Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
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Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) is the sixth song on The Wild, the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle, the second album released by Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. It is a story of forbidden love between the singer and Rosalita, who apparently lives with her parents and needs encouragement to "come out tonight," as this is the crux of the song. The singers wants to spend the night out on the town, and convince Rosalita to "cut loose her mama's reign." The singer suggests picking up "Little Dynamite" and "Little Gun." Both Dynamite and Gun quickly separate, to play with the bats in the belfry and try "out his attitude on all the cats," respectively Meanwhile, Rosalita's parents wait up for her and she is presumably worried about their reaction. The singer entices by mentioning the presence of "Jack the Rabbit" and "Weak Knees Willie," along with "Sloppy Sue" and "Big Bones Billy" and promising that they will "play some pool" and "skip some school." The singer explains that he understands why her parents don't like him (because he plays "in a rock n' roll band"), and claims that her father locked her in her room. The singers advises that Rosalita tell her father (who is worried that he doesn't have any money) that the "record company just gave (the singer) a big advance." On his way to pick Rosie up, however, the singer's "tires were slashed" and he "almost crashed." His car is "stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey." He begs that Rosie stay up for him and that, when they meet in the "morning light," he will hold her in his arms and take her to a cafe in southern California where "they play guitars all night and all day."
Springsteen once famously declared this song to be "the greatest love song I ever wrote."
First Line
"Spread out now Rosie doctor come cut loose her mama's reign"
Recognition
- The song is one of the Rock 'n Roll Hall Of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock And Roll" [1] (http://www.rockonthenet.com/artists-s/brucespringsteen_main.htm)
- The video occupied the #71 spot on Rolling Stone's 1993 list of the top 100 videos [2] (http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1993/rsvideo.htm).
External links
lyrics (http://www.xs4all.nl/~maroen/engels/lyrics/rosalits.htm)