(Note: Ward Hayden and the Outliers will be playing a Twangville showcase in NYC this Thursday. Details here.)
There’s something great about a summer song. Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” has long been a quintessential seasonal anthem, the perfect, rousing celebration of nostalgic good times. Bar band rowdiness in all its, well, glory.
But there’s another type of summer song, one that’s relaxed in its revelry. Think sitting at a lakefront beach rather than at the bar. Or if Bruce Springsteen was living in New England rather than New Jersey. That’s the feel that Ward Hayden and the Outliers bring to their new take on the Springsteen classic.
But Hayden and Company weren’t content to just take on the song. They took it one step further with a video that recalls Springsteen’s, right down to the closing vignette of father and child playing baseball at the end – in this case Hayden and daughter Dorothy. For those familiar with the original, that is only one of many throwback moments.
Says Hayden about the video:
When it came to my attention that Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” album would be turning 40….well, I felt like we had to do something fun for it. We were in the midst of recording a full length album of our interpretations of what’s ended up being around fifteen Bruce Springsteen songs. So, with that in mind, I started thinking about how much I used to love it when the Glory Days video used to pop up on the tv every so often when I was a kid. There was Bruce with his unusual pitching mechanics, standing out of the mound throwing the ol’ horsehide and then on stage in a bar rocking out with his band. I started talking over the idea with a friend of mine about doing something to honor the anniversary of the “Born in the USA” album and then the idea of digging into Glory Days came up.
I love the way the video shows him in his dead end job, stuck there just thinking back on the good times, but then it cuts to scenes of him with his kids and it illustrates how his life has pivoted. He’ll still always have those glory days to look back on, but he’s got some different priorities now and he’s making some new memories….even if work still sucks.
The irony isn’t lost on me that a song about nostalgia now triggers nostalgic feelings about the times of seeing the song on VH1 or MTV and thinking back on that era. I kinda love that. And I hope this song brings back some good memories to whoever hears it, and I also hope it helps create some new ones. Ahhhh, gotta love your glory days.
Twangville is honored to premiere the video for “Glory Days”, Ward Hayden and the Outliers forthcoming single. Perhaps they’ll treat us with a live version when they play the Twangville showcase in NYC this Thursday. .
About the author: Mild-mannered corporate executive by day, excitable Twangville denizen by night.