Bruce Springsteen’s Be True was one of those songs that somehow slipped through the cracks for me over the years, only to be rediscovered while researching this project. When I relistened to it after an absence of at least three decades, the feelings I had listening to it as a teenager came flooding back. The song rekindled that aching longing for young love – the kind that feels pure and hopeful. At that age, one barely even understands what love is, yet Bruce Springsteen somehow managed to evoke vivid images and emotions of what it could, and perhaps should, look like.
For those of us who were into Bruce Springsteen at school, his music taught us things about growing up that the classroom never could. He was almost like an older brother figure – someone willing to speak openly about feelings and experiences nobody else seemed to explain. His songs seemed to say: this is what’s coming, this is why you feel the way you do, and you’re not alone in it.
There was something both reassuring and inspiring about that. Bruce had already lived through those uncertain young adult years and was writing honestly about the hopes, fears and confusions we were so curious about, yet still frustratingly ignorant of ourselves. As he famously sang in No Surrender:
“We learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school.”
The live rendition of Be True below was captured during the early leg of the Tunnel of Love Express Tour at Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, MI in March 1988. This highly acclaimed performance was officially featured on his live four-track Chimes of Freedom EP, which was released to support Amnesty International.
The song was originally written and recorded as a studio outtake during the The River sessions in 1979 and initially appeared as the B-side to the Fade Away single in 1981. It was left off the River in favour of Crush on You. It’s hard not to feel Be True deserved a spot there too.
I’m glad the concert version of Be True gives more room for Clarence Clemons glorious saxophone playing and the song warrants it. It may well be my favourite Springsteen song built around the Big Man’s sax work. It has to be one of the best songs left off The River – an absolute cracking track.
[Verse 1]
Your scrapbook’s filled with pictures of all your leading men
Well baby, don’t put my picture in there with them
Don’t make us some little girl’s dream that can’t ever come true
That only serves to hurt and make you cry like you do
Well baby, don’t do it to me and I won’t do it to you
[Verse 2]
You’ve seen all the romantic movies, you dream and take the boys home
But when the action fades you’re left all alone
You deserve better than this, little girl, can’t you see you do?
Do you need somebody to prove it to you?
Well, you prove it to me and I’ll prove it to you
[Bridge]
Now every night you go out looking for true love’s satisfaction
But in the morning you end up settling for lights, camera, action
[Verse 3]
And another cameo role with some bit player you’re befriending
You’re gonna go broken-hearted looking for that happy ending
Well girl, you’re gonna end up just another lonely ticket sold
Cryin’ alone in the theater as the credits roll
You say I’ll be like those other guys
Who filled your head with pretty lies
And dreams that can never come true
Well baby, you be true to me and I’ll be true to you
[Outro]
Woah
Ooh yeah yeah, yeah
Woah
Ooh yeah yeah, ooh yeah
Ooh yeah
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
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