In 1984, the actress played a young fan in the audience who joins the musician onstage during his concert
Courteney Cox has shared a cute new video featuring some iconic dance moves, just in time to mark a special occasion: the 40th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s classic album Born in the U.S.A.
In the clip she shared on Instagram, which features the words “Asking my mom how she danced in the 80’s” across it, the mom and actress is seen in a zipped-up hoodie and jeans with her hands in the air, attempting to dance to Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy.” As she moves for a few beats, it’s clear she’s just not feeling it. She shakes her head, unzips her sweatshirt like a record scratch to reveal a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band T-shirt, and the song switches to “Dancing in the Dark,” the biggest single from Springsteen’s bestselling album Born in the U.S.A.
Cox smiles and grooves to the Springsteen song, and then the clip flashes to the original video for the track. In the music video, Cox portrays a fan in the audience who is invited onstage by Springsteen, and the two dance together toward the end of the visual. The music video was partly shot live at the band’s June 1984 concert in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg and keyboardist Roy Bittan discussed making the video.
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“It was an interesting approach and something different for us,” Bittan said of the video. “The way it was staged was not probably quite our wheelhouse, but certainly had made a great impression on MTV. I think, of course, the song was so great that we probably could have done any number of different videos and had the same result.”
Weinberg added, “Most of it was recorded before the concert. It was recorded the night before, as a real Hollywood sort of production. They brought in about 500 people, and we did it over and over again. I had headphones on, because I was playing to the song. We must’ve played it 15 or 20 times in a row. And during the show, they did it again, with a full audience. Courteney Cox was there. Basically we did the concert, and we stopped, and Bruce announced to the audience, ‘We’re going to make a video.’”
