Fire (Bruce Springsteen song)

Infobox Single
Name = Fire


Artist = Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
from Album = Live/1975-85
Released = April 1987
Format = 7" single
Recorded = December 16, 1978
at the Winterland
Genre = Rock
Length = 2:58
Label = Columbia Records
Writer = Bruce Springsteen
Producer = Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin
B-side = "Incident on 57th Street (Live)"
Last single = "War"
(1986)
This single = "Fire"
(1987)
Next single = "Brilliant Disguise"
(1987)

:"For other songs of this name, see Fire (song)"Fire" is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and originally intended for use by Elvis Presley. It was first recorded by Robert Gordon in 1978, who received some modest album oriented rock radio airplay with it. It was then recorded and released by The Pointer Sisters later in 1978, who gained a major hit from it, reaching number two in early 1979 on the U.S. pop chart.

Although he performed the song live from his 1978 tour onwards, Springsteen himself did not release his own recording of the song until his 1986 "Live/1975-85" album, which contains his (heavily edited, to eliminate on-stage hijinks) 1978-12-16 performance. This version was released as a single (which contained the only "official" live version of "Incident on 57th Street", until its appearance on Live in Barcelona, as B-side), but did not succeed, reaching only number 46 on the U.S. pop chart. A music video for the song was released at the time, but confusingly showed a completely unrelated 1986 acoustic performance at a Bridge School Benefit concert.

A cover version of "Fire" was recorded by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and Des'ree, for the soundtrack of the 1998 motion picture "Hav Plenty".

Robin Williams parodies "Fire" in the voice of Elmer Fudd. ( "I'm dwivin' in my cah / I tuwn on the wadio ... 'Cause when we ki-i-i-iss / FIWE!" )

Credits (Pointer Sisters version)

*Lead vocals by Anita Pointer
*Background vocals by Anita Pointer, Ruth Pointer and June Pointer

References

* Marsh, Dave. "Glory Days: Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s". Pantheon Books, 1987. ISBN 0-394-54668-7.