Well the boardwalk’s glittering but the town remains the same
The future construct, the past annihilate
Of what used to be here, nothing remains
Only tourists looking to try their luck with fate
If you know how to handle things you’ll do more than get by
But if you can’t get it together, you’re lost
The cards are stacked against you but the stakes are high
And if you lose, man, you pay the cost
Well, baby
Nothing can be the way it was before
Nothing stays the same, you can’t go back no more
But we’re gonna make sure we don’t get left out in the cold
In Atlantic City
Rock’n’roll!
The schmaltz runs freely on the take-your-chance circuit
No admittance unless you’ve mainstreamed with class
It’s all agleam with new schemes but I’ll know how to work it
Maybe I’m a lowdown here but I’m gonna kick some ass
Now they say this town’s for class folks—no lowdowns here
This is no low-rent bazaar hawking low-class trash
The entertainment’s more sit-down than fall-down here
But I’ll find a way to reverse the flow of cash
Well, baby
Nothing can be the way it was before
Nothing stays the same, you can’t go back no more
But we’re gonna live it up before we get old
In Atlantic City
Rock’n’roll!
Well they say there’s supposed to be a beach here
How to reach it nobody knows, not a soul
Evidently there’s some kind of ocean
But all the motion’s where the wheels of fortune roll
Is this America’s number-one destination
A fine vacation spent in smoky dim-lit halls
All in pursuit of life, liberty, and the dollar
Well gimme a holler when your lucky star falls
Well nothing can be the way it was before
Nothing stays the same, you can’t go back no more
Well nothing can be the way it was before
So long, it’s gone, no more.
It’s just a shiny golden frame around a grimy old painting
That’s been slashed and burned with no mercy
It’s just a scam that’s been shammed through all kinds of tainting
Around what once was the pride of New Jersey
Well the expressway’s backed up three lanes into one
And they’re passing on the shoulders and on the right
Traffic laws don’t mean jack when there’s fortunes to be won
In the looming land of gleaming glittering lights
Well, baby
Nothing can be the way it was before
Nothing stays the same, you can’t go back no more
But we’re gonna hit it big before we have to pawn our gold
In Atlantic City
Rock’n’roll!
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
As you may have guessed, this song started as a response or maybe an offshoot of the song by The Boss. I began writing it when I was still in Israel during my army service in the mid-1980s, when all I had to work from was a memory of a trip I took to Atlantic City when I was 12 years old, in the pre-gambling era. From that I extrapolated what it might be like to settle there as an adult, trying to make my rock'n'roll thing happen amidst all the purveyors of casino entertainment.
Later on, in late 1989, I made my first trip to gambling-era AC. I played a few slots, won some, lost some, and generally wondered if this was all. I walked on the boardwalk and marveled how on a summer's day there were so few people to be found on the beach. But the thing that made the biggest impression on me was how the boardwalk glittered with the illusion of instant riches while the rest of the town moldered in poverty. I went back to Boston, where I was living at the time, and scribbled the first few lines of the song.
Two years later I was living on the Jersey Shore and I took the time to explore the region in depth, from Sandy Hook all the way to Cape May. Trips to AC during that time only reinforced the impressions I got on my 1989 jaunt. In the mid-1990s, when I was living in Philadelphia, I actually played gigs in and around AC. Every single time I went there, I felt like I was sprayed with a patina of cheesiness that I could only lose after showering multiple times afterward. Atlantic City, intended to be the Queen of the Shore (and perhaps even inhabited that role into the mid-20th century), was really an anomaly when compared to the other resort towns on the Shore.
(I will say, though, that the boardwalk area is quite photogenic ... if you suspend disbelief for awhile, you might actually catch a glimpse of the fun place it was originally intended to be.)
Musically, I always intended this to be a full-band piece, with the tempo a few beats per minute faster than the original song that inspired it. It was and is intended to be recorded for and included in one of my subsequent Soul In Exile albums, although by the time that happens, the lyrics might get a rewrite.