1982Released
3:56

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Atlantic City. By Songfacts®.

Atlantic City is an impoverished city in New Jersey where gambling was legalized in 1976. When casinos were built there in the early '80s, it was supposed to revitalize the city. The casinos made it a popular tourist destination, but the city itself continues to be very run-down. There is a stark contrast between the glamorous casinos on the boardwalk and the city itself. Atlantic City is also a haven for organized crime, and it's implied that the narrator in this song, who struggles with his finances and ruminates on the inevitability of death, as taken a job as a hit man.

This was the first Springsteen song to be made into a video (unless you count live performance clips), but Bruce does not appear in it. Springsteen had no interest in making concept videos, but an executive at his label, Columbia Records, named Arnold Levine knew that Bruce could benefit from exposure on MTV and put together the clip using footage of Atlantic City. MTV was based in New York and run by radio veterans who were big fans of Springsteen, so the video got some airplay on the network, which was trying to stick to a rock format in 1982.

Springsteen recorded this as a demo on a 4-track tape recorder in his house. After trying it with the band, he decided this and the other songs that would make up Nebraska sounded best as he originally recorded them.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Atlantic City.
EKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
108BPM

Album

The album Atlantic City is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Atlantic City.
Columbia
(P) 1982 Bruce Springsteen

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