Graham Parker & The Rumour - Paralyzed

First performance: 00/12/1979

Coverinfo

1979-12-00 Power Station, New York City, NY

Springsteen drops into the studio (the same one where The River sessions are taking place), jams with Graham Parker & The Rumour and ends up recording support vocals on one or both of the two above-mentioned tracks. It is not certain that Springsteen actually sings or plays on "Paralyzed". 
 
 

Songinfo

Paralyzed is a song taken from the album The Up Escalator , released on April 1980. The Up Escalator was released as the follow-up to Parker's successful 1979 release, The Rumour's keyboardist, Bob Andrews had left the band after the Squeezing Out Sparks tour, being replaced on The Up Escalator by studio musician Nicky Hopkins, the E-Street Band's Danny Federici, and Peter Wood of Quiver. The album was produced by Jimmy Iovine, who had been a popular producer at the time for his work on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Damn the Torpedoes and Patti Smith's Easter. The track "Endless Night" features backing vocals from American rock musician Bruce Springsteen, who named Parker as the only musician he would pay to see perform.
 
 
 

Other cover versions

Bruce on the artist

Lyrics

I'll wait for someone to tell me what I already know
And I'll wait for my grip to fail me then I'll just let it go
She's so hard to please so I just freeze
Nailed down by whispers, looks and sighs
And I'm so paralysed, I am so paralysed
I wait for you to disown me when you leave I won't look
I wait for someone to phone me with the phone off the hook
I get up to leave but I just deceive
You all the time pretending i'm
So paralysed I'm so paralysed
I'm so paralysed I'm just paralysed
I wait for mistakes to happen so I can't put them right
I wait for someone to latch on, but no-one's that bright
I say it can't be done, let's turn and run
Completely normal in my own eyes
To be so paralysed
Got the fear of falling from a great height
Can't open my parachute stiff with fright
I woke up naked in the high street
With lead boots on both feet
I was paralysed I'm so paralysed
I'm so paralysed
She's so hard to please so I just freeze
Nailed down by whispers, looks and sighs
And I'm so paralysed, I am so paralysed
Got me so paralysed, I'm so paralysed
I am so paralyse, I am so paralysed