In the spring of 1984, the biggest single in America was “Dancing in the Dark,” the lead-off hit from Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. Millions of buyers flipped the 45 over and discovered that the B-side was no throwaway. “Pink Cadillac” — a sly, swaggering rock-and-roller about love, cars, and bad decisions — sounded like a hit in its own right. It was, in fact, a song with a long and winding history: written more than two years earlier under a different title, recorded twice, cut from the album at the last minute, and destined to become one of the most famous B-sides of the decade.
Springsteen wrote the song in December 1981, originally calling it “Love Is a Dangerous Thing.” The inspiration was pure rock-and-roll archaeology: Elvis Presley’s 1954 recording of “Baby Let’s Play House,” in which Elvis sings about a woman who “may have a pink Cadillac.” Springsteen lifted the image and built a whole song around it — a playful, double-entendre-laden number that winked at its own naughtiness. He first recorded it acoustically in January 1982, during the sessions that would become the stark Nebraska album, then cut the full-band version in the spring of 1983 during the Born in the U.S.A. sessions.
The recording itself has the feel of a happy accident. It was cut spontaneously at the end of a session, with the E Street Band nailing it down and finishing the track the following morning. The lineup is classic: Springsteen on vocals and guitar, Clarence Clemons on saxophone, Garry Tallent on bass, and Max Weinberg on drums. Critics have compared its groove to Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” theme — that same prowling, minor-key menace — and Rolling Stone would later place it at number 84 on its list of the 100 greatest Springsteen songs.
It is worth pausing on that first acoustic recording from January 1982, made during the Nebraska period. The contrast is delicious: the same writing desk that produced murder ballads and haunted highways also produced a winking song about a pink Cadillac. That is the duality of Springsteen’s craft in those years — the folk singer’s storytelling instinct living inside the rock-and-roller’s swagger. When the E Street Band cut it fifteen months later, spontaneous and live to the floor, they simply turned up the volume on what was already in the song’s bones.
But “Pink Cadillac” didn’t make the album. In the final sequencing of Born in the U.S.A., it was bumped to make room for “I’m Goin’ Down” — a decision Springsteen has never fully explained but which speaks to the absurd wealth of material he was generating in those years. Instead of disappearing into the vaults, though, the song was chosen as the B-side of “Dancing in the Dark,” released May 3, 1984. Radio programmers, never ones to ignore a good thing, started playing the flip side. “Pink Cadillac” spent 14 weeks on Billboard’s Top Tracks chart — the airplay chart — peaking at number 27, an extraordinary run for a song you couldn’t buy as a single.
The song had already lived one strange second life before the B-side ever shipped. Bette Midler had recorded it for her 1983 album No Frills — but Springsteen, protective of the song, blocked its release. It was a rare assertion of control from a songwriter who usually let his cast-offs roam free. Consider that this is the man who gave “Blinded by the Light” to Manfred Mann — who took it to number one in 1977 — and “Because the Night” to Patti Smith, who took it to number 13 in 1978. “Pink Cadillac,” apparently, was one he wanted to keep for himself.
He couldn’t keep it entirely. In mid-1987, at the suggestion of her producer Dennis Lambert, Natalie Cole recorded “Pink Cadillac” as the third single from her Everlasting album. Released in March 1988, it became one of the biggest hits of her career: number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 5 on Cash Box, number 9 on the R&B chart, number 16 on adult contemporary, and number 1 on the Dance Club Play chart. In Britain it reached number 5 — her first UK top ten — and it was her first American top ten since “I’ve Got Love on My Mind” in 1978. It went Gold in Canada. Springsteen’s throwaway B-side had become someone else’s career record.
The song’s afterlife didn’t stop there. In 2006, Jerry Lee Lewis recorded it with Springsteen himself contributing vocals, and an animated video aired on CMT — the Killer and the Boss, together at last, on a song about a pink Cadillac. It was a fitting coda: a song inspired by Elvis, blocked from Bette Midler, and kept off one of the biggest albums of all time had finally become a standard — the kind of song that belongs to everyone.
What to listen for
“Pink Cadillac” is the ultimate Springsteen deep cut that isn’t really a deep cut at all — a B-side that outgrew its station, a cast-off that became a standard. It reminds us that in 1983 and 1984, Springsteen was writing so many good songs that he could afford to leave a future top-five hit on the cutting-room floor. Most artists would kill for his leftovers.