockenspiel *

Garry Tallent Garry Wayne Tallent (born October 27, 1949), sometimes billed as Garry W. Tallent, is an American musician and record producer, best known for being bass player and founding member of the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen's primary backing band si ...

– bass *

Max Weinberg Max Weinberg (born April 13, 1951) is an American drummer and television personality, most widely known as the longtime drummer for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and as the bandleader for Conan O'Brien on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' a ...

– drums

Other covers

Corinne Bailey Rae Corinne Jacqueline Bailey Rae (; born 26 February 1979) is an English singer and songwriter. She is best known for her 2006 single "Put Your Records On". Bailey Rae was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC po ...

covered the song on the 2019 compilation ''Women Sing Waits'' of various women singing Waits songs. *

Bagatelle Bagatelle (from the Château de Bagatelle) is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls (set at nine in the 19th century) past wooden pins (which act as obstacles) into holes that are guarded by wooden ...

covered the song on their 1998 album, ''Gold''. * Holly Cole included a version on her 1995 album of Tom Waits’ songs. The album is called Temptation. * Hell Blues Choir covered this song on their 2003 album "Greetings From Hell. The Tom Waits Songbook".

Reception

Bill Janovitz writing for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

feels it is one of Waits' most tender songs, and that it captures a feeling of romantic longing despite its somewhat gritty details.

References

{{authority control 1980 songs Bruce Springsteen songs Hal Ketchum songs Songs written by Tom Waits Tom Waits songs Song recordings produced by Bones Howe