Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

This song tells the story of the E Street Band coming together. On Springsteen's first album in 1973, he played a lot of the instruments himself and loaded the songs with lyrics. The band was far more pronounced on their next album, released later that year, which incorporated their name: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. By the time Springstreen released Born To Run in 1975, his E Street band was crucial to the sound. Later on, Springsteen released the albums Nebraska and The Ghost Of Tom Joad without the band, but they didn't sell nearly as well as the ones they played on.

Tenth Avenue runs through E Street in Belmar, New Jersey. The band got their name from the street, which is where their keyboard player, David Sancious, lived. Springsteen, however, has said that he has no idea what a "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out" is.

The "Big Man" in the third verse is Clarence Clemons. Springsteen met him in 1971 when Clemons came into a club called the Student Prince in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where Bruce was playing. It was a stormy night, and the door flew off the hinges when Clemons opened it. Springsteen would talk about how he "Literally blew the door off the place." In Clemons' autobiography Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales, he explained: "It was one of those nor'easters - cold, raining, lightning and thunder. Now, this is God's honest truth. I open the door to the club and a gust of wind blew the door right out of my hand and down the street. So here I am, a big black guy, in Asbury Park, with lightning flashing behind me. I said to Bruce, 'I want to sit in.' He says, 'Sure, anything you want.'" Clemons was working as a social worker at the time and playing in a Jersey Shore bar band when he got his big break with Bruce.