![\"Patti](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Patti-Scialfa-Bruce-Springsteen-2014-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
(Credits: Public Domain)<\/p>\n
Mon 27 October 2025 23:00, UK <\/p>\n
During the Springsteen on Broadway series of intimate storytelling gigs between 2017 and 2021, Bruce Springsteen<\/a> stopped short of calling the performances a \u201cone man show\u201d in the traditional sense. For one thing, it was still just as much a concert as a theatrical experience, and for another, \u2018The Boss\u2019 wasn\u2019t entirely on his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n Springsteen\u2019s wife and E Street Bandmate Patti Scialfa was also a part of most of these shows, usually joining Bruce for duets on a pair of songs from the 1987 album Tunnel of Love: \u2018Tougher Than the Rest\u2019 and \u2018Brilliant Disguise\u2019.<\/p>\n For well-versed Springsteen fans, the selection of those particular tracks may seem odd at first. Rather than a more obvious love song that might tickle the heart strings during Scialfa\u2019s nightly cameos, these were songs ostensibly about a rough-and-tumble youth trying to woo someone, in the case of \u2018Tougher Than the Rest,\u2019 and a much older rough-and-tumble man in the throes of total paranoia about his relationship, as expressed in one of the great anthems of emotional vulnerability, \u2018Brilliant Disguise<\/a>\u2018.<\/p>\n That latter track is generally believed to be a semi-autobiographical account of Springsteen\u2019s own crumbling marriage to his first wife, actor Julianne Phillips, whom he\u2019d started dating shortly after the release of Born in the USA in 1984.<\/p>\n \u201cSo tell me who I see \/ When I look in your eyes \/ Is that you, baby \/ Or just a brilliant disguise?\u201d<\/p>\n Bruce Springsteen \u2013 \u2018Brilliant Disguise\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The relationship with Phillips was doomed and would end after just a few years, but \u2018Brilliant Disguise\u2019 isn\u2019t just a woe-is-me story about a humble rock and roll singer worried about his professionally deceitful Hollywood partner. <\/p>\n Instead, the song reveals an important twist in the final run-through of its chorus, as Springsteen turns the spotlight on his own failures in the relationship and the possibility that he himself might be the one going through the motions dishonestly.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo when you look at me \/ You better look hard and look twice \/ Is that me, baby \/ Or just a brilliant disguise?\u201d<\/p>\n Bruce Springsteen \u2013 \u2018Brilliant Disguise\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which leads us again to the question: why on Earth would Springsteen choose to perform this particular song with the woman he married three years after his break-up with Phillips and the uncomfortable events that inspired \u2018Brilliant Disguise\u2019?<\/p>\n Well, as far back as 2005, during his appearance on VH1\u2019s Storytellers programme, Springsteen expressed the interesting way that this song had evolved in his mind over the ensuing two decades since he\u2019d recorded it.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess it sounds like a song of betrayal; who\u2019s that person sleeping next to me, who am I?\u201d he said. \u201cDo I know enough about myself to be honest with that person? But a funny thing happens: songs shift their meanings when you sing them, they shift their meanings in time. They shift their meanings with who you sing them with. When you sing this song with someone you love<\/a>, it turns into something else.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Songfacts, Bruce continued this line of thinking when introducing Scialfa and \u2018Brilliant Disguise\u2019 during his Broadway residency, explaining to the audience \u2013 albeit in a slightly roundabout way \u2013 how a song about distrust and paranoia can become a song about love and security; or how you learn to trust a partner against your own worst instincts.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this life, you make your choices, you take your stand,\u201d Springsteen said, \u201cAnd you awaken from that youthful spell of immortality where it feels like the road is going to go on forever. And you walk alongside your chosen partner with the clock ticking, and you recognise that life is finite, that you\u2019ve got just so much time, and so together, you name the things that will give your life in that time its meaning. Its purpose, its fullness, its very reality. This is what you build together, this is what your love consists of. These are things you can hold on to when the storms come, as they will.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Public Domain) Mon 27 October 2025 23:00, UK During the Springsteen on Broadway series of intimate storytelling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[7627,77,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-532168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bruce-springsteen","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115448949513738021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n