Manfred Mann - My Little Red Book

First performance: 1965-1968

Coverinfo

Bruce Springsteen has performed My little Red Book with his early (1965-1968) band The Castiles. Unfortunately, there is no audio recording of a Springsteen performance of the song, nor do we know specific shows when he performed it. The only testimony came from Springsteen himself in 2011. Steven Van Zandt has been hosting Little Steven's Underground Garage since 2002, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock sub-genres from the fifties to the present day. To celebrate the show's 9th anniversary, Van Zandt co-hosted three episodes of the show with Bruce Springsteen. The episodes aired on the weekends of 01, 08, and 15 Apr 2011, and during each of them, the two talked mainly about their musical influences and played the records that they grew up on, were influenced by, or simply loved. On the second of the three episodes, Springsteen played Love's version of My little Red Book , "something [Bruce] used to play with his band The Castiles," as Van Zandt explained.
 
 

Songinfo

"My Little Red Book" is a song composed by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David. In the wake of the British Invasion, Bacharach, a former bandleader for Marlene Dietrich, began working hands-on with beat groups of the era such as Manfred Mann. Manfred Mann recorded the song for the 1965 film What's New Pussycat?, filmed between October 1964 and June 1965; the entire catalogue of music for the film was written by Bacharach and David. 
 
 
 

Other cover versions

  • In 1966, the song became a rock standard when remade by the Los Angeles based group Love. Love's adaptation was the opening track for their eponymous debut album. and was released as a single with the B-side "A Message to Pretty". Love's version gained moderate mid-chart success and with its radical interpretation of the original's pop sensibility, became a garage rock standard.
  • The Beach Boys
  • Pandora's Box 

Bruce on the artist

Lyrics

I just got out my little red book
The minute that you said goodbye
I thumbed right through my little red book
I wasn't gonna sit and cry
And I went from A to Z
I took out every pretty girl in town
They danced with me and as I held them

All I did was talk about you
Hear your name and I'd start to cry
There's just no getting over you, oh, no

I bet there ain't no girl in my little red book
Who could ever replace your charms
And each girl in my little red book
Knows you're the one I'm thinkin' of
Oh won't you please come back
Without your precious love I can't go on
Where can love be, I need you so much

All I did was talk and talk about you
Hear your name and I'd start to cry
There's just no getting over you, oh, no

Oh won't you please come back
Without your precious love I can't go on
It's haunting me, I nee you so much

All I did was talk and talk about you
Hear your name and I'd start to cry
There's just no getting over you
All I did was talk and talk about you
Hear your name and I'd start to cry
There's just no getting over you, oh, no