1978 · Behind the Songs
A cover that changed direction.
“Fire” (1978) is a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song, but in the Pointer Sisters’ hands it becomes something else entirely. Anita Pointer sings it low, slow and suggestive, turning a rock song into a soul ballad that smoulders rather than burns bright. That change of temperature mattered. It gave the group a new direction, away from the lighter image of their earlier years and toward a more adult, confident sound.
The song’s success also showed how a good cover works. It does not copy the original; it finds a different feeling inside the same material and follows it. The Pointer Sisters did not try to out-rock Springsteen. They slowed the song down, let the vocal lead, and let the spaces between the lines do as much work as the lines themselves.