Adam Raised a Cain

A fan favorite, Adam Raised a Cain comes from the 1978 DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN album. The lyrics suggest one of the many songs Springsteen wrote about his "daddy issues." For some reason, the lyric that sticks with me the most is: "Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames"

[Tangent: in his acceptance speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, he thanked his father for all the great song inspiration. He said something like "if things always went great between us, I would have written nothing but happy songs all the time. I did that in the early 90s and it didn't work out so well."]

This song has been played on most tours since it was written. It was surprisingly absent from the River and Born in the USA tours, but was a major staple on the Tunnel of Love tour's setlists. It has been played a good amount of times on every tour since. It even got the bluegrass treatment in a fantastic version on the We Shall Overcome tour. Of the 10 different versions residing in my iTunes (notice I'm not posting any officially released versions on this blog - not sure about the rules regarding that so I'm being safe and not even going there), below are my favorite two.

A fantastic solo acoustic version from the Human Touch/Lucky Town tour in 1993:



A faithful-to-the-original version from one of the Boston shows on the Reunion tour in August 1999: