The Animals song Bruce Springsteen ripped-off for ‘Badlands’ | CPT PPP Coverage

Released as part of his enigmatic 1978 record Darkness on the Edge of Town, ‘Badlands’ has become one of the more legendary songs in Springsteen’s oeuvre. While it is certainly built out of the charming rock and roll that had shot Springsteen to the pinnacle of pop music in the 1970s — rich with textured piano, rolling rhythm and potent vocals — it’s the song’s inspirations that have always garnered the most amount of attention for audiences.

As well as being a national park in South Dakota, US, the most obvious connection is the movie of the same name from 1973 starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. However, the songwriter claimed to have not seen the movie before writing the track, despite having seen the poster in a cinema lobby. In truth, Springsteen simply liked the name as a potential title for the song, telling Rolling Stone in 2010: “Badlands, that’s a great title, but It would be easy to blow it. But I kept writing, and I kept writing, and I kept writing and writing until I had a song that I felt deserved that title.”

However, Springsteen would eventually see the movie and set about writing his heartbreaking beauty ‘Nebraska’ based on the film’s adapted story of the murderous Charles Starkweather.

The song reflects on the hopeful lovers of ‘Born to Run’ attempting to turn the treacherous society into something they can be proud of. Taking the characters of the previous album and building upon them, Springsteen used Darkness on the Edge of Town to cement his position as one of the finest songwriters of the moment. However, keen listeners soon picked out something about the song’s opening riff.

Musos worldwide noted the similarities between ‘Badlands’ and The Animals’ hit ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’, a cover of Nina Simone’s track. Rather than fighting the accusation, Springsteen quickly claimed the rip-off, sharing how influential The Animals were to him as a young and impressionable listener, happily sharing that he stole the riff from them, twisting the minor-key intro into a major-key and delivering a powerful riff.

Of the band, Springsteen said at his SXSW keynote speech: “For some, the Animals were just another one the really good beat groups that came of the 1960s. But to me, the Animals were a revelation. The first records with full-blown class consciousness that I had ever heard.”

Listen to both songs below.