A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh)

A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh) was written in the late 70s or early 80s, around the time of the songs that would end up on THE RIVER. It was left off that album, and remained unreleased until the TRACKS box set came out in 1998. It's track 2 on disc 2 of TRACKS - by far my favorite disc. The song tells the story of a woman who has lost her husband. Reportedly the husband died in Vietnam (which would explain the Saigon line). The reference to the "meanness in this world" would later show up on the title track on NEBRASKA.

The song has only been played live once, on the Devils and Dust tour in St. Paul on May 10, 2005, as a dedication to a local police officer who had recently been killed in the line of duty. Here's a link to the audio.



The harmonica abruptly stops because Springsteen realizes he has the wrong key harmonica in his holder, so he whistles instead. I can't relate to that problem - I do the harmonica switches by myself, and I always check before the song anyway to see if it's the right one and in tune. Springsteen's stage crew must have assumed he'd need a D harp, since the studio version is in D. This live performance is in C.

My opinion of the song? It's pleasant enough, but not one of my favorites. It's in the unfortunate position of being in between 2 fantastic songs on TRACKS (Restless Nights comes before it and Roulette follows it - how could he leave those two off an album?). In my research for this post, I read the lyrics for the first time ever and can appreciate it more now. It's been on my list of songs to cover on my YouTube page. I think it would sound unique with just autoharp and harmonica. Only question is if it should be in the key of C or D.