Who was the “chicken man” that Bruce Springsteen blew up?

There’s a section in Questlove’s book Mo Meta Blues where he ponders over the difficulty of telling the story of an influential artist. He discusses people like Prince and Jimi Hendrix and asks how you can ever tell a story that perfectly reflects just how much an influence that person has had, not only in their prime but ever since.

He raises a very good point. Here at Far Out, we love writing about classic artists, and in doing so have told countless stories about the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Hendrix, and still we are uncovering new information about them and more, new ways they have inspired people and even newer ways they continue to cement themselves in culture. How do you ever put people with such a tremendous finger on the global pulse into a story that does their impact justice? The short answer: you can’t.

These days, when people are making biopics about a specific artist, they seem to focus less on trying to tell the story of their life and instead want to give the viewer a quick snapshot. We saw that recently with the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown, which focused specifically on Dylan’s decision to go electric and the “disaster” that was the Newport Folk Festival. There is obviously a lot more to Dylan’s story than that, but this gives viewers a quick glimpse into a pivotal turning point in his early-career life.

The next biopic that fans are excited to watch is Deliver Me From Nowhere, which will focus on Bruce Springsteen. Again, rather than tell Bruce Springsteen’s life story, this film is going to focus on when he locked himself in isolation to make the record Nebraska. There are stories to tell about all of Springsteen’s albums, but Nebraska is arguably the most poignant, as it was made during a dark period for singer.

“It’s an interesting concept, because it’s only a couple of years out of my life,” commented Springsteen when asked about the upcoming biopic. He went on to say that he made the album when he was “going through some personal difficulties that I’ve been living with my whole life”.

That difficult period is well and truly present in Nebraska. From the opening track, when a melancholic wail of a harmonica pierces through the speakers, the listener is taken to the dystopian America that the singer writes about throughout the album. The whole record tells stories about some of the most evil people Springsteen can think of, most of which are inspired by real people.

There are plenty of lyrics that stick out to the listeners, and an entire book would be needed to go through the list of references throughout; however, one that always sticks out when listening to the album is the opening line on the track ‘Atlantic City’. Springsteen opens this with, “Well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night, now they blew up his house too”. Such a strange opening line certainly raises a trifling question: who the cluck is Bruce Springsteen talking about?

So, who is the “chicken man”?

As previously mentioned, the majority of people that Springsteen references on Nebraska are inspired by real people, and that applies to the song ‘Atlantic City’. When Bruce Springsteen sings about the “chicken man”, he is specifically talking about the mob boss Philip Testa. He was involved in a poultry business, which is why he was granted the nickname “chicken man”.

While some of the people in the album are based on fact, not all of the lyrics can be used as a reliable source. For instance, while the reference to Testa is featured on a song called ‘Atlantic City’, Testa was associated with the city of Philadelphia. However, he did meet a gruesome end, as he was killed by a nail bomb in his own home in 1981, hence why Springsteen went with the lyric “they blew up his house too”.