History
"Glory Days" was recorded in April or May 1982 (sources differ) during the first wave of Born in the U.S.A. sessions. Even though the album went through several different phases of what would be on it, "Glory Days" was always seen as one of the cornerstones.
The song is a seriocomic tale of a man who now ruefully looks back on his so-called glory days and those of people he knew during high school. The lyrics to the first verse are autobiographical, being a recount of an encounter Springsteen had with former Little League baseball teammate Joe DePugh in the summer of 1973.
The music is jocular, consisting of what Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh called "rinky-dink organ, honky-tonk piano, and garage-band guitar kicked along by an explosive tom-tom pattern." It also features a mandolin solo from Steven Van Zandt, one of the sideman's most noticeable instrumental contributions to the Springsteen studio canon.
An alternate mix of "Glory Days" has circulated, which includes a deleted third verse between the second and the last. The missing verse refers to the singer's father sitting on a bar stool at the legion, bitter over his lack of any "glory days."
The single peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles charts in the summer of 1985. It was the fifth of a record-tying seven Top 10 hit singles to be released from Born in the U.S.A. Marsh named the second volume in his biography after the song.
Read more about this topic: Glory Days (song)
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