Since the end of the 1970s, Summer had been known as one of the foundational pieces of the disco scene. From the romance of ‘I Feel Love’ onward, Summer epitomised the glamour of what was going on in the Studio 54 scene, creating songs about living life on one’s own terms.
One of the most significant pieces of Summer’s appeal was the representation in the disco scene. While Springsteen liked Summer’s voice, he thought that ‘Cover Me’ was too good to give away, saving it for his own album. Although some fans embraced disco with every fibre of their being, Springsteen could see the ugly side of the rock scene starting to turn on the genre for impure reasons.
Electing to give Summer the song ‘Protection’, Springsteen would express his grievances with having to take the thousands of racist comments lobbed in disco’s direction, saying, “She could really sing, and I disliked the veiled racism of the anti-disco movement”. It’s not like Springsteen didn’t have a point, either, with disco demolition in the 1970s showing the extent of how far people would go to hate music that black and gay people primarily made.
Considering the lyrics to ‘Protection’, though, it’s clear that Springsteen has his fingerprints all over it, creating a song about a woman who is just looking for some sort of protection from their lover. Given the amount of bile thrown Summer’s way for having hits, these words are so direct that she could have easily written it herself.