Steve van Zandt:It's really hard to write a really good song. For him to write good songs, possibly could have been hit songs, and to not put them out, to put them aside -- an enormous amount of discipline and willpower to do that. It's a bit tragic in a way, because he would have been one of the great pop songwriters of all time.
Bruce Springsteen:Steve always had a great ear for - and still does - he loves the classic pop… The three minute pop single for Steve. I think part of what pop promised and rock promised was the never ending "now." The always - "No no no - it's about living now. You need to be alive right now." For those three minutes - it was all on. It was all of a sudden you were lifted up into a higher place of living and experiencing, and there was this beautiful, ever-present "now."
Steve van Zandt:He just can do anything. He can write anything. For anybody. And he just very much took that for granted, which is how a lot of our poppier stuff ended up not being released. One great example that I think would have fit on "Darkness at the Edge of the Town" was "Because the Night."
