On this day in 1984, New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen releases \u201cPink Cadillac\u201d as a B-side to \u201cDancing in the Dark,\u201d which will become the first and biggest hit single off \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.,\u201d the best-selling album of his career.<\/p>\n
Springsteen, who got his start playing in bar bands on the New Jersey shore, won a contract with Columbia Records in 1972. With the release of his third album, \u201cBorn to Run\u201d (1975), Springsteen was touted as the new face of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll in America, and he appeared on the cover of both Time and Newsweek that year. Though \u201cBorn to Run\u201d contained no breakout hits, tracks such as \u201cThunder Road,\u201d \u201cTenth Avenue Freezeout\u201d and the title track all got heavy radio airplay. In 1980, Springsteen scored his first real hit single, \u201cHungry Heart,\u201d off his fourth album, \u201cThe River.\u201d Outside the recording studio, he had become known for playing marathon live shows with his E Street Band.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The success of 1984\u2019s \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.\u201d would propel Springsteen to international stardom and secure his image as the iconic rock \u2018n\u2019 roller of the era. \u201cDancing in the Dark\u201d was the first of 10 hit singles off the album. \u201cPink Cadillac\u201d had first been recorded in an acoustic version during the 1982 sessions that became the album \u201cNebraska.\u201d It was considered for inclusion on \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.\u201d but didn\u2019t make it, and was released as a B-side instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cPink Cadillac\u201d was Springsteen\u2019s second song to reference the classic car brand created in the first years of the 20th century by Henry Leland. (The first, \u201cCadillac Ranch,\u201d was included on \u201cThe River.\u201d) Elvis Presley, whom Springsteen (and countless other rockers) looked to as an early inspiration, famously bought a blue Cadillac Fleetwood in 1955 and had it painted a special shade of pink dubbed \u201cElvis Rose.\u201d He then gave it as a gift to his mother, who didn\u2019t drive. That same year, Elvis and his band got into a serious accident in the car in Texarkana, Texas. The King\u2019s pink Caddy\u2013which he mentioned in the 1955 song \u201cBaby Let\u2019s Play House\u201d\u2013was repaired, and today remains on display at the Elvis Automobile Museum at his Memphis, Tennessee mansion, Graceland.<\/p>\n
Though Springsteen played \u201cPink Cadillac\u201d live over the years, it was not included on an album until 1998, when it appeared in the box set \u201cTracks,\u201d a collection of outtakes from the rocker\u2019s long career. In 1988, the R&B singer Natalie Cole scored a hit with her up-tempo version of \u201cPink Cadillac,\u201d which rose to No. 5 on the Billboard pop music chart and to the top of the dance charts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On this day in 1984, New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen releases \u201cPink Cadillac\u201d as a B-side to \u201cDancing in the Dark,\u201d which will become the first and biggest hit single off \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.,\u201d the best-selling album of his career. Springsteen, who got his start playing in bar bands on the New Jersey shore, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automotive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}