WHEN BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN BECAME THE BOSS (1974 - 1988) / THE WHOLE STORY

*This entry is comprised of all previous seven, for those who may be interested in reading the whole thing non-stop.





I was listening to BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN the other day, and I thought it'd be cool to write something about him. Not to introduce him or to discuss whether I find his political views more or less appealing (it's been a long time since his activism in this regard is very, well, active, and much talked about), but mostly to talk what I really like about him, which is his music.

Not the current one, mind you, for I haven't paid much attention to anything he's put out in a very long time, and my interest towards his current records is almost nonexistent, being MAGIC (2007), the american's last album I was willing to listen. I am talking about new music of his, of course, and not about the umpteenth reincarnation of old songs (SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY, from 2018, for example) or unreleased stuff, dating from his best years, which has seen the light of day long after.

That's why I want to talk about what I (and everyone else for that matter, I guess) consider his classic era, which is the one running from 1974 to 1988. At first I thought about reviewing only the songs I deem essential (for there are some forgettable moments as well) out of the six studio records which were released during those years, until I realized there were just a few songs which were going to be left out, and that it made perfect sense to discuss them all. And as what you are about to read began to develop, my ideas and my goals concerning it increased, so I've tried to go much further, to the point of choosing to split this entry in several smaller entries, to make the reading easier for those who might be interested.







Not only I'm still listening to these albums many years after, but they also were my own personal soundtrack during the days when there was not so much music within my reach as there is now. I'm talking about the time between 1984, when I first knew of Springsteen, and 1992, when he came back to the spotlight, years after the release of the last album to be talked about here, with his then new records HUMAN TOUCH and LUCKY TOWN, already without his famous backing band, THE E STREET BAND.

I have to admit I did not own all these records back in the day, and that's why there are songs whose original version I wasn't able to listen to until years later. That's why the role that LIVE 1975-85 (the monumental live album with forty songs that Springsteen released in 1986) has played is paramount. This record was my way to get to know many of these songs for the first time, and it also includes some live versions which are much better than those on the original records. The latter also works for all those songs from Bruce's first two albums which made it onto this one. Said albums were GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, NEW JERSEY and THE WILD, THE INNOCENT & THE E STREET SHUFFLE, both from 1973, but I have never been a fan of theirs, above all after listening many of their songs in subsequent and much improved live versions. Live 1975-85 is like the companion piece to the studio records from this stage in Springsteen's career. But there is a lot of more.

So this is The Boss' musical journey during the most important fourteen years of his career. Every single minute of the music I am about to discuss has already been analyzed to the fullest by people who know much better than I do, and there is a lot stuff which can be found some other place. But the stories, anecdotes, memories and personal opinions can't be read anywhere else! 





BORN TO RUN



Born To Run / 1975




BORN TO RUN, the album which became a turning point for the singer (born in Long Branch, New Jersey, 23-09-1949), opened with one of the songs he is mostly known for, the very famous THUNDER ROAD. This original version (it was going to be called WINGS FOR WHEELS, a name after which a documentary about how Born To Run was born was named after; that documentary was premiered on the occasion of the release of the reissue which marked the album's 30th anniversary, and was part of the extra stuff that came with it), a full band rock song, is ok. Springsteen said he had envisioned Born To Run as a series of little vignettes devoted to follow the main character during a long summer day. I guess that plan could not be developed to its fullest, for some other songs deal with almost the same subject, but Thunder Road's opening harmonica could be a sign of a new day rising and many things to come. This character invites his girlfriend (MARY) to a trip which allows them to run away from the apathy and a not very promising existence, and this is some kind of metaphor in regard to the rebelliousness of many of the singer's heroes. Those people rebel in the face of the environment and what little luck they have been handed (It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win). The funniest thing is that the narrator tells Mary that he does not think she is beautiful (he doesn't think greatly of himself either), although he also says to her that she's ok and that that is more than enough for him. Different times, for sure, but that way to start any kind of proposal to a woman doesn't sound very flattering. And it does sound patronizing by the suitor, so I am curious about what certain segments of the current american citizenship (those who are the closest to Springsteen's politics, by the way) would have thought of a line like that (You ain't a beauty but hey, you're alright. And that's alright with me) had this song been released during much more recent times.

Fun facts: there's a direct tribute to ROY ORBISON (one of the singer's heroes) and one of his songs (ONLY THE LONELY, 1960), and the first line's second half (Mary's dress sways) has been the subject of a neverending, decades long, debate about whether the song says sways or waves. This is something I had never noticed, until a few years ago, when I realized that the people who took part in a Facebook forum about Bruce Springsteen argued over it. And all this because of a typo on the album's first pressings, which stated the latter. It never ceases to amaze me how people can waste their time over the most stupid things. I had always thought that what Bruce sang was sways, for that was what was said on the lyrics sheet which came with Live 1975-85, and it seems like I was right, for JON LANDAU (Bruce's manager) himself pointed to waves as a typo on the artist's own website in 2021, only forty six years after the album was released.

But the most important thing about Thunder Road, as far as I am concerned, is that the album's version was completely overshadowed by the piano and harmonica-only live one which opened Live 1975-85, and that I happened to listen before the original one. Not only it is much better, despite the beginning being pretty much the same as in the original version (until the whole band starts to join, little by little, after the 1'15'' mark of the latter), but I also highlight it as one of live music's finest moments, in my opinion. The atmosphere that Springsteen is capable of achieving with so little cannot be put into words, beginning with ROY BITTAN's improvised first piano notes, before the harmonica joins, and following with Springsteen's every single word and his way of singing them. The finishing sax solo is replaced by a harmonica one. I just struggle when listening to this song if I don't listen to this specific version. It set the bar really high and nothing is as good as this is. Thunder Road is Bruce Springsteen's second most live played song ever, no less.

I remember one of my birthdays, many years ago, for which some friends of those days collected some money in order to buy me a present. That money was enough to get that live album. One of them told me I'd soon get tired of it, given the unusual size of the record. I did not mind him and, as soon as I listened to this song's opening notes, I knew I would never regret my choice. And I never did. I also remember how surprised I got when I listened to the original version soon after, because back then I did not know it was a full band electric rock song.

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away.


THUNDER ROAD




TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT is a good song, and an autobiographical and metaphorical one, about how the E Street Band got together and the uncertainty and scarcity of those humble beginnings after two unsuccessful records. Springsteen admitted, many years after, he still did not know what the title of the song meant. The lyrics name characters such as BAD SCOOTER or BIG MAN, with both initials of that first name standing for Bruce Springsteen, and being the second one the best well known nickname of the enormous (in every sense of the word) saxophonist CLARENCE CLEMONS. Just like it happens with Thunder Road, the original version of this song is not on par with its livelier and harder rocking live one, because this song, as it is on the album, has a shorter and slower beginning, and gets closer to some other styles like soul music or who knows what. It needs to be stood out, in the live version on Live 1975-85, the amazing reception provided by the audience during the beautiful intro, played by a horn section (which can also be found later in the song, and whose creation, guitarist STEVE VAN ZANDT's contribution was paramount to; this musician was also one of the stars on the very famous HBO TV show, THE SOPRANOS), and the following mass hysteria which ensues when Springsteen addresses Clemons with his already mentioned nickname. Bruce would many years later use this song as a live tribute to Clemons himself and DANNY FEDERICI (organ and accordion), after both of them had passed away, in 2011 and 2008 respectively. The aforementioned horn section is played in this live version by THE MIAMI HORNS.

When the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band.






Times got hard and Bruce was desperate for
some new winter clothes




NIGHT is one of the album's best songs and the shortest as well. The overall feel is one of both celebration and urgency, for the lyrics glorify nightlife and leisure time as ways of channeling the main character's usual longing for action, once his routines are over. At night he can take part in motor racing and perhaps, find something else afterwards (the very much discussed about obsession of the singer with cars and girls, subjects that, as a matter of fact, have already been dealt with in Thunder Road). It is funny, because Springsteen admitted to having spent a great deal of time penning the lyrics for this record, because he wished to provide his characters with deeper personalities, thus evading the usual rock & roll clichés; but as much as one should not stick to what seems obvious, all this sounds quite cliché to me. Not that I care too much about it, mind you, and it's always a good thing to celebrate freedom, as this track does. In spite of its merry tone, what I enjoy the most about this song is the darker and more dramatic contrast produced by the bridge which comes before the refrain. Clemons and Bittan shine during the merrier sections, while the guitar does in the others. Great song.

Losing your heart to a beautiful one.


NIGHT



The vinyl first side ended with BACKSTREETS, a very special number which could easily be among the best two or three on the whole album. Bittan's opening piano, together with Springsteen's later guitar riff, turn the beginning of this song into legendary stuff. The melancholic nature of the whole thing lies in the fact that it is (according to the singer's own autobiography) about a broken friendship, although there have been several interpretations concerning this, given the ambiguity that comes with TERRY being the name of the person this story is aimed to, what could even imply some kind of gay relationship. That doesn't look feasible though, given all the times the singer has addressed Terry with female pronouns when playing this song live. There has also been talk about an adulterous relationship which could have involved SUKI LAHAV, the violin player from Israel who was part of the E Street Band for a little while (her husband, LOUIS, worked as an engineer for Bruce, and as a sound technician in some of his shows as well, and they both went back to Israel to never come back; they were known to having divorced soon after). Be that as it may, and be this story autobiographical or not, it's easy to understand the artist's frustration with lines like the moving I hated him and I hated you when you went away (careful, for those two people who are the target of the singer's bitterness may point at some of the things that have already been told) which is sung right before the guitar solo. Whatever the nature of the relationship the song is about may be, said relationship was doomed from the get go. The song's ending, just like what it feels like the end of a cinematic romantic drama, is also spectacular.

One soft infested summer, me and Terry became friends.


BACKSTREETS

BACKSTREETS - LIVE / 07-07-1978, ROXY THEATRE, HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA



Time for BORN TO RUN itself, one of those songs which are synonymous to Bruce Springsteen, to the point of becoming the scarcely imaginative title for the already mentioned autobiography. However, it has never meant that much for me, and seldom have I felt the thrill that a great deal of humankind seems to experience when this song is played (not even in a live setting, where this track improves dramatically). Not a bad song though, and it's also quintessential of everything that someone like Springsteen means to the world at large, through and through. It summarizes in less than five minutes some of his most usual themes: the same that can be found in Thunder Road, mind you, with a car and a girl whose name is WENDY this time (A runaway american dream, in Springsteen's own words). I guess that not even Bruce himself could have ever envisioned the dimension this song would achieve. Music-wise, it stands out mostly because of the famous guitar riff which almost everyone is familiar with and that, according to the singer, became Van Zandt's biggest contribution to his music, thanks to the guitarist involvement in the creation of said riff. Little else to say, as far as I am concerned. A true anthem to individual freedom, and an everlasting one (the single, most played live song of Springsteen's gigantic repertoire), but to these ears, the least appealing song, together with Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, on the whole record.




Springsteen in 1975




SHE'S THE ONE beginning and overall progress is led by the piano, and its intensity increases as the rest of the instruments join. I have always linked this song to Night, although I don't know why. Maybe because they both are two out of the three lesser known tunes on Born To Run. It's quite fun, and I love the brief detour the song experiences by 2'30'', when the guitar takes the spotlight, right before Clemons' sax solo; according to Springsteen, listening to him playing that solo over some beat that he had in mind was the main reason why this song was conceived, and the rest came next. The lyrics were said to be mixed up, in the beginning, with those which ended up in Backstreets. She's The One is about the recurring subject of a femme fatale who wreaks havoc on the singer's mood, but I'm not sure whether that woman is an ex or someone who is close to become one.

French kisses will not break that heart of stone.





Born To Run is much more than a rock album. I'm not talking about its cultural impact, which is also obvious, but to the fact it explores musical styles different than just rock. And yet, it would have been difficult to foresee the arrival of something as out of the ordinary as MEETING ACROSS THE RIVER, a song which has more to do with jazz music than with anything else, thanks to the input of guest musicians RANDY BRECKER (trumpet) and RICHARD DAVIDS (double bass). Rock instruments are nowhere to be seen (or heard). But, against all odds, I love it. It is just brilliant, and it also tells a noir story in which a small time, clumsy criminal (he doesn't even have a plan and has to borrow some money to carry out his idea), is presented with a last shot at changing his luck which involves getting a big chunk of money that also convinces her girlfriend (who is threatening him to leave) to stay by his side. In order to achieve his goals, he has to meet someone first. This song is said to link the previous ones, whose action is located in the Jersey area, to the very last one, who is set in New York, for this is about the two main characters (the narrator and his pal EDDIE) crossing of the Hudson river to meet their contact on the other side. Given their intentions are shady (a theft or something of the sort), this song was first called THE HEIST, relating a hypothetical robbery. Most likely, the album's least popular track.

Got a meeting with a man on the other side.





But Meeting Across The River is not only great by itself; it also works just fine as an introduction (as it has been explained, and sometimes in concert too) to the great JUNGLELAND, the album's closing track and one of Springsteen's most accomplished compositions ever, on all fronts. There is much more than just a sax solo here, but truth is, this song will go down in history as Clarence Clemons' finest recorded hour along Bruce Springsteen, thanks to a lenghty and legendary sax solo (over which he had to go for times on end during sixteen long hours until Bruce was happy with every bit) which is just unforgettable and which provides the song with a great filmic atmosphere. One can picture tons of scenes out of classic movies from those days while that section of the song plays. To be honest, in my opinion this track loses some of its initial steam after said solo, but never to the point of letting the listener down during the last third of it. Apart from that, the most remarkable thing here is Suki Lahav's contribution, together with Bittan's, at the very beginning of the song. The subsequent development of the whole thing is flawless, and the next big thing to be notices is the fierce guitar solo during the song's hardest rocking part. Jungleland tells the story of MAGIC RAT, one guy who seems to be in his element while around gangs and suburban landscapes (another character who is in the margin of society, in search of something which gives some meaning to an existence defined by its own background), his relationship with some lady known as BAREFOOT GIRL, and his tragic ending.

The street's alive as secret debts are paid.





Clemons and Springsteen during the mid seventies




Out of the then E Street Band members, the only ones who haven't been mentioned yet are GARRY TALLENT (bass), MAX WEINBERG (drums) y DAVID SANCIOUS (keyboards). Another drummer, called ERNEST CARTER, played in Born To Run. And as for a musician as important and related to Springsteen's career as Steve Van Zandt is, he also took part in the recording process, once it was almost finished, and little before joining the band full time during the tour, in which he handled most of the guitar duties (lead guitar, mostly).

Both the singer's two previous records (released through COLUMBIA) had drawn the attention of the critic, but little else. They were not, by any means, a commercial success. I guess that Springsteen's subsequent status as a rock star has meant that those two albums have both ended up being successful, but they were not when they hit the shelves. Quite the opposite. That's why the state of things was a little bit dramatic for Bruce and his environment back then, given that the company's faith in him was decreasing. This added to the fact that those who were in charge of said company had been replaced. After Bruce refused to record away from home, with some producer chosen by the record company, and with session musicians, instead of his trusty colleagues and friends, he was given an ultimatum by Columbia: they agreed on funding another record; just another one, and if it failed, Springsteen would be out. His last studio album, ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE, saw the light of day in November 2022, also through Columbia, so I guess it can be said that being Springsteen on Columbia's roster fifty years later, is a good way to measure the success of Born To Run and the singer's later global fame.

Producer MIKE APPEL managed to get a tad bigger budget for the recording, in return for it to take place at 914 studios, where the Boss had recorded his first two efforts. This record is also famous because of its slow and tough recording sessions, due to a large extent to the obsessive perfectionism of the artist regarding absolutely everything. The outcome had to be exactly identical to what was in his head. That's why multiple takes of every instrument were recorded for every song. After six long months, Sancious and Carter left, being replaced by Bittan and Weinberg. The band got better because of that, and it also helped to ease some tension, but there were no solutionyet for some problems related to the recording. Apparently, the studio was not on par with all of Bruce's requirements, equipment-wise. There were several others, of course, but they were expensive and a lot of money had already been spent.

It wasn't until Landau (a writer and producer with whom Springsteen had made friends the previous year, despite his being critical of Bruce's early records) entered the scene, as coproducer, by the beginning of 1975, when things atarted to get better. Landau not only suggested several changes which happened to be of Springsteen's liking, providing the record with a new focus, but he also pulled his strings for the recording sessions to decamp to RECORD PLANT studios, also in New York. What's more, he was the one who came up with the famed sentence I saw rock & roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen, after watching the Boss playing Born To Run soon before the album was released. That statement had been published, within a piece written by Landau, on a newspaper called THE REAL PAPER, and was later used to advertise the album.



Get back to work Bruce, this is taking very long




But no matter how clearer things were starting to get, for the album sessions continued to be endless and Springsteen's perfectionism did not ease in the slightest. It was during the spring of 1975, give or take, when Van Zandt joined the band, after his brilliant contribution to Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out. The whole thing experienced a huge final rush for the record to be mixed and mastered, because Springsteen and the boys had to start touring. In fact, said mastering was done while they were already on the road and Bruce did not like it at all, to the point that he almost dismissed the entire affair to try record the album pretty much live in the studio. Landau talked him out of it and Bruce eventually accepted one of the mixes, only one month ahead of release day.

The album was produced by Springsteen, Appel and Jon Landau, and the legendary picture that can be seen on the front cover was taken by ERIC MEOLA. It was recorded at the aforementioned 914 and Record Plant studios, and was released on the 25th of August, 1975 (through Columbia). It is regarded by many as Springsteen's finest hour. A lawsuit filed against Mike Appel (the singer's manager up until 1976), concerning Springsteen's career management and several financial issues, delayed the release of Born To Run's follow-up record. The E Street Band tried to make the most of that situation to tour tirelessly (THE LAWSUIT TOUR), until it was agreed that Springsteen bought out Appel's share of the deal, which allowed him to enter the studio once again.

Born To Run saved Springsteen's career and helped launching him into super stardom, and while I'm writing this, it has turned fifty years old. To commemorate the occasion, LONELY NIGHT IN THE PARK, an unreleased track from those sessions, has officially been unveiled. Not that I find it especially remarkable, after a couple of quick listens, but it is meaningful as a document. Some unpublished pictures of that photo session with Meola have also seen the light of day the light of day.

Speaking of The Sopranos, one of the times Bruce and the guys played Born To Run in its entirety, was during one show in Coventry, England, on the 20th of June, 2013, one day after the passing of the great JAMES GANDOLFINI, leading actor on that show and Springsteen's personal friend, Said show was dedicated to him.








End of the first chapter





DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN



Darkness On The Edge Of Town / 1978




Just like Born To Run did, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, the next step in Springsteen's career, opened with another of his most important and best known songs. I'm talking about BADLANDS, a true anthem in every sense of the word which depicts the narrator's determination to keep on going no matter what (perfectly stressed by the singer, mostly in the refrain), regardless of how big the setbacks are (those badlands the song was named after and that, perhaps, had something to do with the recent lawsuit which had allowed the Boss to regain control over his career). I've always had the feeling that this song implies a turning point in every Springsteen show, for audiences all over seemed to consider it, right from the start, some kind of mass celebration. And maybe Badlands is aimed straight at those people, his people, begging for the attention he could not have when he wasn't allowed to enter a studio. As I've read, that section in which the song calms down (despite Weinberg's military tempo), right after the guitar and sax solos, seems to be pretty much the Boss summoning his hordes. This is quite striking when played live, and it is exactly what I meant when I talked about a big celebration, which finishes with Bruce dedicating the song to those who dream and chase their dreams (For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside).

And if it feels like rocking harder than before, it is because it does; Springsteen wanted to simplify this record's sound, when compared to the previous one, and his interest in the punk rock of those days did the rest. The outcome is his hardest rocking album and the one which is the closest to hard rock music, and this statement begings to be noticed in Badlands, which features less intricacies and a more noticeable presence and power by the the guitars. The way they join the rest of the band during the second half of each verse is just thrilling. There's also another solo by Clemons, although something like that is the exception rather than the rule on Darkness On The Edge Of Town.

As a fun fact, it has to be said that Bruce himself admitted the influence of THE ANIMALS on this album, to the point of joking, during a 2012 show, about having plagiarised the riff of one of their songs, DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD, to use it in this song. Badlands is, as of today, the fourth most played live song by Springsteen and his band.

We'll keep pushin' 'til it's understood and these badlands start treating us good.


BADLANDS




ADAM RAISED A CAIN carries on making Springsteen's new musical intentions clear, and he punishes his instrument from the get go. The verses seem to slow things down, but the assault is resumed with every bridge, giving way to a fierce refrain in which Bruce's voice is backed by the backing vocals provided by Van Zandt and Clemons, as it happens again at the end of the song. The beginning of another noisy guitar solo by Springsteen takes the song back to where it started. Adam Raised A Cain is about the strained relationship between the artist and his dad, using some biblical references, although the title of the song does not make too much sense if you ask me, for the main character has no siblings and neither does he anything evil. He only longs for his dad's acceptance, while harboring some resentment towards him after realising that his own personality and his current situation may have their origin in his parent. Because the song implies that the main character, not a kid anymore, has to go back home (maybe his mom has something to do in that situation as well). Said previous departure from the family home links this track to another one created during these years and which would soon see the light of day. The main character has nothing to do with Cain as far as his sin is concerned but maybe he does when it comes to his own exile, and that could be the reason why this song is called like that. Amazing tune, no matter what.

In the darkness of your room your mother calls you by your true name.



ADAM RAISED A CAIN - LIVE / 07-07-1978, ROXY THEATRE, WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA



Bruce Springsteen has written many slow songs during his career, and SOMETHING IN THE NIGHT has to be among the greatest. The buildup at the beginning, with the piano, some beautiful guitar touches, the singer's screams and Weinberg's incoming entrance, joining little by little, is more than enough to draw the listener's attention, But this only has begun. I don't consider myself good enough at writing to make the reader picture in their heads all the memories and childhood images this song brings back to me, in spite of having begun to listen to it years after said childhood had started to become itself just another memory. And I'll never be able to thank Springsteen enough for being himself capable of something like that, no matter how little the song's message has to do with the nostalgia it causes me.

The lyrics are quite introspective, for they describe the sadness of a main character who doesn't seem to find any meaning in life, because, as he says, you are better off with nothing, like when you are born, for the moment you own something, life manages to take it away from you. Could it be this song Springsteen's initial contact with the depression he's been linked to, depending on the time? This song could very well be personal, for it names some of the places around the area he grew up in. Perhaps it also had to do with that lawsuit with Appel, given that the lyrics were changed since the song's was created, and they became more bitter. Mere speculations, of course. Bruce's vocals, those little guitar nuances, and Weinerg's hitting are the best things of an eternal song.

Nothing is forgotten or forgiven when it's your last time around.





Those wild days




The very short and intense CANDY'S ROOM is one of my favourite songs by the american rocker. Just like that. The opening piano and the singer's almost conversational tone hide the turbulent ending which awaits just around the corner, mostly after Springsteen's violent guitar solo. The way it all gets bigger and bigger, from what is listened to at the beginning, to reach said ending, is just tremendous. Candy is a lady with many suitors (it is said that she actually is a hooker, although some ex-girlfriends of the artist have claimed to be the person the song is all about; or maybe is just about some guy trying to make advances with someone who is out of his reach, or just an amalgam of several girls), but according to the narrator, she doesn't realize that who she actually wants is him, despite how naive that may sound. We do not know anything about the tru ending though. This is Bruce Springsteen at his overall best, and this song was created from two different ones, which I think is praiseworthy (even more so if I keep in mind what one of those two songs is like), but more on this much later on.



There's a sadness hidden in that pretty face.


CANDY'S ROOM

CANDY'S ROOM - LIVE / 08-07-1981. MEADOWLANDS ARENA, EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY



RACING IN THE STREET is another track which plays in the same league Something In The Night or Backstreets do, so it goes without saying that this one is very good too. It also adds some evident sadness to the nostalgia. Some scholars have deemed it Bruce Springsteen's best song ever, no less, and he considers it one of his favourites.

It is built with Bittan's piano as basis, around which the rest of the instruments join, and there's even a middle section where the drums make us think that maybe this song changes its mood. No way. It all goes back to how it used to be and some backing vocals can be heard behind Bruce's voice and the piano. The last two minutes (this track is reasonably long, clocking in at almost seven minutes), both instrumental, and already with Fedrici's organ, are the stuff of legends, despite they can be a tad overwhelming (depending on the listener's mood), given the melancholic feel of the whole thing. Racing In The Street is about the main character's passion for driving his 1969 Chevrolet (he addresses his car as a she, and it has been souped up in an unlikely fashion, according those who know their way around cars) along his friend SONNY, and to take part in races with it. He doesn't want the circumstances and the limitations of a life with just a few hopes to keep him away from his true passion, and he wants that passion to distract him from said circumstances as well. But his girlfiend, a woman whom he began dating after he had beaten at motor racing the guy she was with, doesn't share his same vision. That's where the true drama within the song resides, and also where the narrator casts some light and hope on (despite what the music suggests) with those two finishing lines (Tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea and wash these sins off our hands), which seem to aim to a compensation to his woman. Cars and girls, once again, although much more than just that.

Now some guys they just give up living and start dying, little by little, piece by piece.


RACING IN THE STREET

RACING IN THE STREET - LIVE / 06-07-1981, MEADOWLANDS ARENA, EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY



THE PROMISED LAND is one of the album's most accesible moments, at least when it comes to its music, and a stark contrast with Racing In The Street to open the second side of the original vinyl. But that's just on the surface for, even though the music sounds more optimistic, the lyrics may be open to interpretation. It wouldn't be surprising to know that many people think this is about having a vision and a dream, and taking a step foward towards that promised land the song is named after, but you could also deduce that the main character, given the kind of life he lives, only wishes to escape. One could also deem those two things as equal, but while there is a more or less specific goal in the first one, the only thing that is wished for with the second is a change. This song, just like Racing In The Street did, leaves Van Zandt and Springsteen's guitar playing in the background, standing out because of its very famous harmonica riff, although Steve has his own moment to shine on lead guitar, and Clemons shows up with another sax solo. The live version on Live 1975-85 is much better than the original one and, according to Wikipedia, this is the third most used number by Springsteen on stage.

Apparently, this song was born after a trip to Nevada that Meola, Van Zandt and Bruce made in 1977 in search of inspiration. Springsteen links it to that time when he wasn't allowed to record, amidst the aforementioned lawsuit with Appel, something that affected every single member of the band, not only him, and The Promised Land brims with desperation, but also with non-conformism and a desire to go beyond all restrictions. So it could definitely be about heading to a promised land, rather than the promised land. About escaping from something. Although I guess it actually is about what the listener considers more suitable, depending on their mood.

Mister I ain't a boy, no I'm a man, and I believe in the promised land.



The famous Fender Telecaster




If I have to point out the album's least appealing track, that would be FACTORY, and yet it manages to stand its own ground quite decently. It is the shortest of them all, and it tells about the dreary and unexciting routine of someone who works in a factory. Despite the little excitement provided by the lyrics, this song is a slow one with a certain lullaby flair to it during its refrain, which has the virtue of soothing one's spirits and, somehow, making you believe that perhaps there's a better future out there for the main character. All because of Bittan's gleaming piano playing and Federici's organ, with even a brief solo by the latter. This is a little tribute to DOUGLAS, the artist's dad, as that person who is fed up with his day job, but still goes back to it on a daily basis to provide for his family. But one thing's certain: the last line warns the listener about the complicated character of this person, as if someone at home was going to pick up the pieces of the whole situation. Bruce also employs expressions such as Mansions of fear and Mansions of pain, in contrast with that one to be noticed in Born To Run, Mansions of glory; this could imply a feeling of guilt, because while he's been able to make his dreams come true, his dad hasn't. The fact that songs like this or The Promised Land are the ones which stand out the least on this record, only speaks volumes of the level of quality of it.

Through the mansions of fear, through the mansions of pain, I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain.





STREETS OF FIRE isn't as bleak as Adam Raised A Cain, despite the opening organ and Bruce singing as if he was tired, but both songs share their sheer musical power, thanks to a powerful and brilliant refrain and another thunderous guitar solo. One of the most heavy metal moments of Springsteen's career. But it is bleak when it comes to its story, for that is one of a loser and his dark thoughts concerning everything that is happening to him. Another one of my favourites within Bruce's canon.

And I'm lying, but babe I can't go back.





The trail of great songs to be found on this record goes on with PROVE IT ALL NIGHT, one of the best loved ones by the fans. This is about the bond shared by the two members of the protagonist couple. They could also share a shady past (at least him, for he tells about how difficult was to get his hands clean), but said bond seems to be the only thing they have to face an unfriendly environment. You and me against the world. Again, there's not a known ending for this story. Music-wise, this is another energetic rock song with a legendary chorus, the third and last sax solo by Clemons, and another shining moment for Springsteen as a guitar hero.

But there's much more to be told. On one hand, Bruce wanted for this album that more straightfoward sound that I talked about when I reviewed Badlands and, on the other, he was going through a phase (as he explained in his autobiography) in which he felt he had to show the whole world his chops on the guitar, as if he needed to prove everyone that he was a better player than he was expected to be. The number of guitar solos on Darkness On The Edge Of Town (at the expense of the sax ones), and their nature, might be an indication of what I've just said and, if memory serves, all this ended up with an extra dose of stress during the subsequent tour and Bruce's own internal admission of being a failed guitar hero.

What does it all have to do with Prove It All Night? The fact that this song could very well be the best example I can use to illustrate the one and only objection I have regarding a record which is brimming with some of his greatest songs, a total all killer, no filler affair: almost every song on the album is outshined by its own, later live version. That sought after sound was achieved on the recording, but pales a little bit when compared to what would soon be showcased during the live shows. And besides, Bruce took advantage of this song to introduce it on stage with a lenghty guitar solo that could allow the audience to notice that he was a guitar player worthy of mention. Same at its very end. This is one of the reasons people like it so much, specially because this idea of extending the song that way was restricted to that year of 1978, save for some later, limited exceptions. Prove It All Night is not on Live 1975-85 (neither in a extended version, nor in a regular one), something that was criticised back in the day, but I can't help myself posting here one of those longer versions, as a video footage with great quality. The melody Springsteen comes up with during the solo is just memorable, and the whole thing becomes something else. Something much better than the original counterpart. The famed show from the 19th of September, 1978, first of three in a row at the CAPITOL THEATRE in Passaic, New Jersey, happens (or happened, for Bruce has the healthy habit of putting up for sale every single documented show, past or present, and with flawless sound quality, on his website) to be Springsteen's most famous bootlegged show ever, and it's good proof of the hard rock sound of the whole band during that tour, besides featuring another great version of Prove It All Night.

To buy you a gold ring and a pretty dress of blue.





What a great kid!




DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, the very well known title track, goes back to a subject already dealt with on this album, through the account of another loser who refuses to give up, while uses motor racing as a last resort. Something similar to what was depicted in Racing In The Street? I have read an essay on this which can be summarized in a way I find brilliant: this song is pretty much about the contradiction which entails being elusive to defeat, while also being an addict to those things that foster it. That's the darkness the song is about. Something that prevents the main character from getting better and to which he seems to surrender: his own addiction to those races, which so far has costed him losing bis wife. In any case, Bruce himself admits that one of the song's finishing lines (Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop), far from meaning what it does within the song's context, has gained a new meaning as time went by. One of commitment and dedication to his fans.

This track escalates little by little, around the piano once more, and I love the moment everything explodes and the remaining instruments join before the chorus. Federici's glockenspiel (some kind of big xilophone) can be heard, the refrain is glorious, and so is the way the guitar solo replicates the main melody. Another belter, no doubt, but overshadowed (as happens to most of the songs on this album) by its own live versions, like this one from Live 1975-85.

Well, if she wants to see me, you can tell her that I'm easily found.






The Boss, in 1978




All seven usual musicians (Springsteen included) of that time have already been named before, and the only flaw I can find on this record is the one I mentioned while speaking about Prove It All Night. This means a complete success, as far as songwriting is concerned, but also that the E Street Band sounded more convincing on stage. Deliberately or not, Bruce and the boys made of that set of songs something wilder while played live during the supporting tour.

Springsteen wrote most of the songs while on the road, amidst that period of time when they all toured Europe and The States because they could not enter a studio to record, as a result of the feud with Appel. Bruce ended up with dozens of songs, and eventually got Appel's share of the contract (in May, 1977), in exchange of money and a share of the royalties derived from Bruce's first three records. Right after that, the band entered the studio (ATLANTIC, in Nueva York), but a few months later, an unhappy Springsteen chose to go back to Record Plant, showing new signs of the over the top perfectionism that had pervaded Born To Run's sessions, although there wasn't so much attention to detail this time around, and Bruce let things flow in a more natural way. The goal was a more restrained and stripped-down sound (this turned the record into a harder rocking one, with less rhythm & blues influences; it was less successful too) which could blend top notch performing professionalism, as expected by Landau, with the garage sound that Van Zandt wished. Springsteen admitted that his and Landau's scarce background as producers meant a hindrance to achieve said goal. As for poor Van Zandt, he wasn't very happy with the outcome, because he deemed the production to not be on par with some of the band's best and most important songs. Bruce lent some of his creations to other artists, and many others would later see the light of day, one way or another.



At the helm of something really big




I don't think I would have ever noticed something like this, and I am not someone to obsess over the lyrics of an album either, but I've read that some critics did mention that every track on the first side has a counterpart on the second, lyrics-wise. It could be true, for there could be some similarities between Badlands and The Promised Land, the father and son relationships found in Adam Raised A Cain and Factory follow suit,and on and on. Those lyrics also leave the Jersey shore (Bruce's usual environment) behind, to spread around the entire country.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town was produced by Springsteen, Landau and Van Zandt. The front cover pic was taken by FRANK STEFANKO, and the album was released on the second of June, 1978, through Columbia once again; Bruce asked the company to not advertise the record at all, given the criticism received because of Born To Run, and taking advantage of the recently regained control over his work. This had been a long awaited album, but the expectations were not meet, success-wise, so Bruce had to change his mind regarding the advertising. But the subsequent tour was different, for rhe singer and his band took no prisoners, destroying every town in their wake. As for the front cover artwork, the picture looks plain old and homemade, although as expected, there is a higher artistic purpose which goes beyond what meets the eye. In relation to the subjects of the songs and the dismal nature of the record, the photographer just wanted to portray the young man he had in front. And nothing else, looking tired and devoid on any relationship with fame.





End of the second chapter





THE RIVER



The River / 1980




THE TIES THAT BIND opens THE RIVER, the gigantic, double fifth effort by Bruce Springsteen, for which he opted to slow Darkness On The Edge Of Town's sonic assault down a little and expand his musical palette. Some songs could still remind of the not so distant previous record, but this one is different, wider in range and less guitar-driven than Darkness.This first track somehow falls in the middle, being more straightforward than some others on this record (in fact, there is no involvement by either Bittan Or Federici, which I think has to be quite unusual), but at the same time, not as hard rocking as most of the songs on Darknesse. Backing vocals take place more often and they are a tad over the top sometimes, something that influences what I just said as well. But this is a terrific song no matter what, and very popular too, featuring an amazing refrain and another solo by Clemons, which joins the next verse flawlessly, thanks the beautiful guitar transition provided by both axemen. The lyrics tell us about some woman who wants nothing to do with anyone anymore, after going through difficult relationships, to whom the narrator (who might be responsible of her situation, given a connection which seems more obvious by the end of the song) encourages to not leave all that behind and embrace the responsibilities which come with a relationship. That's the tauntness between the need for loneliness and the longing for being with someone, which can be found in some other songs too.

You sit and wonder just who's gonna stop the rain.




SHERRY DARLING was a Darkness outtake which did not make it onto that record because it did not share the overall sombre overtone of it. Of course it didn't. This is Springsteen at his most carefree, lightest and danceable, in a song that smells of old school rock and roll with no social ambition, drama or trauma to vent about. You can even listen to a partisan crowd making some noise, as if this song was a live take, something that aimed to evoke the spirit of said kind of music (when, according to the singer, the audience was twice as noisy as the playing band itself). What is achieved here is the feeling that this band is playing at a very small venue or bar, in front of friends and acquitances, with a mutual understanding between both parties. The guitar plays second fiddle this time, except for a brief solo, and is Clemons who shines the most. This meant party time to a extent that Bruce used to take some girl out of the crowd for her to dance with him. If this sounds familiar, it is because of something I'll explain later on. The main character tells Sherry, his girlfriend. that he really loves her, but he doesn't like driving her mom around all the time. In Bruce's own words, he wasn't counting on that package deal, and it doesn't make him happy.

Well I got some beer and the highway's free, and I got you and baby you got me.





JACKSON CAGE lowers the merry atmosphere of the two previous tracks, but it is on par with them concerning its musical quality. Guitars are more noticeable, but that prominence is shared with the keyboards, and there's also a harmonica solo. As for its subject, this song is a tad ambiguous, and I have several options: the first one is that the cage the title is about is a metaphor aimed to depict the monotony of a place called Jackson (there's a town with that name, very close to where Springsteen grew up). But there also is (or at least was) a prison sharing that name in Michigan, which was the largest in the whole country when The River was released. I even thought, after taking a look at the lyrics, that, given they are about some woman, that cage might be a brothel. And I've also read about the possibility of a self-imposed prison by the narrator's girlfriend, because, he is indeed serving time. If the song is actually about a prison, the sentence would be life, which means that said girlfriend has to carry that cross as well. The narrator asks her to move on and live her own life without minding him.

Every day ends in wasted motion, just crossed swords on the killing floor.





TWO HEARTS is one of the noisiest and most straightforward numbers on The River, and also one of the most accomplished. Another short affair (the shortest one), potent and lively, with a great chorus which just makes the message clear: it is always best to be with someone than being alone, come what may. This is similar to what was seen in The Ties That Bind, but with a different main role, although it doesn't look like that at first.

Two hearts are better than one, two hearts, girl, get the job done.






Anybody there?




INDEPENDENCE DAY belongs with Bruce's best songs, and within that moving bunch in which Backstreets, Racing In The Street or Someting In The Night can also be found. After four short and exciting songs, along comes the first slow one, and it happens to be better than any of the previous ones, and almolst than all of them combined (it depends on the listener's mood too). This is a shining example of why Springsteen has made a name for himself as a glorious storyteller, and he also excels here as a vocalist (that line in the first refrain, in which he sings It's independence day, all down the line, and the way he sings it, have always hit me hard). Federici and his organ become key here, and there's also piano, acoustic guitar and another sax solo, and this is another song about complicated father and son relationships. That independence the song is named after has to do with that of the children when they leave home, but in this case is the result of father and son not being capable of living under the same roof. The boy addresses his father and, despite acknowledging all the nasty stuff his old man has had to endure, and the similarities between the two of them, tells him that the darkness of that house has got the best of them, and that their never-ending arguments make impossible that thay both share it any longer. Thre is émpathy, anger, gratitude, sadness, apologies and, for the time being, a goodbye, but this song needs to be listened to, no matter what, for any positive remark I could come up with about it, wouldn't do it any justice. Springsteen himself says about it (and about three other numbers on The River) that it is at the very heart and soul of this album, and it began to be played live during the previous tour, because it was written for Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Besides being an amazing song, it works just fine as a bridge between both records. Because the narrator does not seem to have a specific goal, to begin with; he only knows about what he wants to run away from. But not only from a broken relationship with his dad (Adam Raised A Cain), but also from the future that awaits him if he stays and follows in his father's wake (Factory). Independence Day also talks, almost by its end, about the recession experienced by the city they both live in, which becomes another incentive for the kid to leave.

Papa now I know the things you wanted that you could not say.






HUNGRY HEART shares some aesthetics with Sherry Darling, but this one is taken to higher levels of accessibility. This is a very light song, and a little tiresome one from time to time, and yet it conjures so many memories that it is impossible to be left behind. And if I have to be honest, it has never ceased to be pleasant to me. Weinberg's opening hitting, together with the piano this tracks is based on, feel pretty much like listening to the same old christmas carol for the umpteenth time, but only paying attention to it and without it becoming annoying. Like coming home. That beginning gets even better in the live version on Live 1975-85, when it is welcomed by such an ovation that it gets difficult to not get goosebumps. It needs to be told that said live take is from the end of 1980, only two months after the album's release, and it was getting that kind of reception already. The verses are fun, although some of them could do better without so many backing vocals (with the involvement of some extra musicians), but it is an endearing number, in any case. The weird thing about it is that its lyrics are darker and more deceitful than they may look, if the music is to be taken into account. Its name comes from the book ULYSSES (ALFRED TENNYSON, 1842), a tale about the rejection of the monotony and the unhappiness which come with getting older. That seems to be what fuels the actions of the main role here, a scumbag who tells a guy called JACK, in a Kingstown bar, how he abandoned his wife and kids in Baltimore, and met another girl in Kingstown afterwards. I had always thought that he left that second girl too, once he got bored, only to come back to her time after because he didn't want to be alone. But I've read another interpretation in which he and that second girl agree on leaving their respective pasts behind (she is in a relationship too) and meet once again in Kingstown. I don't find that very accurate, because it would mean that the narrator has to go back to Baltimore, and he says he never did, at the beginning of the song. What is true is that his every move is driven by his own selfishness, always at someone else's expense.

As fun fact, it has to be said that Bruce wrote this song for JOEY RAMONE (thinking that it did not fit within the overall sound of the record), who had asked him a song for THE RAMONES. This kind of move had already been done by the artist before, and Landau was a tad fed up with it, so he advised Springsteen to keep Hungry Heart for himself. He was right, for The River became Bruce's most successful album to date and Hungry Heart, which was released as the first single, was his highest ranking one up to that point, and his second ever in the american market.

Hungry Heart has been featured in several films and so on, but I always remember it as the song chosen by the character portrayed by OSCAR ISAAC, while playing an album in one of those jukebox machines, in an episode of HBO's miniseries, SHOW ME A HERO (2015). It told the sad real life story of NICK WASICSKO (Isaac), who became Yonkers (New York) youngest mayor ever between 1987 and 1989, besides being a huge fan of Springsteen. That TV show used several of his songs.

I went out for a ride and I never went back.






Everybody's got a hungry heart




OUT IN THE STREET is another lively tune, although it has more in common with something like The Ties That Bind than with distinctly rocking numbers like Two Hearts, which also has another solo by Clemons. This is Springsteen enjoying friday at night, when the weekly work is over and it's time to feel free again, let oneself loose, to be with those you want to be and to do as you please, even if only for a limited amount of time and with the close presence of the authorities, as the song also explains. It is like a counterpoint for Bruce's many other songs, in the shape of that well deserved freedom which comes with weekend for the usual uncomplaining heroes of his stories. His dad, for instance. At the end of the song, Bittan, Van Zandt and Springsteen sing along, and there's a moment in which Van Zandt is left on his own (his voice is quite recognizable) with the line Meet me out in the street. This little trick, to name it somehow, would become something to provide the song with a merrir atmosphere in subsequent tours, asking the audience to join and alternating the singers. The Boss becoming one with his people, be them band mates or fans, just like the song aims to do.

Put on your best dress baby, and darling fix your hair up right.





The least remarkable song so far is CRUSH ON YOU, in spite of its festive spirits and an undeniable similarity to many of the songs THE ROLLING STONES are famous for. Springsteen sings in a very high pitch, although that is not what bothers me, but the refrain, which gets a little bit tiresome. I also think that this track could have done better without the sax solo (not an instrument I'm very fond of, to be honest), and that's something I can say about Van Zandt's slide guitar too. This is about a woman who is driving the narrator crazy, and how he envisions her in several scenarios and situations. Springsteen went as far as to name this song the dumbest one he had ever recorded, and one of his worst as well. Unfortunately, the latter statement is far from being true, as far as I am concerned. What I do not understand is why he didn't leave it out, if he disliked this song that much. I won't talk about it yet, but as he usually did, he wrote many more songs for the occasion than the ones which eventually made it onto the record, and that means having many better songs than Crush On You available. Without exaggerating. This idea could have been used better, but if I have to be completely honest, I like this song better now than I ever liked before.

My brain takes a vacation just to give my heart more room.





Another song in the vein of Two Hearts, and even harder rocking than that one, is YOU CAN LOOK (BUT YOU BETTER NOT TOUCH), a frantic and simple number which is quite effective and sheer fun. Bruce sings so fast that he seems to juggle his lines to make them fit. This is another short song, which shares its intro with another tune I will later talk about, and with a funny story about what we want but cannot have.

Mess around and you'll end up in dutch, boy.






I WANNA MARRY YOU is a mostly forgettable romantic ballad. Not only as far as The River is concerned, but considering every record to be discussed here. Springsteen's vocal melody during the verses is ok, but the song ends up being marred by so many vocal ornaments here and there from the second of said verses and on. This is the average song with which you picture young american couples from decades back, dancing cheek to cheek in those school prom dances. The lyrics are darker though. Once again, the subject of being with somebody, as opposed to being alone, although I'm not sure whether the narrator wants to be with a single mother, or to carry on with a relationship that he already has with her (the children are his), but walking down the aisle first. The former, most likely, for Bruce once said it was about daydreaming with someone you encounter once but never get to see again. If that is true, said fantasy is a down to earth one, because he also sings about the toll of being with someone, and about it not being a fairytale. But it will always be better than being on your own. Back then, Springsteen still had several years ahead of him to get married for the first time, and a few more to become a parent, but maybe he already felt that something was missing. That's why this song is a little bit abstract: it is not about someone in particular, but just about someone. I Wanna Marry You was supposed to make it onto the single album that The River was first meant to be, still in 1979, the same as The Ties That Bind, Hungry Heart and the previous track.

I see that lonely ribbon in your hair. Tell me I'm the man for whom you put it there.





I'm a rocker




Enter THE RIVER, the untouchable title track and one of Springsteen's most perfect and essential songs ever. That kind of thing most artists dream of, but few chosen ones can achieve. As explained in Independence Day, The River is another of the four core songs of the record. The story behind it is well known: a tale about recession and the wear and tear that comes with the passing of time, when it did not serve the purpose of making someone's dreams come true. The song also tells about the protagonists having to readjust their lives to deal with stuff like an early pregnancy, unemployment, etc. This is a very explicit tribute (although with a female heroin named MARY) to VIRGINIA, the oldest of the singer's two sisters, and her husband MICKEY, who went through something similar when they were young. Apparently, they are still a happy couple, so this story has known a much happier ending than expected. It all comes from an original arrangement called OH ANGELYNE, in which the main role is not happy with his life and leaves his girl for someone named that way; Mary is not even mentioned, although she would be as work progressed. Soon after, Bruce chose to keep the main couple and his circumstances, but leaving Angelyne aside, who would be replaced by the famed metaphor about the river, which symbolises the childhood dreams of a main character who lives haunted by his own past. By what it could have been  but never was. Time goes by, and it takes its toll, and that river Mary and him try to go back to is getting drier and drier. And yet, they always go back together. Bruce was said to having borrowed this metaphor from a song by HANK WILLIAMS (MY BUCKET'S GOT A HOLE IN IT), whose music he listened to quite often back in the day. That metaphor became the title of this timeless classic, which went from being the biggest attraction on that 1979 album I just talked about, to becoming something much bigger.

For a thirty something years old who had never got married yet, and to whom marriage would mean a lifestyle threat, this is all very profound. My point is that this is a very grave song, considering it is about someone else's experiences and not your own. I guess that perhaps, what his sister and his brother in law went through, affected him deeply back then, but it makes you think that maybe it disturbed him even more than them. As I said, life eventually bestowed Virginia and Mickey a much happier ending than the one the song could have ever made you think of, and I wouldn't be surprised to know that the three of them have shared a few laughs about a song that maybe was born too soon. In the end, dreams may not come tru most of the times, but what we do is replacing them with some others.

All that concerning the song's subject. Music-wise, the moving and chilling opening harmonica, which is the song's most distinctive feature, together with its somber overtone, may be both good indications of what was coming on the next record, and The River is one of those songs that take on a life of its own when played live. When I spoke about Independence Day, I mentioned Bruce's vocals and one line that I found remarkable. Here's another epic one from The River in that very same regard: No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle, no flowers, no wedding dress. Spectacular. 

On subsequent tours, Springsteen introduced this song with lengthy speeches about his childhood and the already strained relationship with his dad. Those speeches dealt with the Vietnam war as well, as it is the case of the version found on Live 1975-85 (thanks to which, and if I'm not mistaken, I listened consciously to this song for the very first time, although I was quite sure of having listened to it before). Bruce talks, with some guitar and synths in the background, about how fed up his father was of him, his long hair, rock music and all, and how he wished for the army to take him, to make a man out of him. But along came the war, and the fear, because, as the singer explains, some of his friends went to Vietnam, but never came back. When it was time for Bruce to take a physical test, which could have determined the remaining of his entire existence, the rocker tells that he wasn't taken, and how he told that to his father when he went back home, to which his dad (perfectly aware of what was at stake) only replied That's good, instead of getting mad at him. This spoken intro is moving in its own right, and I can feel it while I write, but when it's over, and after a couple of seconds of silence, said silence is broken by the harmonica to begin this song and the emotional impact is overwhelming. You can tell by the crowd's reaction. Perhaps, the audience wasn't expecting a song like this after the singer's memories. Masterpiece.

Is a dream a lie, if it don't come true, or is it something worse?






POINT BLANK opens the second disc, being one of the best songs of a less exciting second half. And it does it in a very dark manner, more in the vein of what was listened to on Darkness. It was the first song to be finished after the recording of that previous album was over, and the band began to play it live (together with Independence Day) already in 1978, although with lyrics which differ (something about the protagonist's addiction to drugs) a little bit from the ones on the final version. You can find it, in fact, in at least that first show of those three in a row which took place in Passaic, back in September of 1978, that I talked about when I reviewed Prove It All Night. This is a gloomy affair, with beautiful nuances by Bittan on piano, which sometimes is tough to stomach, given its bleak nature. Still an amazing song though, on par with Bruce's great slow songs of this era. The lyrics tell about how an ex-girlfriend of the narrator, surrenders to the pain of watching all her hopes being shattered by the passing of time, which shoots you point blank, as the title says. That lady refuses to get her act together and embraces a passive stance that allows her to stay as she is. Existing, instead of living. The narrator, on his part, has a dream in which he sees his ex and all they both shared back in the day. Back in real life, you could say he has moved on somehow, while she's chosen to stay in the past; but despite being apart, both of them are connected by what they once had. It has its similarities with The River, but without the famous metaphor.

Point Blank is also the third of those four core numbers on The River, according to its author. Trivia stuff: Springsteen also arranged this song in a little recognizable rock fashion, during the time which goes from its creation to the release of The River, and he found inspiration for the lyrics in another different song of these years that I will soon talk about.

You wake up and you're dying, you don't even know what from.





CADILLAC RANCH is another fun and rocking number, opened by a drum intro and a great guitar riff. There's another sax solo too and this song is, all in all, unadulterated fun. But the backdrop is much darker than expected, for Cadillac Ranck is about death and the fact that time waits for no one, using as a metaphor the monument (so to speak) the song is named after and which is located in Amarillo, Texas; that place shows several Cadillacs, one after another, with their hoods buried in the ground. The metaphor consists in letting us know that even cars as glamourous as those, end up being expendable. Just as we all do, and that's why we have to make the best of the time we are given. The lyrics mention some celebrities, like BURT REYNOLDS and JAMES DEAN, and they finish the song with two really tragic and unexpected lines, if we consider the accompanying music. Bruce and his band carry on tearing the place down, despite the morbid nature of the text, as if implying that there is no time for mourning.

Open up your engines, let'em roar, tearing up the highway like a big old dinosaur.






Almost inseparable




The River starts the slight decline of its second act with I'M A ROCKER. This one is pretty much a rockabilly song (born as SHE'S A ROCKER) with another over the top refrain which makes Crush On You look like the best song ever in comparison. There's too much piano and backing vocals, and the latter just repeat the boring chorus. The lyrics contain references to several action heroes (all of them quite dated at this point in time), with which the main character, someone in love with a girl who is clearly out of his reach, compares himself. Most likely the worst song on the album.

If they put up a roadblock, I'll parachute in.





FADE AWAY fares much better, although that is no tall order, mind you. It is a romantic and pessimistic ballad that shows a narrator who is desperate after having been dumped by his girl, who has fallen in love with someone else; he is afraid to become so irrelevant as to fade away in her memory. At Bruce's age in 1980 we all have already experienced ourselves what something like he sings about means, but we also know what comes next. So much doom and gloom seem undue, but I guess that's also what artists do.

This song gets better when Weinberg enters in the second verse, and that later section when it slows down completely and Springsteen is almost left on his own is ok too. It has gotten better with several recent listens, just as happened with Crush On You, but it's far from being top tier Springsteen. Bittan and Federici are the main men once more, and the latter even has his own solo. Funnily enough, being one of Van Zandt's favourites, the guitarist himself admitted that if they did not play it live very often it was because of its being too slow. In fact, it was released as the second single (after Hungry Hearte), at the expense of several other livelier songs, and this move was lambasted back then, blaming on it the during that period of time slow sales of The River.

Tell me, what I can do, what can I say? Cause darlin' I don't wanna fade away.





STOLEN CAR is another slow and heartbreaking track, a trait which seems to be king during most of this second disc, although this time the song is driven by a guitar (as bleak as the overall ensemble) and the piano ornaments more than leads. Danny Federici takes the spotlight again, at the very end, while the song fades; as so does seem to do its main character, who drives a stolen car and remembers his broken marriage, while at the same time wishes to get caught so he can be noticed. He fears to disappear in the middle of the night, as if he was a nameless ghost. This is the last one of the four core numbers of this record, according to Springsteen, and it also anticipates what the listener would find on the next one.

The scholars link the main character here to that in Hungry Heart, and the singer has stated that said character is someone whose behaviour he would write about on the last record to be reviewed in this series, being also a role model for later songs on marital (or not) relationships. This is beyond my understanding, to be honest, and even more when we are talking about songs which are so different between each other regarding their respective moods, and about two albums seven years apart. But here is the information. And anyway, I'm not done with this song yet.

She said last night she read those letters, and they made her feel a hundred years old.





RAMROD belongs to that bunch already exemplified by Crush On You and I'm A Rocker, meaning the livelier, but at the same time more forgettable side of The River (Crush On You is improving, I must admit). And of these six studio albums as a whole. Few songs from this era can make me be as merciless as I am with this one. The chorus is more or less decent, but there's nothing else here worthy of being salvaged. Springsteen sounds apathetic and, what's even worse, the organ this song is based on is even obnoxious. After that, there's another sax solo which, at that point, just makes me feel indifferent. The very atrocious lyrics tell about the narrator's crush on a girl, or maybe just about his willingness to sleep with her. He employs some terms that imply sexual connotations, starting with the song's title and the way he uses it in the text. Boring, despite having been written for the previous record.

Let you hair down, mama, and pick up this beat.





No prisoners are taken




Placed at the last stretch of this second half, THE PRICE YOU PAY is more colourful and exciting than most tracks in it, even if it's not a hard rocking song. Not even close. But Weinberg's drum pace, the more hopeful vibe of the refrain, and the great harmonica solo make this song feel different. After that solo, and before the guitars and the piano come back, there's also room for Federici's accordion. I had never thought too highly of it, but I've enjoyed it a lot this time around.

The song seems to be, biblical reference included, about the price we all pay for our decisions and, aparently, it has to do with Bruce's relative obsession with the Vietnam subject and the war veterans; this comes from his experiencing the early loss of some of his friends on the front line, from having himself been on the brink of being drafted (see The River), and from having met, back in 1978, RON KOVIC, the famed veteran who wrote the book called BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY, on which the 1989 movie of the same name was based (directed by OLIVER STONE and starred by TOM CRUISE). Springsteen was spared from going, but the price he had to pay was knowing that someone else had to go instead of him. This song was also going to be on that 1979 record, but in this final version, a verse from the first one which continued on stressing that previous subject, was replaced, and the outcome could have to do with that lawsuit with Appel, because the Boss had to pay a big price in exchange for his autonomy. Just speculations. I've read that perhaps he made that change because he wasn't ready yet to face his guilt for the Vietnam matter, but the rest of the song is supposed to deal with it and he did not change it. Who knows, apart from him and his close ones?

Driving on through the night, unable to break away.





DRIVE ALL NIGHT is a very long (the second longest one, after Jungleland, out of all these six albums and, if I'm not mistaken, the fourth ever to be included on any of Bruce's studio records) slow number about another broken relationship which the main character cannot fix (sure he will not, if the only thing that comes to his mind is buying his ex a pair of shoes which, on the other hand, he won't be able to find anywhere on a desert highway in the middle of the night). Too slow and too long, to the point that its initial charm (similar to that of Point Blank, although less oppressive) fades away (no pun intended, but the subject is similar to what was seen in Fade Away) throughout what seems to be and endless lament. Romantic drama at its very best. Bruce's singing is ok, and there are certain things which lift this song over some others (just a few, because Drive All Night is one of my least favourite tracks on this record), but just like it had happened before, when Clemon's sax solo (one of the highlights here, as many say) arrives, I've already lost all interest, despite being nice. And the song is only halfway.

And let them go, do their dances of the dead.





Something similar to what was seen in the already mentioned Factory or Cadillac Ranch, can be noticed in WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY, because this is another song whose music does not match its lyrics. This is something I had never paid attention to before, but which is more or less usual within Springsteen's career: penning songs whose music is deceitful, if we take their subject and message into account. This one is really good though, and the section which houses Federici's little solo is utterly magical, but the lyrics are simply depressing, given that the narrator tells us about a car accidents he comes across on the highway, while driving home from work, to which he's been the first person to arrive to. We don't know whether the victim, who is taken to the hospital soon after, has managed to survive or not, but the main character envisions how the news of a fatal outcome could hit the victim's loved ones. I just can't fathom what crossed Bruce's mind to choose closing The River with Drive All Night and a song like this one. Perhaps, in this specific case, he was trying to make people understand that when someone witnesses something like that, they become more aware of their own mortality and the few chances they have to make things right, but it is tough to focus on something like that with this song in mind. In any case, that's what the song implies when the narrator moves forward in time, from the moment he arrives at the scene and what happens soon after, to a rather near future in which he admits a bigger concern for those who surround him. This is all about making the best of the time we are given and treat our loved ones the best way we can.

Now there was blood and glass all over, and there was nobody there but me.





The E Street Band in 1980. From left to right, Tallent, Weinberg,
 Bittan, Van Zandt, Springsteen, Clemons and Federici




In spite of The River being one of Bruce's most popular and renowned albums, primarily propelled by its monumental title track, I don't find it as exciting as most people do. I have to admit that my current opinion about it is much better than the one I had six months ago, but it still might be the weakest link in this chain of true classics in Springsteen's career (and in all rock music), no matter how blasphemous it may sound. I don't want to be misunderstood either, for this record's twelve or thirteen best songs make an amazing ensemble, more than capable of beating on its own some other entire albums within this series. My point is that The River features the poorest average of great songs in total, out of all this six records, being the one with more forgettable tracks of them all (apparently, I'm in the majority here, although it's up to everyone to decide which songs are forgettable or not). And there's more, because, as far as I am concerned, this is a record not very well put together, for the second disc is not on par with the first one (this has been talked about too), almost brimming as it is, with very melancholic numbers and a few rock songs which are just forgettable. It's a double album with a lively and moving first half (and an amazing one), but the second falls a little bit short of the expectations. It would have become a much more accomplished shorter album (that is what it was meant to be at first), had it been trimmed a little bit, and regardless of how different it might have sounded when compared to the previous one. Truth is, all the studio albums to be discussed here, are quite different among each other, and above all when it comes to each of them previous one, but it doesn't detract from the fact that they all are memorable, at least to a very big extent. On The River, Springsteen went for a lighter sound, a tad removed from the energetic rock found on Darkness On The Edge Of Town, and with some radio-friendlier tunes and all that. But some of those songs, different as they were, worked pretty well, like Hungry Heart or Sherry Darling. Others did not make it, at least for my taste.

The musicians who took part in the recording were the usual ones (barring Hungry Heart), and The River hit the shelves (through Columbia) on the 17th of October, 1980. The front cover pic is Stefanko's once again, being an outtake from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions. So it is no surprise that it looks similar, but only closed-up and in black and white, focusing once more on the austerity of the deep America and the blue-collar roots of the song's protagonists and of those responsible for it. It was again produced by Springsteen, Landau and Van Zandt, and recorded in New York, at the POWER STATION studios.



The Boss in command




The first idea was to release a single album, as already explained, and its name was going to be THE TIES THAT BIND, before Springsteen discarded said notion. The E Street Band had long become a very well road tested and tight outfit, so Bruce threw himself into recording an album which could capture the band's live sound, for which he already had readied a few Darkness outtakes (Independence Day, Ramrod, etc). It was all about picking up where the previous record had left off, with similar lyrical subjects (plus a few things about marriage and family ties), and a few stylistic departures. What didn't experience any change was Bruce's well documented perfectionism (he even said it was something that wasn't bothering or making him feel bad anymore), something that led him to think, back during the autumn of 1979, that The Ties That Bind, as a record, wasn't enough. This made him to reconsider the whole project, and to pen more songs which were more in the vein of The River itself. In April, 1980, Landau suggested a double album, to cover everything Springsteen wished to communicate, and its title was also changed. All in all, the sessions lasted one year and a half, and around fifty songs were taped.

The River became another and even bigger success for the Boss, and from its supporting tour on, coinciding with RONALD REAGAN's rise to power, Springsteen began to make political statements in his shows, besides playing some covers of some other artists' songs which dealt with social issues. As he admitted, his first trip to Europe led him to be more critical with his ow country, when he was able to perceive it in an analytical way from the outside. The reviews were mostly good, but not all of them, of course. As expected, the album's status has increased with time. As for an alleged lack of cohesion (something I agree with, at least when it comes to the music), an unusual length of the record and a lack of balance between its two halves, some people said that the fact of The River being that long worked well for it, because it made possible a rotation between simpler songs and those which make you think. Life is rubbish, but that doesn't mean you can't relax and have fun.





End of the third chapter





NEBRASKA



Nebraska, 1982




After the raucousness of previous years, and if we keep in mind that Bruce Springsteen is a singer and guitarist who is always surrounded by six other musicians, NEBRASKA, which opens the namesake album, means a serious departure, because it only has Springsteen, with his voice, acoustic guitar, harmonica and little else. And that's not all, for Bruce recorded this album at home, with a four-track recorder, wishing that those demos could be something the whole E Street Band could work on afterwards. It didn't work completely (Springsteen said in 1984 that the whole band rocking versions of those demos deprived the songs of their protagonists and said tunes just vanished), so he chose to release most of those songs as they were created, which adds to what has just been said an unpolished, imperfect and dark, but completely deliberate, sound. That's why this effort is so stripped-down and, for the same reason, Nebraska is a superb opening track to make clear what the album is all about, and another one within Springsteen's most accomplished songs. I remember many years ago, when I was a teenager and we had a dog at home; I used to play the live version of this song, the one I attach below, and the poor animal always started to howl as dogs do when they suppose something bad has happened. I think this is an anecdote which speaks volumes of the nature of the music to be found on Nebraska, and we also have to keep in mind that said live version is not as bleak as the original one.

And this is not only about sombre music, but also about dark stories, focused on Bruce's own childhood, and on criminals, losers and good-willing, humble individuals, to whom fate only has one failure after another in store. According to the critics, Nebraska asked questions which were difficult to answer, if they could be at all answered, and they agreed on the weakness of the famed American dream. Not a new subject for Springsteen, of course, but this song takes it a little bit further, because it is sung from the perspective of CHARLES STARKWEATHER, one guy that, together with his girlfriend, CARIL ANN FUGATE, murdered eleven people during eight days of killing spree in 1958, before turning twenty years old. That scum didn't even repent his actions one single bit, because before he was executed, he wrote a letter from jail, to his parents, telling them that, at least for once, his girl and him were able to have some fun. Despite those good feelings towards her, he did everything within his reach for her to be sentenced to death too, although to no avail, for she was spared (in the song, Starkweather asks the sheriff to make sure that his beautiful girl sits on his lap when the electric chair is turned on, and I'm not sure whether this wants to reflect his desire for her to die as well, or just some kind of romanticism added by Springsteen), and that absence of repentance is mirrored by the lyrics, although Bruce did not tell the story in a completely accurate fashion, and he used some detours, for the song tells us that the culprits did what they did due to the meanness of this world (They wanted to know why I did what I did. Well, sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world), and that statement wasn't something Starweather ever said. But that line stresses the hopelessness that seems to work as the common thread for the record's stories and their protagonists.

Some trivia: Springsteen only mentions ten victims, because Starkweather had already killed another person before meeting Fugate for the first time, which is the moment when the song begins. And also, one of the influences of the singer to write Nebraska, was the film BADLANDS (1973), by TERRENCE MALICK, one of those movies that seems to be avoiding me, for I've been wanting to watch it for a very long time, but I haven't done it yet. This director has a few other great films and this one was his directorial debut. It's about a similar story.

*Before I finally get to post this entry, and very long after I wrote the previous paragraph, I have managed to see the movie. At last. I liked it, but less than expected. MICHAEL SHEEN and SISSY SPACEK's acting is top notch though. Mostly hers. Both performers were much older, back in that moment, that the characters to be portrayed.

One of Springsteen's most amazing and unsettling songs ever.

I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we've done.


NEBRASKA




ATLANTIC CITY, considering the overall context, is much livelier, and it features some mandolin by Bruce himself. It has even been performed by the whole band very often, and with great results, I must say. But I do not think the charm of this original version, which even includes a vocal mistake at the very end (when Bruce messed up the chorus' lyrics) that, for some reason, was never fixed, has ever been matched by the rock version. The song tells the story of a couple moving to Atlantic City, New Jersey, presumably drawn by the opportunities that go hand in hand with gambling, because, according to the main character's own words, his many debts leave him no other choice. When cornered, he chooses crime. This is all set during the first years after gambling was made legal in New Jersey, when there were already a few casinos in Atlantic City, whose side effects were beginning to be noticed. The beginning of the song mentions the killing of a mob boss (PHILIP TESTA) in Philadelphia, in 1981, and its turbulent aftermaths (a mafia war which lasted more than ten years) might have been one of the reasons why this couple opted to go to Atlantic City. 

The Boss recorded two previous demos of this song, before choosing to work on the third one (already with the final title), and those two first ones were called FIST FULL OF DOLLARS, although I don't know whether that name has anything to do (as I've read somewhere) or not with the famous film starred by CLINT EASTWOOD in 1964, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, directed by SERGIO LEONE. Springsteen immersed himself in reading and films, in order to get ideas for the stories of this record, so there might be a relationship there. But I'm not sure if Leone's movie has anything to do with what is told in the song. That fistful of dollars could simply mean that the protagonist's dire situation would lead him to do anything for money.

Springsteen's first videoclip was recorded for the occasion, and it was quite bleak and explicit, in line with the contents of the song. As it is said by the line of the lyrics that I attach below (whose first half Bruce borrowed from the 1980 movie of the same name, directed by LOUIS MALLE and starred by BURT LANCASTER and SUSAN SARANDON), everything dies, but maybe it could some day come back. It is Atlantic City which is dying, and not only the protagonists' luck or their relationship. Apparently, its decline was clear before gambling was legalized in the seventies; the casinos and so on,  made the city revive for a while, but not for long, before deteriorating itself once again, due to corruption, crime, etc.

Atlantic City was one of the songs which worked well when played by the whole band, and when Springsteen toured again and began to play it, he did the electric version with the entire E Street Band.

Well now, everything dies, baby that's a fact. But maybe everything that dies, some day comes back.





Days of isolation




Nebraska's contents can be easily split in two halves, one with five lively songs, and another one with five slower ones. Within that second half, there are three which are about the artist's childhood memories. The first one being MANSION ON THE HILL, a song about a noteworthy house which stood out within a much more humble environment, and which made young Bruce curious. Perhaps he also wanted to focus on the social disparities of his time as a kid: that house as another metaphor, pointing at a whole lifestyle out of the narrator's reach. The ending might hint at a current change for the better in that regard though. The music is as austere as expected, and some harmonica can be listened to as well. It is one of the songs I like the least and, apparently, it owes a lot (music-wise) to another song of the same name by the already mentioned Hank Williams. So much that I've read that it would have been a good idea to give Hank some writing credits. I've listened to Williams' song and I do not get it, to be honest. He might have based his own song on a real story, set at the end of the XIX century, about a house (still standing and turned into a museum) and its builder, but the stories to be told in these two songs are quite different between each other.

There'd be music playing, people laughing all the time.





JOHNNY 99 tells the tragic story of someone named RALPH, who desperate for his finacial struggles after having being fired from his job, kills another person while in a poor and drunken robbery attempt, and is eventually sentenced to ninety nine years in prison. Hence the nickname, because the sarcastic judge is called JOHN himself and calls Ralph the same way to deprive him of what little dignity he has left (his own name) and link him to his crime forever. The thing is that Ralph tells the judge his version (in an early draft he did not want to rob a store, he just wanted to be given two hundred bucks that he urgently needed for his mortgage, and he shot when he noticed that the victim had something shiny in his hand; this part did not end up in the final version), repentant, and admits that his situation doesn't make him an innocent man. In fact, he thinks he'd be better off dead, and that the judge would do him a great favor if he sentenced him to die. But with that admittance, and making clear that he did what he did because he had no other choice, renders society guilty as well. All this after mayhem had ensued when the judge read the sentence.

This song had to do with the real life closure, in 1980, of the FORD auto plant in Mahwah, New Jersey, which the lyrics refer to and that caused the protagonist's dismissal (four thousand people were actually fired), but in spite of all the drama triggered by an event which would become even more tragic as time went by, this song cannot be more fun. Simply awesome, and even more so if we abide by the live version on Live 1975-85, with Bruce singing (he doesn't play the guitar in this one, if I am not wrong) in the most convincing on fashions, while also doing double duty on harmonica, as in the original version. As fun fact, we have to say that the main character admits he has debts no honest man could pay, just like that of Atlantic City did.

JOHNNY CASH himself did his own version of this track on a namesake album he released in 1983. As for the Boss, he sings Execution line in the original version, already at the end, while he says Killing line on Live 1975-85. Johnny 99 eventually had its own electric version, even if Springsteen apparently refused to do one back in the day. I've listened to some of then but, keeping the story and its inspiration in mind, and also that live version, I do not think this song could express what it wants to say if it's not done with the upmost simplicity.

Well the evidence is clear, gonna let the sentence, son, fit the crime. Prison for 98 and a year and we'll call it even, Johnny 99.






HIGHWAY PATROLMAN is a much lighter song than the previous one. It is the story of JOE ROBERTS, a decent patrolman who speaks in first person, and his brother FRANKIE, a recurrent miscreant, during the sixties. Joe will see himself knee-deep in ethical and moral quandaries when he has to lend his brother a hand, even if he knows that Frankie is breaking the law. There's also the possibility of MARIA, Joe's wife, being the past love interest of them both. As for the music, not much to say, for the economy of means and personnel make of Nebraska something very unchanging.

It was the song what influenced a movie script this time around: THE INDIAN RUNNER (1991), SEAN PENN debut behind the camera, no less. Penn also directed a videoclip for this song, in 2000, which made it onto the 2001 reissue of a video compilation of the artist titled VIDEO ANTHOLOGY / 1978 - 1988. In said film there are several high-profiled names, such as DAVID MORSE (Joe), VIGGO MORTENSEN (Frankie), PATRICIA ARQUETTE, VALERIA GOLINO, DENNIS HOPPER or CHARLES BRONSON.

Johnny Cash also covered this song on the aforementioned record.

I got a brother named Frankie, and Frankie ain't no good.





The famous bedroom in Colts Neck?




In the very dark STATE TROOPER, Bruce speaks through the voice of someone who drives a stolen car and who is very likely to have something twisted and evil in mind. As he drives forward, his concern about being stopped by a traffic officer increases, because he doesn't have permits or a driving licence, and he is afraid of what could happen next, for he might be suicidal and have nothing to lose. Music-wise feels more rock and it seems to boast of having the most basic chords required for a rock and roll song. Springsteen says goodbye to this number with some fitting screams, little after singing the last line, Deliver me from nowhere. That line is also the last one of another song on this record. The nature of both music and subject make this song something ideal to be listened to while lonely and in the dark (this applies to most of the album, to be honest), and these traits make it difficult and little advisable to be played live at the enormous arenas and stadiums Bruce was mostly going to play ever since. That's why he hasn't played State Trooper very often (and mostly during acoustic tours), but I'm surprised to read that he even tried his hand at playing it with the entire band a few times.

License, registration, I ain't got none.





USED CARS is the second track about Bruce's memories, but this time more focused on his family in general, and on his dad in particular. It's also a song about social divides and, in the case at hand, about the embarrassment fely by the protagonist because of them: the father is not wealthy enough to buy a new car, despite working his ass off; the son is aware of it, as he is aware of his mom's concern regarding the new purchase, and of the salesman's patronizing, and he swears to himself that, if he wins the lottery, they will never ever travel in a used car like the one his dad is about to buy again. When they come back home in the new car, the father looks proud, but the son doesn't, for a second hand car makes clear his family's social status. These opposed reactions increase the distance between father and son. It is a beautiful song, although a little depressing.

Me I walk home on the same dirty streets where I was born.





In the same hectic vein of State Trooper, Atlantic City or Johnny 99, we do find OPEN ALL NIGHT, a very funny rock & roll number influenced by CHUCK BERRY, which also features, as the sole exception on this album (as is the lighter song's subject), some electric guitar. The narrator tells, at a very high speed, his night trip across the state to meet WANDA, her waiter girlfriend (although if we keep in mind how many lines are devoted to his car, we could think that what he really likes is the vehicle instead), while he hopes to find some rock music on the radio. This is the song when the famed final line in State Trooper shows up again, and it is very much related with an unreleased song recorded during the The River sessions which will be talked about in due time.

Gotta find a gas station, gotta find a payphone.





As austere as the music itself




The third and last song about Bruce's childhood is MY FATHER'S HOUSE, which resumes his peculiar relationship with his father. The narrator has a dream in which, as a kid, his dad (symbolized by his house) comforts him after experiencing a bad time. That person, who has increasingly distanced himself from his father, has some kind of revelation about the reasons behind said estrangement when he wakes up, so he decides to go see him to make amends, but when he arrives at his father's house he find that someone else is living there, and he is left without knowing how to contact his dad, or even knowing if he's still alive. Apparently, Springsteen admitted, during one of his shows, having done something similar, when he had found himself driving to his family's house in Freehold, New Jersey, despite perfectly knowing that his dad did not live there anymore, unaware of whether he was remorseful or what. All in all, let's try to make the most of the time we spend with our loved ones, so we do not have to regret anything afterwards.

I allow myself to attach here an essay I read about this song, in which its author explains much more about it and its significance than I could ever dream of, through a flawless tribute to his own dad.


As for the music, same old, same old. A slow number with minimal arrangements, like the remaining of the songs on this album, and more or less similar to Used Cars: very good, but very sad. I haven't seen any credits about it, but I'd swear there is some organ in one of the verses, that one in which the protagonist finds out his father doesn't live in the same place any longer.

I'm sorry son, but no one by that name lives here anymore.





The awesome REASON TO BELIEVE closes the album in a merrier fashion. It's about how brief our existence is and yet, it also seems to look for answers and to give the listener, and those who can identify with the subjects the album deals with, some hope (despite all the despair), through four different stories that demonstrate the resilience of mankind and its will to rebel in the face of misfortune, even if it is because there is no other choice. That's why we always seem to find something to believe in, even if we do not know why. Bruce's uses the word Some for a reason, because he knows there is some reason, but he doesn't know which. Maybe he was trying to reassure himself, or perhaps it was an involuntary request for help, knowing that something was not right in his head, and long before his mental issues were public. The refrain that joins all four tales is simply spectacular. This below live version features the whole band, although in a very sober and minimalistic vein.

It struck me kinda funny, seemed kinda funny sir to me, how at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe.






A different Springsteen




Nebraska was released on the 30th of September, 1982 (Columbia), and was recorded in the singer's bedroom at his rental house in Colts Neck (New Jersey). Springsteen chose to isolate himself over there for a while, to put his ideas in order. He felt that success estranged him from the people he had grown up with and about whom he wrote, and that presented an internal conflict for him. Many years after, the world eventually knew that the early eighties were a very difficult time for him, because the whole thing was playing tricks with his mind and he ended up asking for professional help. The point is that, once in Colts Neck, he immersed himself in reading (the Vietnam subject included) and films, in search of stories to sing about. The album was produced (in quotes, given the circumstances) by MIKE BATLAN, Bruce's guitar tech, who managed to get the then fairly new four-track artefact that allowed Springsteen to record the basics of every song into a track, and to record additional parts into the other three. Nothing to do with the usually very long (and expensive) sessions of the Boss and his band in the studio. The resulting tape had seventeen tracks, and other than the ten songs which were used on Nebraska, five of the leftovers were used, already in a full-band arrangement, on the next record (be them as final songs on the album or as B sides). Out of those last five, the song known as CHILD BRIDE would eventually change its title. On the other hand, LOSIN' KIND, is the only one track on that tape who still remains unreleased. The song which makes number seventeen was included as a B side on one of the two singles off Nebraska (more on this later on).

*At this point, Losin' Kind does not remain unreleased anymore.


Going back to what was explained about Nebraska itself, Springsteen realized that, as much as some songs off that famous tape could work just fine when played by the whole E Street Band (they even finished those sessions with a bunch of new songs), there were others which simply could not capture the essence of that home recording in a full-band arrangement. That's the reason why what was becoming a very fruitful team work, was put on the back burner, for Bruce to focus on finding out what to do with that second batch of songs. He even thought about releasing another double album, this time with electric and acoustic songs apart from each other. He eventually opted to release what has become his most personal album as we all know it, thinking that if those songs were released that way, they could achieve more recognition than in the company of some more conventional rock numbers. As a collateral effect, those songs which were recorded by the entire band (ELECTRIC NEBRASKA), have become a very sought-after item and the subject of a never-ending debate, for they have never been released so far, and it is unknown if they ever will be.



*Writing an entry about this era within Springsteen's career has taken me a few months (as you have already noticed, it has been split in several different chapters), because of its size and the fact that I had to combine with some others. Also, it hasn't been a linear work, for I needed to go backwards many times, in order to correct some things and add some others, because this is not only about reviewing songs that I've listened to hundreds of times. That's why, as I am writing and getting different sections ready, and following up on what I've just said about Electric Nebraska and the uncertainty surrounding the release of those sessions, right on the fourth of September I received one mail from Bruce's website announcing the imminent release of a new Nebraska reissue on the next seventeenth of October (one week before the premiere of the film I'm about to write of, to make both events more or less coincide, I guess). And it is another one of those enormous reissues of classic records of the same kind of those that have already seen the light of day during this century and have completed everything related to albums like Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town and The River big time (more on them later on). I suppose there are a few more coming, to celebrate certain anniversaries. Or maybe not, who knows? But the most important thing is that on this new version of Nebraska (NEBRASKA '82 EXPANDED EDITION) there are several outtakes (The Losin' Kind and Child Bride included), a recent live performance of the entire record (on video as well), a new 2025 remastered version of the original album and yes, the Electric Nebraska sessions too. I had thought about posting the entire entry halfway through October, but I'll wait until this reissue is released.



Smiling, but not much




Nebraska is hailed, among many other things, as one of the very first examples of home recording within what is known as DIY (Do it yourself), although it became troublesome getting what had been recorded to sound decently (noise abatement and all that), in a way it could be marketed. The front cover features a 1975 picture taken by DAVID MICHAEL KENNEDY, in which a road can be seen from inside a car, under a gray and cloudy sky. The whole ensemble fits the overall tone of the album, and it's one of the artist's very few album covers on which he is not shown.

Springsteen did not want to promote the album at all (not even being interviewed), given how personal the stuff was, but Nebraska was advertised with statements like Nobody but Springsteen can tell stories like these. It marked the first time Bruce did not tour after an album release, so these songs were not first played live until 1984, during the next album's tour. He thought it was going to take him long to adjust them to a live setting, and he also wanted people to experience them for themselves, for he wasn't sure about how to explain those stories. On said next tour, president Reagan was again mentioned during one of the shows, when Bruce introduced Johnny 99 once saying that the politician had named Springsteen a little earlier, pointing out the implicit hope to fe found in his music, to which Bruce asked himself and his audience which one of his records Reagan's favourite would be, taking for granted that it wouldn't be Nebraska.

A very special album, no doubt. One of a kind. It was well regarded from the get go (given its undeniable quality and the courage needed to do something that out of the ordinary), and its status has improved with time as well, as it usually happens with classic records, no matter the genre. Time and perspective do help. The severe contrast between what was known of Springsteen so far and this, together with the unusual way Nebraska was born and recorded (plus its sound) did entail, and still does, a lot of debating about. The critics mostly welcomed it warmly when it was released, although it had its detractors (someone said it was more remarkable than enjoyable). If you ask me, I consider it a little gem. 

Many years later, in the wake of Nebraska, Springsteen released THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD (1995) and DEVILS & DUST (2005), although with some differences regarding performance and outcome. This leaves Nebraska, in my opinion, as a timeless and unique album in Springsteen's career. After all, this is all about a rock star unknowingly creating a record in his own bedroom.



Jeremy Allen White and The Boss greet each other on
 the set of Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere




Springsteen will be up to date, once again, due to the premiere, at the end of October (the 24th), of SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE, a film starred by JEREMY ALLEN WHITE (as Bruce Springsteen himself) and directed by SCOTT COOPER, concerning the creative process of Nebraska. It's based on the namesake book written two years back by WARREN ZANES. The title of the movie is drawn from State Trooper's final line (a line which is also in Open All Night, as I said, and in an earlier song which will be discussed later), as listened to on Nebraska itself, and it seems like Bruce has been quite involved in this project.

It looks good (I read a little bit of a review which said it gets better once the minutes go by), but I'll be satisfied if it is not as horrible as the other recent film based on Bruce Springsteen, BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (directed by GURINDER CHADHA), from 2019, which I found atrocious.


*It's been a few months since I wrote the immediately preceding paragraph and, unexpectedly, I have seen the movie (and even written another entry about it) on the seventh of November, before being able to post a single word about this series. The way this whole account of Bruce's best days has grown little by little, and the late release of this enormous reissue of Nebraska (which means a lot to talk about) have rendered this series impossible to be posted earlier. Who would have thought it? At least I can say that the movie, although fortunately has little to do with the other one, is head and shoulders above that horrific 2019 product. It's a great film.







End of the fourth chapter





BORN IN THE USA



Born In The USA / 1984




It is very often said that after the storm comes the calm, but this time it was quite the opposite. Nebraska embodied that calm (music-wise, of course), and the tempest came along hand in hand with what is most likely to be Bruce's most popular work for the public at large, his most successful, the one that eventually launched him into global superstardom, and out of all his records, the one which is the most associated with the eighties: BORN IN THE USA. It saw the light of day on the fourth of June, 1984 (Columbia), and it was again produced by Van Zandt, Landau and Springsteen, to whom joined producer CHUCK PLOTKIN. It was recorded in New York, at the Power Station studios and also THE HIT FACTORY, and the very famous and controversial front cover showed a picture of Springsteen's ass, in front of an american flag, which was taken by the also very popular american photographer ANNIE LEIBOVITZ. On the other hand, this album became the first CD manufactured in the States (thanks to CBS and SONY, brands Columbia was linked to), once a new plant in Indiana was opened (before that, Columbia's compact discs were manufactured in Japan), and in a time in which appearance was paramount, the MTV was already a big thing in Bruce's country, and singles and viceoclips had become everything, Born In The Usa spawned as many as seven singles, no less, out of which five videos were recorded. Dancing mixes of three songs were even prepared, all to increase the album's overall exposure.

We know that some of the songs come from that tape Springsteen recorded Nebraska on, but from the long sessions (the whole process lasted longer than two years) in which Bruce and his band mates resumed the work with Nebraska's follow up in mind, many more songs were created. Van Zandt was absent from many of those sessions, for he had left halfway through 1982, to pursue a solo career (under the moniker of LITTLE STEVEN). The reasons behind his leaving (other than his own career) remain unclear, but it seems like Springsteen wasn't one of them, because he even says goodbye to him in italian (because of the musician's ancestry, which can also be noticed in his role in The Sopranos) in the album's credits, and two songs were born from their own friendship. Van Zandt even talked his former boss into rounding Born In The USA's setlist off and appeared in one of those videoclips already mentioned, besides playing with his former band mates in some shows during the subsequent tour. All this, long after having left the E Street Band.

By mid 1983 MURDER INCORPORATED was thought as the working title, although ever the non-conformist, Bruce remained unhappy, and the sessions went on until the beginning of 1984, when the final title was stipulated. The song which was going to be the title track (having been recorded back in 1982) would eventually be discarded, only to end up on Springsteen's first ever compilation album, simply called GREATEST HITS and released in 1995. If I'm not mistaken, that's the original 1982 track, although with a new and much more recent mix.

Choosing the final set of songs to be on the album was a difficult task, and the setlist ended up being mostly comprised of  many of the earliest songs (those from May, 1982). As for the enormous bunch of songs which did not make the cut, some of them were used as B sides for the many singles released off the album, but most had to wait many years to see the light of day. I guess there are still some others which remain unreleased. A special mention is deserved by a song called LIGHT OF DAY (it tells the story of some kid who heads to Galveston, Texas, where his brother works, because he is told that the girls are hot over there), which Springsteen passed on to JOAN JETT and actor MICHAEL J. FOX, and is on the soundtrack of its namesake film (starred by the fictional band named THE BARBUSTERS, in which the main actors play), directed by PAUL SCHRADER and premiered in 1987. This song, once the movie was premiered, began to be also played by Joan herself and her own band, THE BLACKHEARTS, under the The Barbusters stage name, once again, and became one of Joan's fans favourite numbers. The thing is that when Bruce began to write songs while at the Colt Necks house, he met with Vietnam veterans (see also what was said about The Price You Pay, from The River), and out of the whole process a song titled VIETNAM was created. While Springsteen was working on it, Schrader asked him to write some music for a fim of his called BORN IN THE USA, although he ceased to work on it soon after. Apparently, the singer changed what Vietnam had evolved into so far, and took advantage of said film's name to create the song which would be released two years later and that we all know. That movie would eventually be finished, and Bruce, who felt a tad guilty about having stolen its first name, gave Light Of Day to Schrader as a compensation. The working title was JUST AROUND THE CORNER TO THE LIGHT OF DAY, but Schrader shortened it, and so did Springsteen. I think there's a studio version out there, recorded in 1983, but it hasn't been released yet, although this song was very often used by Bruce on stage, after the film had been premiered, and a live version is on one of his subsequent live albums.

There's more. Some songs recorded amidst this gigantic process, at the beginning of 1983, at Bruce's place in LA, will be talked about later. The already mentioned Batlan and Springsteen managed to equip said house with an eight-track studio, in which they recorded Nebraska-like demos, only with a drum machine. Just like the Nebraska songs, the singer did not consider them suitable to be played by the whole band, and that fact led him to think about releasing another acoustic record, before he dismissed that thought. As I said, more on this later on.



Success of the highest order




*I have to admit that is a tall order to summarize all those years between the end of the The River tour and the release of Born In The USA, with everything concerning Nebraska in between, plus the failure at trying to convey the most intimate songs to a whole band environment, the long studio sessions and the resulting enormous bunch of songs. So I hope the hypothetical mistakes are few. A basic timeline of this era could go as follows:


- At the end of 1981, Bruce isolates himself at Colts Neck. Between that December and April 1982, he demoes some songs with a four-track recorder.

- In April 1982 the whole band begins to rehearse those demos, before decamping to Power Station to record them. The outcome is not the expected one, although a few songs do work when played by the entire band. That spring they also recorde some recently written songs. I have my doubts about My Father's House, created in May, but allegedly also at Colts Neck. This is the time when those sessions known as Electric Nebraska were recorded.

- Despite the profitable working sessions, Springsteen chooses to focus on the songs written at Colts Neck. The possibility of releasing another double album, both electric and acoustic, is thought about, but soon dismissed.

- In September 1982 Nebraska is released.

- Since the beginning of 1983, until April, those aforementioned drum machine demos are recorded in LA.

- From May on, the E Street Band gathers once again (at The Hit Factory), already without Van Zandt, to carry on recording.

- In summer the working title of the next record is chosen: Murder Incorporated.

- Springsteen still remained unhappy, and the work went on until the beginning of 1984, when the final title for the album was eventually decided. The number of songs available increased (more than seventy, after two years of work).

- Axeman NILS LOFGREN, as Van Zandt's replacement, joins the band, and in May, Springsteen and the boys gather again to rehearse for the next tour, after two years and a half, give or take, without having played a single show together.

- In Junio 1984 Born In The USA is released.

- At the end of that same month the tour begins, and as a very late addition, PATTI SCIALFA joins the band as backing singer. Bruce and her had been friends since the beginning of the eighties.



Born in the USA, for good or bad



This album, regarding the music on it, is a very easy to listen (different styles can be observed, but I think they are better unified than on The River) and a happy-go-lucky one. Nothing to do with Nebraska. Also, and as I said, this is a record heavily linked to the eighties (some synths and unprecedented elements in Bruce's previous recordings can be listened to), a decade most people looked back to with nostalgia, with the word fun in mind, and the album itself and all the Live 1975-85 songs recorded during that tour, bring back to mind long summer nights at fully crowded baseball stadiums, with a still very young Sprinmgsteen at the absolute peak of his physical powers (this is also when he decided to hit the gym and bulk up, being the resulting picture another token of the eighties) and at his most popular, playing for as long as more than four hours. As if everything was just a way out tailor-made for young people eager to have a good time. And yet, the themes dealt with in the songs carried on going deeper into darker and more recurring subjects in the entirety of Bruce's career so far (the end of the american dream), although according to the scholars, the main characters of Springsteen's new set of stories, seemed to be more determined to fulfill their goals. And there's an overall greater sense of humor.

And there's also Garry Tallent's bass lines, which are huge on almost the whole record!


As for Born In The USA's success and its impact as a cultural icon, little or nothing else is left to be said. The critics? Well, same old, same old, because despite being overwhelmingly positive, there were dissident voices right from the get-go. Born In The USA is Springsteen's best selling record, with more than thirty million copies sold worldwide, and it was the best selling album of 1985. It also helped making the musical style known as heartland rock popular; this specific style is based on rock music itself and on the belief that this kind of music can serve a social purpose beyond the fun part. Springsteen was already famous, but he became a global megastar thanks to this record. Funnily enough, is Bruce himself who, as times has gone by, has showed some reluctance towards this album and the stardom that came with it. He blames the whole thing on the fact that, in his own words, he never ever was capable of channeling all the intensity he achieved on Nebraska, despite the pressure he had put on himself, and on some subjects dealt with on Born In The USA, which make him feel a certain ambivalence to. There's also everything related to politics and his failing at trying to convey the message of the title track the right way, in addition to the generational dividing line drawn by the album among his diehard fans and those new ones attracted by its success.

As a consequence, Springsteen considers this record the end of the first chapter of his career, choosing afterwards a lower profile that could allow him to be seen as an average middle-aged singer, completely removed from the iconic image of himself which had been created since the release of Born In The USA and that, according to him, wasn't true to his own vision. Changes were right around the corner.


In October 1984, Bruce met american model and actress JULIANNE PHILLIPS, some years his younger, whom he married in May 1985. Phillips can be seen at the very end of one of the videos filmed for the album.



Promo poster for a run of Springsteen's shows
 in his home state. The fact that the ticket demand
 was big enough to sell the same venue out for
 as many as ten almost back-to-back dates, during
 a scarce fortnight, speaks volumes of the dimension
 of the singer during those days. Those shows are
 from 1984 and Born In The USA had been
 released just two months ago




Time to talk now about BORN IN THE USA, the enduring title track. Could it be the most famous song out of the hundreds that Springsteen has written? Even more than Born To Run or The River? Most likely. If you stop the first middle aged person you bump into in the street, and ask them to name a single song by Bruce Springsteen, this is the one that will probably be named. We all know about the controversy surrounding this track, its seemingly patriotic title, the 1984's presidential campaign and Ronald Reagan, so just a few words about it: this song's is neither an attempt to extol american values, nor is a display of pride concerning them (it's far from being a nationalist anthem), but quite the contrary, thanks to its story, told through the eyes of a former Vietnam combatant, disillusioned in the face of the indifference and the lack of opportunities he encounters in his own country upon returning from war. Apparently, the song's name and its passionate chorus prompted an excessive misinterpretation of the whole thing, for neither seem to have a lot to do with the lyrics' message, and many people sticked to the former without paying attention to the latter. Reagan himself, for example, thanks to the mistaken intervention of a conservative journo called GEORGE WILL, who was connected to the politician's environment. This meant a string of mostly erroneous comings and goings concerning the song, its message and who supports whom or what, and which pretty much lasts until today. In fact, as many as three subsequent disco remixes of the song were created (by producer ARTHUR BAKER), as it was said before, and refardless of the more or less validity of them (not interested in listening to them), they contributed to the confussion in an unintentional way, because many people embraced the product but did not mind the message.

Born In The USA was, back in the day, the first song by Bruce Springsteen that I ever listened to (at least that I know of), and the album became my first rock one. Hence their unintentional significance for me. I remember my dad, a teacher before he retired, just buying a new car. And after that, he got a radio unit for that car, one of those who also played tapes, and one day (back when the album was released or littlr after) he came with one he had borrowed from one of his pupils. He said to me something like you won't even notice what's hitting you, as if he was trying to set the mood for what was coming. He was right. My very young self had never listened to something as amazing as that title track, which opened the album in a very suitable fashion. I guess my liking for rock music (and everything that came after it as a natural consequence) was born on that very day.

Apart from that this is as forceful a song as it can get, quite indebted to the eighties sound, and perfect to sing aling while pumping your fist, although that could lead to misunderstanding. What I did not know is that this original version, whose ending fades little by little, was much longer at first, finishing with an extended jam which was edited due to commercial reasons. This song is not suitable for every moment, but it's strange how a song this recurring, has passed the test of time so well, at least as far as I am concerned. It has everything to annoy even the most devoted fan, but it has never irritated me, that I am far from being an overall Springsteen diehard. The live version on Live 1975-85 is not on par with the original one, mind you, for the synth becomes a tad too much.

Everything concerning Light Of Day and its relationship with Born In The USA has already been talked about, so let's see how the song which gives its name to Bruce's seventh record was created. As I said (when reviewing The Price You Pay), he had met Ron Kovic in 1978, and by the early eighties the Vietnam subject crossed his mind very often. And then some, for he was deeply concerned by the poor treatment received by former soldiers, and he even gave a charity show (when the The River tour was about to end) in 1981 to raise some awareness about this issue. When he moved to Colts Neck to resume his work (that time from which Nebraska and Born In The USA were born), what he did was writing stuff about this subject; songs which mostly dealt with post-traumatic stress. Those songs were not about the horrors of war itself, but about the subsequent internal conflict of an ex fighter.

One of those songs was the already mentioned Vietnam, whose different versions were recorded in 1981 (although they remain unreleased); its lyrics (about the alienation of a returning soldier, who becomes a stranger for his neighbours and is dumped by his girlfriend: You died in Vietnam) evolved until they appeared in the final version of two songs, being  Born In The USA the second one. As work progressed, the lyrics to eventually materialize in the first song began to vanish, and what arised was a refrain taken from the working title of that film by Paul Schrader. And yet, that specific version looked more like a prequel to Born In The USA (the place where the protagonist lives in is a dumpster and, having reached a critical moment in his life, joining the army seems like the right thing to do) which ends up with the narrator arriving in Vietnam and with the immortal phrase the famous, pliable and misunderstood final song was named after.

Soon after, Bruce returns to his passion for Hank Williams' music when he borrows the line I'm a long gone daddy, which can be listened to in the final product and emphasizes the protagonist's will to improve his life. More testing and changing follow and, among some other things, some nasty words of political denunciation (towards president NIXON) are inserted but soon removed. Springsteen also thinks about bringing back some lines from Vietnam which speak about the soldier's experience on the battlefield, but given that something of the sort clashes with the narrator's issues upon returning home, they are discarded too. That's how a final version of this song comes to life, but it will take many more years for it to be released. More on it later.

So far, this is all Bruce and his acoustic guitar doing, but in the Spring of 1982 he taped a very long (eight minutes) and unreleased full band version which would work as a template for the final take, recorded on the third of May, 1982. It wouldn't see the light of day (no pun intended) until a couple years later.

There's also the other song stemmed from Vietnam, which is necessary to be discussed too, for it obviously has a strong bond with Born In The USA and its own single. All in due time.

Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go.






When Bruce's biceps entered
popular culture




COVER ME is one of those numbers originally written to be given to some other artist. DONNA SUMMER this time, but Landau talked him out of it, convinced as he was of the track's potential (although the final song as it appears on Born In The USA is probably quite different from it was going to be at first). Springsteen kept the song and compensated Summer with a different song called PROTECTION. Bruce's reward for keeping Cover Me was his third Top ten single in his entire career.

I have always liked this song a lot, mostly because of Springsteen's ferocious guitar work (at the beginning and during the wild guitar solo), despite it not getting very good press and its supposed usage of more radio friendly musical trends (I have read that the E Street Band wasn't ready yet for a song which demands a more danceable tempo, but who I just have no idea about such things). This track is about the protagonit's agoraphobia; he asks his partner to isolate him from the outside world and stay with him. Or maybe that's just an excuse to be with her. The version on Live 1975-85 is also very good, starting with a drama-filled opening starred by Scialfa (who is backed by Springsteen himself uttering the song's name), who sings some lines taken from the 1965 song NOWHERE TO RUN (MARTHA & THE VANDELLAS), before reaching the frenzy of the song's proper beginning. This version ends as it begins (is much longer than the original one), but not before an improvides section takes places, featuring more pyrotechnics on the guitar. I will make an exception here, adding the link to a much later (2013) live version of this track that I reached to by coincidence and which is really good.

I don't know why (maybe because of Cover Me's initial goal, being Donna Summer known as the queen of disco music while in her prime), but this track was one of the three to be remixed for the dance floors. And there's another more romantic and also unreleased version of it as well, named DROP ON DOWN AND COVER ME. I had no idea about it, but I like it, to be honest. The lyrics are almost the same.

Now, promise me baby you won't let them find us.








DARLINGTON COUNTY is the song that I enjoy the least. Not that I dislike it, being a rock number which strengthens that party aura surrounding Born In The USA, but other than that, I usually feel indifferent towards it. It was initially written for Darkness On The Edge Of Town (?) and tells the story of two guys who drive to Darlington County (South Carolina) in search of work, and the ladies they meet along the way. The refrain is a little bit tiring (it is too catchy) and Clemons plays a sax solo for the first time on the album. The music is pretty much that.

It has a prequel, DELIVERY MAN, which was recorded afterwards and introduces WILSON and WAYNE, those two previous friends. This song makes clear that is Wilson who tells the story of Darlington County, while Wayne narrates this one. Both have an accident while carrying in their vehicle an illegal cargo comprised of chicken. I believe they just flee the scene and that's where Darlington County begins and Wayne vanishes during an entire week. The next time we know about him, he's been arrested. Delivery Man is much better than Darlington County, by the way.

We got rock & roll music blasting off the T-top.







I have always felt that WORKING ON THE HIGHWAY marks the beginning of a four-song streak which features some of the best on this record, with a few of them ranking among my most beloved songs within Springsteen's entire body of work. This is a track written for Nebraska and whose acoustic initial version was called Child Bride, as explained. This final version has nothing to do with the previous album's atmosphere, and this is another carefree and even danceable number, featuring a guitar riff replicated by the keyboards and a relentless hitting by Weinberg. It tells about some guy, with a really modest job, who runs away with a minor, despite the understandable repudiation showed by her family, until he gets caught and is condemned to forced labour. As you can see, this is another fine example of a story much darker than its music is expected to tell (Born In The USA, Cadillac Ranch, Johnny 99, Hungry Heart, etc). And just like several times before, I have needed to do some reading and focusing on the lyrics to realize all this, forty years after. I have also read a funny thing about it: you could think that the lady has just come of age and the narrator has been convicted for another crime; this could save the day for many people who, like me, have been in the dark about the actual guilt of the protagonist. But no cigar. Apparently, Child Bride had already made clear that no way. Child Bride worked well with a full band arrangement and that's way it became Working On The Highway and was featured on Born In The USA instead of Nebraska. Live 1975-85's live version is sub par.

All day I hold a red flag and watch the traffic pass me by.






I fooled you one more time




DOWNBOUND TRAIN is, despite its little fame and depressing mood, one of my all-time favourite songs by Bruce Springsteen. Since forever. I don't recall a single moment in which I opened my eyes about how good it is, because I have always considered it a miniature masterpiece from day one. There's something about the main riff, the section in which Bruce is left alone with the synths and the hurting lyrics (in the vein of the darkest moments from the three previous albums, with some scholars ranking this song as his saddest ever) which catches you by the throat and never lets you go. The protagonist's misfortune makes me feel empathy, I guess because he is a loser dragged to his current situation by his bad luck, and there can be a fine line between that situation and a seemingly peaceful and happy existence. It all could change overnight. Bruce's singing, on the other hand, is superb, as is Weinberg's joining after said main riff.

It tells about JOE's fall from grace; his wife abandons him (she leaves by train, hence the title) after he experiences some troubles with his working life. Life after it means being lonely, dreaming with his ex (this dream reminds a little to that in My Father's House), and earning a living working by the railroad (the contradiction that tortures Joe, given how his wife left and the neverending whistling of leaving trains, which reminds him of that very last moment with her). Lines like Joe, I gotta go, we had it once, we ain't got it anymore, or Now I work down at the car wash, where all it ever does is rain, are just brutal, given the song's context.

Just in case someone noticed some contradiction concerning Joe's different professions, I will explain the whole thing: he works at a lumberyard; he gets fired and everything goes wrong. He gets a new job washing cars, but his wife says enough is enough, and Bruce unveils the reason why this song is named this way: Joe's wife leaves him and says goodbye by train, and he lives tortured by the sound made by the trains that leave the station, for that is a remembrance of his wife leaving. Then there's the dream sequence, from which he awakes after listening to that whistle once again, and the song ends at the present time, while Joe tells how he currently works by the railroad. That means a cruel irony for him, because of everything already explained. And there's more, although I had to read about it to find out (of course I had to); if this is not only one fan's own interpretation of the story, but Bruce's real intention behind it, we are talking about an unprecedented display of genius: notice Weinberg's drumming having a very mechanical beat; it stops (together with almost everything else, but the vocals, the synths and some acoustic guitar or mandolin) when the dream arrives, but starts again after it, with that same beat, while Joe tells us how he currently uses a sledgehammer for a living. The drums would become said hammer, which crushes him physically, and the continous whistling of the trains would be the painful memory of his wife leaving, which crushes him inside. Just brilliant. A short movie within a barely three minutes and a half long song.

This was one of the few songs which transitioned well from its initial acoustic format to a full band treatment, during the Electric Nebraska sessions (it was recorded in 1982, but during those sessions another different version about which I will speak later was taped). I have listened to some of the acoustic demos, and I have focused on how this song has grown from that format but, as much as I may sound opportunist (because I have spent almost my entire life listening to the final version), those demos do not get to express what the final song does. Not even close.

Our love went bad, times got hard.





Another one of my favourites, and probably the most sexually tense Springsteen song (part of its text comes from another song to be discussed later) to be found, is I'M ON FIRE. The percussion, which feels like something distant, and the glorious synth riff (one of the first times Bruce went for that instrument) conduct the track. The melancholic and quite effective guitar riff, which is even better, does the rest. That sexual tension is mirrored pretty well by the famous video (directed by JOHN SAYLES), in which Springsteen plays a mechanic in charge of repairing the expensive car of a woman who appears to be in a wealthier social status than his. Said woman is barely seen (only her legs), but she implies to be romantically interested in the mechanic (she makes clear that it has to be him, and only him, the one to take care of her car). This is the shortest song (and nobody else but Bruce, Max and Roy take part in it), but in the live version off Live 1975-85 is extended thanks to a guitar and synth intro which is just unforgettable.

It is said that it could be Springsteen's most popular song (difficult to believe, but the list of covers that have been done by other artists is remarkable), and only four of his songs have done better than this one on the charts.

Tell me now, baby, is he good to you, can he do to you the things that I do?






Nils (first from the right) joins the party




NO SURRENDER is also one of the standout tracks on the record and, just like the next song, includes a tribute to both youth (I'm ready to grow young again) and friendship, and a commitment to one's own ideals, regardless of the stage of our lives we find ourselves in (it's about trying to find the best way to be in this world and, if possible, make our dreams come true without betraying ourselves). The narrator tells all this to his friend, sometimes using military metaphors, for said friend seems to be in doubt of that commitment (There's a war outside still raging, you say it ain't ours anymore to win). This is one of the hardest hitting song on the album, being a rock solid song with zero ornaments and more than suitable to be played live.

But it seems like Bruce wasn't at all sure about No Surrender making the cut (it was one of the last ones to be recorded, in October 1983), because it considered it very idealistic and naive, and it was Van Zandt who talked him into it. The version on the live album is an acoustic one (it took turns with the rock one during that time), and far from the loudness of the original version, but it's still very good.

Trivia stuff: during the presidential run of 2004, the democrat candidate JOHN KERRY, a well known Springsteen devotee, used this song for his campaign.

We learned more from a three minute record, baby, than we ever learned at school.






The other song to focus on friendship as its main theme, and this time in a very nostalgic fashion, is BOBBY JEAN. Music-wise it feels sadder than No Surrender, as expected, but it's not a slow song. It just relies on that nostalgia, and it features another solo by Clemons, who is more present in this second half of Born In The USA. But above all is Springsteen's singing that stands out. You can tell this song is special and it has one of its best lyrics. In them, the protagonist pays a visit to his friend's (who is called like the song) place, although I'm not sure if that visit takes place now or it's just a memory, from when they both were friends). His mum tells him Bobby is gone (if they were that close, he should have known about this beforehand) and nobody could have ever done anything to prevent Bobby's leaving. Springsteen begins to remember the time when they first met, the things they shared and how important Bobby was for him. In the present day (and this is why I do not know whether the visit is current or dates back to the time when the narrator finds out about his friend), the protagonist is a famous singer, and he tells Bobby that, wherever he might be, maybe he will listen to him singing this song, and if he does, he just wants him to know that he remembers him and that he doesn't want him to change his mind; he only wants to say goodbye, good luck and to let him know how much he misses him. This is a story everyone can relate to. It shares some traits with Backstreets in this sense, but without that betrayal feeling the older song talks about. Very good song.

The fact that this name's person was ambiguous, gender-wise, and that Springsteen addressed said person as baby at the end of the song, paved the way to some speculations, but there's unanimity concerning the fact that is Van Zandt himself the one this track is dedicated to (Bobby Jean was written and recorded around the time he left). Same with No Surrender.

And I'm just calling one last time, not to change your mind, but just to say I miss you baby, good luck, goodbye, Bobby Jean.






I'M GOIN' DOWN used to be one of my favourites, but lately it has made me feel more indifferent towards it, and I don't know why. It's a lively number, and with a certain tacky flair to it, mostly because of Bruce's singing (he repeats the word Down as many as eighty times during the song's running time, and this is not the only vocal trick of his to draw the attention to something that, in spite of being serious, is funny to sing about). It's one of the few songs (leaving Jungleland aside, and some others) in which the sax solo means something else to me, other than just a few seconds to wait until it's over (as I said, this is not an instrument that I'm very fond of). The music distances itself from a much starker text about a couple in which the woman has lost interest, while the protagonist complains about her being somehow manipulative. These lyrics act as a harbinger of all the songs about couples that abound on the next record.

This track was written quite soon, and it was an early contender to make the cut, but it was dismissed for a while and it ended up being a last minute addition. So late that there were promo copies of the record which did not include it. Linked below is a rare and extended version.

I'm sick and tired of you setting me up.






Glory days




GLORY DAYS is another one of the most famous songs on Born In The USA; it's a joyful rock number which tells a story (autobiographical from time to time) about the inevitable nostalgia we all feel sometimes for past moments we very often deem as our prime. Some say that this track rejects that nostalgia, more than it gets mixed up with it, because the narrator seems to pity the present moment of those people Bruce sings about, and who are those who got the spotlight during those glory days of old (the pretty young lady and the successful jock). The opening guitar riff is replicated by the bass and, during the refrain, by the keyboards, and the overall sensation (reinforced by the video) is that of being in a bar listening to a live band much more modest (success-wise) than this one. Van Zandt can be seen in the video (which is also the one whose ending features Julianne Phillips, then Springsteen's wife, from afar), although he wasn't a member of the band anymore. It's lively and much loved by the fans (its omission on Live 1975-85 wasn't understood), but in spite of my liking it, and all the good memories it brings back (that nostalgia the lyrics are about), I have never found it that essential.

It wasn't always that, let's say, light-hearted, because it can be traced back to 1981, or early 1982, when Springsteen began to write songs for what it ended up being Nebraska, and this album as well. It did not have any title yet (STOCKTON, most likely, after the name of a god-forsaken town), and it probably wasn't about that nostalgia towards it evolved, once it was shown to the rest of the band. A next to last version (which I link below) turned out to be longer, and it had an extra verse in which Bruce sang about his dad. That version is the same as the final one, barring that extra section, and it did not make the final cut by the skin of its teeth.

It seems like, although the bit about the girl who was the talk of the town while at school, and whose best days are already behind her, is more or less universal and it's not based on any specific person, the story about the jock is actually based on a real person, JOE DEPUGH, an old friend of the singer with whom he met again in 1973 by coincidence. He was very good at baseball and he was even aiming at a pro career, and he had nicknamed Springsteen as SADDIE, back in the day, because of Bruce's poor athletic conditions. Sad personal circumstances led his life somewhere else, but when he met his old buddy Saddie on that day, they both talked at a bar about those glory days for hours on end, and they did not meet again for a very long time. One thing's certain, because, as I've read, while it's true that DePugh could not make his dreams come, he found eternity somehow (although unwillingly) in a very famous song by Bruce Springsteen.

Joe DePugh succumbed to cancer in April 2025, at seventy five. Bruce remembered him on social media and on his web, mentioning how powerfully could DePugh throw a ball, just like the song says, and finishing with the line Glory Days, my friend.

As for why someone who is barely thirty years old (1981), already a rock star and very close to become a global icon, devotes himself to such a nostalgia trip, more typical of someone much older, I have read that, besides keeping in mind what his friend had gone through, and about which he had known eight years prior (DePugh's parents early demise forced him to take his siblings under his wing and forget about his sporting goals), Springsteen perhaps wondered how many glory days he had himself ahead of him, considering all the rock stars who had died young and the usual way of life of someone like him. That's why the well that is mentioned at the end of the lyrics, from which he wants to drink until he is full, seems to be his own life while on stage. Every single show. And maybe that rejection to nostalgia which was already mentioned has to do with focusing on the good things each new day has to offer, instead of remembering the past. That is difficult anyway.

Well there's a girl that lives up the block, back in school she could turn all the boys' heads






Is that you, Bruce?




DANCING IN THE DARK is another big achievement by Bruce, on all fronts, for it became the album's first single, its biggest hit (also in Springsteen's career so far), and one of his most famous tracks (listened to over and over again, although I have never had enough of it, to be honest). It works just fine to raise your spirits, and to many other things, despite its autobiographical lyrics about the singer's frustration (he was tired of working on this record without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel) and isolation (mostly after the The River's success; the first lines are right on point, although he still did not know what was coming), which don't conceal neither his need of inspiration, nor his will to reinvent himself completely. Doing some researching, I've learnt that back in the day, the two famed lines the refrain contains (You can't start a fire, you can't start a fire without a spark, this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark), and specifically that one about the gun, were understood by most as just a wish to connect physically or even sexually, instead of a confession about what the singer felt. So to speak, Bruce is in the dark and he's just asking for a spark to light up the fire; some inspiration: perhaps the imminent tour (There's something happening somewhere, baby I just know that there is). There was also talk about his own insecurities regarding his looks (I check my look in the mirror, I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face), when it probably was about how obsessive he was concerning his craft. And his work wasn't then over yet, by the way, while the rest of the world was moving on without him. He needs some catching up (I'm dying for some action) and the album had to be released at once. Enough with the wait (I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book).

Dancing In The Dark cannot hide it was born in the eighties, with those synths leading the whole thing and that typical drum sound, and it summarizes pretty well the album as a whole. I love the comings and goings of the guitar, an instrument which is not a constant in this original version. It's danceable (third song to be remixed for the dance floors), cheerful and, in its own particular way, optimistic. But even more tan that, is completely timeless. The only bad thing I can say about it is that, based on what I had listened to during the years, this is a song that can't reproduce the atmosphere that the original version has, when played live. Regardless of how outdated you may think said atmosphere is. The worst thing about it is that the same thing can be said about a few other numbers on Born In The USA, beginning with the title track. It doesn't happen with other records. The first time I saw Springsteen live, he played this song, but I do remember it as a sub par. By the turn of the century he decided to update a song so much rooted in the eighties sound, hiding the synth behind the guitars (with three guitar players) but, as explained, I do not recall to particularly enjoy it. However, and as another eception, I'll leave here the link to the live version which appeared on his DVD in Barcelona, from 2003; it's much better than my own memory about this song on stage.



A song like that has plenty of stories around, and one of the most remarkable ones is that it was written in just one night, after Landau told a really tired Bruce, that the album needed a single. Springsteen replied that he had already written seventy songs; if Landau wanted another one, he could go write it himself (that aforementioned frustration). But he regretted it on time, started to think and, all thinghs considered, he did the right thing. Among many awards and accolades, Dancing In The Dark got him his first GRAMMY, in 1985, for the best male rock vocal performance, and still is his biggest success in the States.

But if the song is this famous, that's also because of its video (the MTV was big already), which increased said fame in the coming years. Let't see the reason why. It was shot by BRIAN DE PALMA, no less, and it features the whole band playing the song during as couple of shows from June 1984, in Minnesota. The first night's shooting was the usual one of a video, and the second night marked the start of the tour; on that second night the band played the song twice, for the director to have all the takes he needed. Although it was Bruce who recorded electric guitar on the album, NILS LOGFREN can be seen on guitar in the video, and Springsteen only sings, which allows him, once the sax solo arrives, to take a girl up to the stage to dance with him. That girl had been seen during the video, because she was very close to the front row with her friends and Bruce had been staring at her. This would have been the end of the story if not for the fact that said girl (there is some confussion about whether she had been already chosen beforehand, or it was all a random thing) was an actress (up to that point, pretty much an unknown one) called COURTENEY COX, who, more or less a decade later, became, among other things, a worldwide known celebrity because of her role as MONICA GELLER, one of the main roles from the equally famous sitcom FRIENDS. Apart from that, this video got very popular, and apparently people began to rehearse what was seen in it, because, as expected, Bruce started to take girls up to the stage to dance with him during that sax section.

These are a couple of testimonies from people who were present while the clip was shot:




Another story, and I put it here because it's related to the videoclip, is that before De Palma's, another one was shot, by a certain JEFF STEIN, and it only showed Springsteen dancing in the dark, with the addition of Clemons for the solo. I had no idea about this, and given what I've seen, I'd rather been kept in the dark about it, for it is ridiculous, despite Bruce doing the same moves he does in the final video, which are ok, but are completely devoid of the meaning the De Palma video gives them. They seem just contrived here. Bruce's looks are even worse. More than The Boss, he looks like The Lady Boss after a visit to the hairdresser. I'll leave it here for those who are brave enough. And then some, for I will also link another video in which Clemons and him are rehearsing, for not only Stein's video was leaked, when it shouldn't have been, but also this one. Do not leave your admiratio towards the great man drop though, everyone knows about Bruce's sense of humour and that's the way to look at it.

Message keeps gettin' clearer, radio's on and I'm moving 'rund the place.








The front cover




MY HOMETOWN closes the record with what could be another nod, only concerning the music this time, to the next and much less noisy album: synth, acosutic guitar and melancholy. This song is quite good, of course, and very popular, although I suspect that's only (leaving the music aside) because people think it's about paying a tribute to the places Bruce grew up in. There's some truth in that though, because at the beginning, his father (the protagonist's father) drives him around their town and suggests him to take a proud look around, for that is his hometown. Things do change for worse, as the narrator gets older and he witnesses it all powerlessly (There was nothing you could do), and yet at thirty five, he repeats that ritual with his own son (he wasn't a parent yet; on the other hand, taking the action to the future is something he had already done before in Mansion On The Hill, and maybe in The River too), while he thinks about leaving that place and change it for somewhere better (with his wife, KATE), because that are has deteriorated due to the racial tensions (it seems like what is told by the lyrics did not happen in 1965, but in 1969, not on a Saturday night, but on a Monday, and not at his high school; but it did happen in Freehold; I guess all those inaccuracies have to do with suiting the song's metric) and the finacial crisis of those years in between, and these circumstances are the actual protagonists of the track, because the place you were born, grown up in or whatever, is not what it used to be anymore. What once was pride, now is need and unhappiness.

My Hometown was born in 1982, then titled YOUR HOMETOWN, with a text which was far from being the final one (it has a happy ending that made the narrator distance himself from all those events, which did not make much sense), and a livelier tempo, quite removed from that of the final product. The next year, Bruce realized that said tempo ruined the song's message, and that's where the final song was born from, with a different name. There is a sequel (DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN) on WRECKING BALL, the album Bruce released in 2012, but I haven't listened to it.

Today, Bruce Springsteen lives within a ten minutes drive from where he grew up in. He might have been born to run, but no matter how far away he travels, he always comes back to his hometown. As we think the narrator of the song did.

Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come here no more.








LIVE 1975-85



Live 1975-85 / 1986




Most of the songs on Live 1975-85 (Springsteen's first live album ever, among many, which hit the shelves on the tenth of November, 1986) have already been reviewed, but this humongous record has a lot more in store. Some much improved versions of songs off Bruce's first two records, to begin with: SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT, 4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY), GROWIN' UP (with another biographical speech, same as in The River), IT'S HARD TO BE A SAINT IN THE CITY (which features a furious late guitar duel between Van Zandt and Springsteen) and the very lively ROSALITA (COME OUT TONIGHT).



4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY) - LIVE / 31-12-1980, NASSAU COLISEUM, UNIONDALE, NEW YORK


IT'S HARD TO BE A SAINT IN THE CITY - LIVE / 07-07-1978, ROXY THEATRE, WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA




It doesn't end there, for there are several rare songs. I'll begin with what I deem more expendable. There are two covers: the very well known RAISE YOUR HAND (CROPPER, FLOYD and ISBELL) and WAR, a song about Vietnam written by some guys called NORMAN WHITFIELD and BARRETT STRONG. There's also SEEDS, one song written by Bruce that, as I read, he has played live a lot of times, but that it doesn't have a studio version (a released one at least). The lyrics, about someone who relocates in search of better luck, but ends up with nothing, are quite good, but in my opinion, these three songs are the least remarkable stuff on the record, despite having their moments. They feel a tad boring.







I'm in command here




But the rest is quite good. PARADISE BY THE C, a song tailor-made for Clemons to shine (the title references him, given that C was one of his nicknames), stands out for being the one and only Springsteen instrumental song to ever be released. We'll see that later on.

And then there's FIRE, a number written by The Boss in 1977, which knew fame when it was adapted the next year by THE POINTER SISTERS, and the song which is most likely to be the album's best moment when it comes to all those tracks which are not on any of the previous studio records: a glorious version of the very famous BECAUSE THE NIGHT, another 1977 track that Bruce wrote together with PATTI SMITH, and that this singer used on EASTER (1978), besides releasing it as a very successful single. The guitar solo, which lasts more than a minute and a half, is just tremendous.

And two more covers to finish: THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND and JERSEY GIRL, by WOODY GUTHRIE and TOM WAITS, respectively. Springsteen's versions are both beautiful and really emotional, and far superior to the original ones in my opinion. And I think this Jersey Girl cover is the one which became a B side on the Cover Me single.


PARADISE BY THE C - LIVE / 07-07-1978, ROXY THEATRE, WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA

FIRE - LIVE / 16-12-1978, WINTERLAND, SAN FRANCISCO






A picture of the entire team




It seems like the idea behind this live album was Landau's, something that Springsteen himself tells in a handwritten introduction included in the booklet. The next step was to spend months listening to shows recorded during the ten years spanned by this record, in order for this to end up as the enormous thing that it is. I don't know whether it was planned this way or it just grew as time went by, but it became something historical. And not only due to this artifact's unusual size (more than three hours and a half of music, contained on five vinyls, three cassettes or three compact discs), its success on the charts, the anticipated demand and some other remarkable facts, but also because of it still is the second best selling live album in the history of the United States (behind DOUBLE LIVE, by GARTH BROOKS), no less.

Despite the impressive setlist, you can never make everyone happy, and this album is notorious for some strange omissions (Jungleland, Prove It All Night and Dancing In The Dark could be the most notable ones). It's also striking that an album as long as The River is, is the one (together with Nebraska) with the smallest percentage of songs included, with just a thirty per cent of its repertoire.

The musicians to take part on this album are the ones we already know, plus the additions of  Lofgren y Scialfa. There's also an additional vocal input in Hungry Heart, and The Miami Horns play in Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out. Produced by Landau, Plotkin and Springsteen.





End of the fifth chapter





TUNNEL OF LOVE



Tunnel Of Love / 1987




TUNNEL OF LOVE, Springsteen's eight studio album and the one to bring this era of his to an end, hit the shelves on the ninth of October 1987 (through Columbia one more time). It was produced by Landau, Plotkin and Springsteen. As I said, Born In The USA and its tour became a turning point for Bruce; a lot happened between the album's release and the end of the tour, and not everything was good. Success had come to stay, no doubt, but it did not translate into a completely pleasant personal life for the artist and, concerning the music, I think he was the first one to notice that everything has gotten a little bit out of control. Something had to change and it did.

His marriage was going down the toilet, to begin with (Julianne Phillips filed for divorce in August 1988, citing irreconcilable differences). As expected, Bruce spent too much time away from home, and the fact that she was eleven years his junior did not help finding a bigger affinity between them either. I have no idea about it, and I'm not very much interested to know, but Scialfa probably played an involuntary role in this process (or maybe it wasn't that involuntary, because by the time this record was released, a then married Springsteen could have started dating Scialfa already), given that I have read that there were rumours about the two of them ending up as a couple even before Bruce first met Phillips. In any case, neither party has said anything about the divorce in the following years, something that is to the credit of both, but mostly hers, for she could have surely won tons of money venting the marriage's dirty linen (if there was any) or any kind of story about someone as popular as her ex, and she didn't. Springsteen was someone much more famous than she was, and he admitted in Born To Run, his autobiography from a few years back, having managed in a very poor way everything related to his first marriage, as if acknowledging a guilt which shouldn't be shared with Phillips, about whom he only has good things to say.



Julianne Philips




As a consequence of all this, Tunnel Of Love became another intimate and personal album, but unlike Nebraska, it did not deal with the singer's so far usual themes, like the difficulties of the working class, its frustration and everything regarding a specific portion of America's society, but with stuff that had been secondary in his career up to that point, like relationships and the marital problems Bruce was going through back then. And instead of showcasing the accustomed rock songs, we do find a set of mostly slow numbers.



Phillips and Springsteen




More changes. All of Springsteen's previous studio albums had displayed his name, and not his band's, on the front cover, just like this one does, but those records were understood as joint affairs (barring Nebraska, of course), for the E Street Band backed Bruce as his own band, both in the studio and on stage. But this time, even if there were no significant changes in this department during the tour, this record is considered as a solo effort (by Springsteen himself, to begin with), for Bruce recorded almost everything on his own (sometimes helped by a drum machine) at his home studio (THRILL HILL EAST, in Rumson, New Jersey), and the contributions by the rest of musicians were just sporadic (there is no single sax solo on the record, for example). Bruce disbanded (temporarily, of course, for both sides were bound to get together some day, although I do not know what the original idea about this was) his band in 1989, but there did not seem to be a negative atmosphere among all the band members. I guess it was just the willingness to do something new and work with different people, besides the musicians own projects. Bruce counted on some of them on subsequent albums though; he also took part on some of their solo records too, and they all reunited, first as a one-off (in 1995, on the occasion of Bruce's first ever greatest hits compilation), and then for good (around 1999). The recording of Tunnel Of Love also took place at A&M studios, in LA, and at The Hit Factory (New York).

This album did well, commercially speaking (nothing like Born In The USA's unstoppable success, of course), and it was mostly well received by the critic, which talked about another brave and introspective record, with Springsteen's saddest songs to date. Somebody said it was something which needed to be listened to after a few years of life as a couple, in order to become more familiar with the album's themes. This is about couples that, after some time together, end up with their components being trapped in the dark of that night that most of The River's second half seems to be. I guess that those who said something of the sort meant tracks like Point Blank, Fade Away or Stolen Car, but had Springsteen something similar in mind, I must admit that the way he splits hairs for his albums to feed back into one another, and his usual themes to be linked, is masterful. If that wasn't his intention, what I have to deem brilliant is the knowledge and imagination of some critics.

As for the songs that did not make the cut, the surplus of them was nowhere as enormous as with the previous record, but there were some, and I will talk about them later on. One titled WALKING THROUGH MIDNIGHT is the only one to still remain unreleased. And already in 1988 (the first of August), a live Ep named CHIMES OF FREEDOM was released, in support of a pro-human rights tour that got several artists together and which was assembled by AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.



With Scialfa on stage. Where there's
smoke, there's fire




The tour to suppert Tunnel Of Love (which featured the help of The Miami Horns very often), which happened right before the aforementioned charity one, was much shorter than his tours used to be, but included a historic date in East Berlin, on the 19th of July, 1988, in which Bruce and his band played for an estimated one hundred sixty thousand people (a record for him back then), although it was later said that the attendance could have been even bigger. This show was organized by the socialist youth of the then GDR (said organization went into bankruptcy after being unable to face the final expenses) to make young people of that side of the wall happy, during a really turbulent time, and it was heralded as the arrival of a working class hero from America who fought against social injustices across the pond. This is quite funny, for Bruce himself, many years later and during a remarkable and honest fit of sincerity, admitted (among some other things) on the already mentioned Springsteen On Broadway album (or at least in the Netflix documentary after which the album was released) that he had spent his entire life singing about the working class without having set foot inside a factory or ever worked an eight hour shift.



That show was taken to a velodrome named RADRENNBAHN WEISSENSEE, quite removed from the Berlin Wall, because the security forces from the eastern side had already had problem trying to prevent their own youngsters from listening to any music coming from previous important concerts taking place on the western side (???). Springsteen, trying his best with his own deutch from New Jersey, explained the crowd that he wasn't there to protest against neither of the two sides, but to play rock music for the people from East Berlin, hoping for the barriers to fall some day. The socialist authorities took advantage of a slight delay during the live broadcast to cut those words, but it wouldn't take long before the Berlin Wall fell (9th of November, 1989), and journos and historians agree on the impact that event had on next year's events. They said that, after the show, it was noticeable the mood for change of a population which had begun to realize how locked up it was.



Bruce, aquel día en Berlín




Opener AIN'T GOT YOU (not a cover, but a tribute to a 1955 song of the same name performed by a bluesman named BILLY BOY ARNOLD), stands out for departing from the melancholic and introspective overall feel of the album, although is not your run of the mill rock song either. But one thing's certain: given the above explained marital problems, and Bruce's perhaps already started relationship with Scialfa, she (and not Phillips) was likely to be the one Bruce had in mind when he wrote this song. It tells about a millionaire who has it all, and then some, personal attentions included, but admits he doesn't care about it and neither does it fill him, for the only thing he wishes is that one he can't have. I've read that the line I made a deal with the devil could relate not to a life of success at the expense of personal satisfactiono, but it would just be a nod to a marriage, a failing one, which takes place right before the protagonist (Bruce) finds who he really is looking for (I'm still the biggest fool).

This is a very short acoustic track with minimal instrumentation in which Bruce sings with no music behind him for almost half a minute. It borrows from Nebraska, concerning its simplicity, but the mood is more joyful. I guess this song usually goes unnoticed in any kind of conversation about Bruce Springsteen's music, and I don't think it has been usually played live, apart from this tour (paired with She's The One, I believe), but I like it a lot. Being this short and light-hearted, its inclusion as the first track may look strange, but it is commonly said that, after the previous album's raging success, Springsteen wished to lower the expectations of the fans concerning something similar. Opening with Ain't Got You he wanted to make clear that this was going to be different.

I got a house full of Rembrandt and priceless art.





TOUGHER THAN THE REST is a slow number which finally settles the overall mood of Tunnel Of Love, and it does using a simple but powerful drum pattern, and a synth riff that happens to be the most recognizable trait of the song. There are also good solos on guitar and harmonica. This seem like a conversation between two people who have been through it all, and the narrator makes clear that he is ready for another chance at love, as long as the other person is to (Well, there's another dance, all you have to do is say yes). Great song, no doubt, but nothing to do with the glorious live version which I link below and appeared on the live Ep Chimes Of Freedom. The video is very good as well, and the song is longer, with a verse which is played twice, and emphasis on those two solos and Scialfa's backing vocals. Her understanding with Springsteen is obvious, regardless of what could be going on between the two of them back then. The video also shows many couples who are supposed to attend Bruce's show, and some of them are gay, something that wasn't that usual almost forty years ago. Showing them like that, I mean, not the fact that there were gay couples, of course.

A special track, and one of Bruce's most beloved songs in Europe. It's always been really liked within my family, and I remember my mum saying how much she loved it, even if she did not know its title or what it was all about.

Max Weinberg and Danni Federici play here, handling the percussion and the Hammond organ, respectively.

Well it ain't no secret, I've been around a time or two.   






Promo picture




It is said that the also very short (not much longer than the first song) ALL THAT HEAVEN WILL ALLOW, not only borrows its title from the DOUGLAS SIRK film (from 1955, and once again with JANE WYMAN and ROCK HUDSON), but also much more than just that, even if the song appears to be a light and even optimistic one. On the film, Hudson's character works the garden of a wealthy widow and they both fall in love, but their different social statuses and some outside pressure get in their way. Needless to say, I did not know about this until I did some reading about the song, but I have to say that this time I do not quite get the comparison, despite some similarities. I don't remember having seen the movie, but judging by what I've read about it, I think it's much more dramatic than this track. But who knows? If both things share their name and this is what the scholars say, who am I to deny it? I don't know if Springsteen has ever commented on it. In the song, the humble protagonist only owns what he can make of his work, and he knows that what he's got ahead of him (a relationship) will be tough. But he is not worried. As long as there is someone who loves him, he's just fine.

In any case, Bruce's change in this regard is remarkable, for everything looks more private than on the previous record. The average protagonist of this set of songs goes from the usual fight and endurance of many earlier songs, to a longing for a quiet, shared life. The bass is quite loud here, and the different guitar lines stand their ground before the usually predominant synth, which is less present here.

Weinberg on drums.

I can't be late, I got a date, with all that heaven will allow.





SPARE PARTS is the hardest rocking song off the album, and one of the few to escape its melancholy. It's not bad, and I'm sure it had to be a fine moment when played live back in the day (it's one of the record's most live played numbers), given its nature, but it never was very appealing to me beyond that. Until now, and I'll elaborate further in a moment. This is the track with the biggest amount of musicians, other than Bruce, taking part in (although its skeleton was another acoustic song by Springsteen, to which the contribution of those musicians were added separately), which meant having Garry Tallent on bass (his only one time on this album), Federici and Weinberg, besides the harmonica of some JAMES WOOD.

This is JANEY's story; she's a young lady who is dumped by her partner once she gets pregnant, and when they were both supposed to marry. She chooses to go on with the pregnancy, despite what becoming a single mother could entail for her, because she doesn't think she has done anything wrong, other than trusting the wrong person (BOBBY, the scumbag in question, gets the news that he has become a parent, but that doesn't make him come back). She assumes her responsibility, but she also feels like her youth is deserting her. Overwhelmed by the situation, she thinks about abandoning her baby in the river, at the current's mercy, after learning about what another woman had already done before her. Although the outcome of her hypothetical action is easy to guess, she prefers to believe that perhaps someone will find the baby before the inevitable and they will give said baby a better life than she can. Janey is supposed to be faithful and she prays, looking for a sign that doesn't come, so she goes to the river with the baby and gets in waist-deep, until she regrets the whole thing. We are not told why. Later on, she exchanges her ring and her wedding dress for money.

I've been listening to this song since te record came out, and I had never paid attention to its lyrics. I have to admit it has grown on me now that I know what I know. The story is brutal as few others, but difficult to notice if only the music is taken into account, for Janey's ethical and lonely dilemma feels more at home on an album like Nebraska. It feels that intimate. This contrast between the lively music and the dramatic text is even bigger if we consider the song's powerful live version which appeared in Spare Parts' video (link to it below), performed while the band was touring to support the record. In fact, Springsteen instroduces and explains the story before playing the song, for the audiende to fully understand it, despite of it being a quite in your face one. Perhaps that's the reason why the few times he has played this song outside that tour, have taken place in two later acoustic tours, in a format more suitable for a story like this.

What I have read as an explanation links Janey to models of female empowerment, although in an involuntary fashion. This is surely a brave woman we are talking about, for whom her faith does not serve its purpose, so she ends up doing what she does on her own. The spare parts and the broken hearts that keep the world turning around, as the refrain says, gain meaning when we know that Janey sticks to what is important (her child) and dismisses the symbols of what her life could have become (the wedding stuff).

Spare parts and broken hearts keep the world turning around.






With Clemons during the tour




The beginning of CAUTIOUS MAN also shares some resemblance with the songs on Nebraska (with a better sound, though), given its mood and minimalist arrangement. Halfway through the song you still have that sensation, but the synth distances this track a little bit from the picture we have of the musician alone with his guitar in a room, that the album from 1982 so well evokes. The lyrics are as beautiful as they are dramatic, telling the story of BILL HORTON, who is supposed to be a loner who lives his life with no commitment to anyone but himself, and is always very careful with his proceedings. But he experiences a second youth (Indian summer) when he meets a younger girl out of the blue, to whom he devotes himself wholeheartedly. He is surprised by this turn of events and laughs about it, but his former self, the usual one, resurfaces little by little. Until one day, when after waking up from a nightmare and finding his wife sleeping calmly by his side, he gets dressed and leaves, because he is more attracted to loneliness and the road. When he realizes how lonely his life is, he returns to his wife. At least for the moment.

I have to admit that I thought at first that Bill was a crook, and what he had done was killing the girl and run away, but that's not how the story goes, aparently. You just have to focus on the last part of the text. This song is quite autobiographical, according to Bruce himself. He has admitted his fear of the vulnerability that life as a couple entails (Bill's tattoos on his knuckles, a la ROBERT MITCHUM in THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, directed by CHARLES LAUGHTON and also premiered in 1955, say Love and Fear), and back in the day that fear led him to play his love life safe. If being with someone can make you experience things you don't like, the best thing to do is just remaining on your own.

Billy met a young girl in the early days of May.





When I began listening to Tunnel Of Love, I believed that WALK LIKE A MAN was still Cautious Man (the same song, I mean), as if it was its second and livelier half, until I realized that it was another completely different song. This track goes back to Bruce's relationship with his dad, but the narrator is older now than in previous songs (Independence Day, etc), and finds himself on his own wedding day. He is taken aback by his dad's, a tough guy, unexpected emotion during the ceremony, and he begins to remember. It is now when he realizes all those things he experienced at home as a kid and he did not understand, while going through some of his memories, and he promises to try walk (behave himself, I guess) like a man (on Springsteen On broadway he said that, in order to tell his stories, he had chosen the voice of his father, who was both his hero and his foe). 

After all, our parents have a life of their own too. When we begin to realize that life does not circle solely around us, and other people's feelings and lives also matter, we feel guilty when the certainty of those people around us maybe not being capable of fulfilling their dreams dawns on us (I didn't know what to do when I saw your best steps stolen away from you). And even more so if we are the involuntary  reason behind that. This is something we fully notice when we become parents ourselves and we are aware of all the sacrifices our parents had to endure because of us.

Thanks a million.

The music here repeats the same pattern to be found in some of the songs on Tunnel Of Love: a synth line, some percussion and some guitar, mostly acoustic. It feels like Springsteen is mainly trying to focus on the story to be told, and on his way of telling it being the most suitable one for the song.

Weinberg on percussion, once again.

Well, so much has happened to me that I don't understand.





A much more discreet singer and songwriter




I haven't paid too much attention to pointing out which songs were released as singles (let alone in which countries), or which ones had a videoclip shot for them, unless they were really relevant examples, because I just don't think it is that important. In the end, an album like Born In The USA spawned more singles than half its setlist and, apart from that record, Springsteen released more than thirty during these years I am revisiting, so releasing one became a routine which doesn't deserve more time. TUNNEL OF LOVE, the title track (and also the last one to make the final cut), is one of those cases in which the song was released as a single and had a video of its own (shot in Asbury Park and packed with symbolism, according to those who know about it), but this song is remarkable for being one of the few on this album to leave its usual quiet pattern behind. Not a fast song either, mind you, and not even Spare Parts, but at least you can tell this is not the record's average slow number.

The lyrics liken marriage (Bruce's was reaching its end when the album began to be recorded, for it is probable that Phillips and him separated during the spring of 1987) to an amusement ride or a fun house (and to all the things one can find in a fun fair, for he uses metaphors related to several other attractions), with all its ups and downs, as something that looks simple and exciting at first, but that can also get screwed up and end up being anything but that. Bruce had already made clear a few times that two were better than one, but he never said that being with someone was a cakewalk.

The beginning seems to replicate the usual mess of a fair, but everything calms down and the song actually begins. The synth rules one more time, until the drums join and the music gears up, with more protagonism given to the guitars. This song was Nils Lofgren's presentation card in the studio, and he took over a guitar solo which sounded much noisier than usual and was more typical of someone more proficient as a six-stringer than Van Zandt or Springsteen himself. I love the final section, during which the electric guitar replicates Bruce and Scialfa's (who also debuts here, videoclip included) vocals.

Besides Lofgren and Scialfa's involvement, Bittan plays the synth and Weinberg is on drums.

Springsteen played at ESTADIO VICENTE CALDERÓN in Madrid on the second of August 1988, during Tunnel Of Love's supporting tour (TUNNEL OF LOVE EXPRESS TOUR), and when the event was covered (the next day, I guess) by the evening news on television, some aerial images of Bruce opening the show with this song, before an enormous crowd, were shown. They also talked about that show's attendancy, if I'm not mistaken. I remember all these things like in a blur, and I had to check the exact date of that concert, but I will never forget my mum saying There are more people in there than Palencia's entire population.

Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us.






The tour's poster




TWO FACES is another one of those songs I'm very fond of, even if they remain pretty much unknown for the public at large. The lyrics are about the bipolarity of the protagonist (once again, this is Bruce Springsteen singing about his own inner struggles long before they went public), and how the evil side ends up doing harm to those the good one care about. At least the good side defies the evil one to go over it, at the end of the song. This song gives the protagonism to acoustic guitar and keyboards, and features a short electric guitar solo and a late keyboard. The latter sound happier than the former, I guess because that positive I just mentioned needs to be highlighted.

This track is inspired by Bruce's passion for the music of a guy named LOU CHRISTIE, who also had a hit in 1963 with the name of TWO FACES HAVE I. Luckily enough, Christie's song had nothing to do with Springsteen's, but it talked about two faces, one that laughs and one that cries, just like this song does.

Weinberg plays the drums, and Federici is supposed to play the organ, although there is no credit about it.

One that laughs, one that cries, one says hello, one says goodbye.





Picture on the front cover. Sober artwork




One of  Tunnel Of Love's most famous song (if not the best known one) is BRILLIANT DISGUISE, its first single, which happens to deal with Bruce's failed marriage with Phillips in a more blatant manner (he denied, back then, this track to be about him and his ex, but the truth is that the couple separated soon after the single was released), for it is about a couple and the narrator's doubts about the true nature of the woman he is about to marry (can we get to know someone beyond what that person wants us to know?). And about his own, because he is someone filled with insecurities (Well I've tried so hard baby, but I just can't see, what a woman like you is doing with me) and that frustrates him. He wants to know whether it is her he doesn't trust (some lines might hint at that), or just himself, something which led this song to be linked to the previous one, because this confession could be typical of the evil side shown in Two Faces (So when you look at me, you better look hard and look twice, is that me, baby, or just a brilliant disguise?).

This song's ends with Springsteen's famous reflection about God having mercy on the man who doubts even what he is sure of, which can be understood in several different ways, depending on the time and everyone's experiences in their own marriage or relationship, I guess. As he said, do I know enough about me to be honest with someone else? It all changes depending on the moment.

This track marks the first time I listened to new stuff from Bruce Springsteen while being aware of it, because it was the first song to get airplay off the first album he released after I had gotten to know him thanks to Born In The USA. It's a light track following the same vein most of the rest of the songs do, and it features some standout vocal parts by Bruce, like the refrain's. Just like in Tougher Than The Rest, the synth melody is one of the most recognizable traits in the song. As trivia fact, the song's video (directed by MEIRT AVIS, who shot Tunnel Of Love's as well) showed Bruce singing live with his guitar over the original track, alone in some kitchen, while the camera gets closer and closer to him until what we see is a very pensive close-up of the singer, once the text is over. As if he wanted to say something, but without doing so.

Roy Bittan plays the piano, together with the usual suspects Federici and Max Weinberg.

I wanna read your mind to know just what I've got in this new thing I've found.






Still with the E Street Band




ONE STEP UP is another sincere look at the subject of gone awry couples, and how people feel trapped in them, so I guess this is also autobiographical. This is an intimate and sad tune in which the singer uses several metaphors to reference a relationship which is not working, because both parties seem to be bent on not learning from previous mistakes and boycotting the good things they share. The narrator is not shy when voicing his own responsibility, and he admits to not being the man he'd like to be. Who he wanted to be. At the end of the song, he meets someone in a bar, and he tries to feel again what he once had with his current partner (it is not clear whether his relationship is already over, or about to be though, for he is alone, sleeps in a motel, etc), and that's when Scialfa's voice shows up, being the only external musical support for Bruce in this track. The two of them would get married soon after. Was this deliberate?

One Step Up was recorded, exceptionally, at A&M Studios, and as an unsual feature on this album, some solo guitar touches can be listened here and there.

We're the same sad story, that's a fact, one step up and two steps back.





WHEN YOU'RE ALONE's beginning may make the listener think that Tunnel Of Love's final stretch  might wish to get rid of the album's usual melancholy, and while it's true that this song is a tad livelier in this regard, it only leaves you with the same sense of loss, something that I think is just intentional. The narrator (JOHNNY) explains how his partner left him, once their relationship began to go south, but when she tried to go back to him, he rejected her. He has matured enough to learn that youth and good looks do not last, and when they are gone, being with someone who makes your life more bearable is what matters. In the meantime, she has neglected all those little things, and when she goes back to Johnny he tells her he is not interested anymore. Loneliness is hard to handle in many cases, and that is something the refrain focuses on (When you're alone, you're alone. You ain't nothing but alone). And you can tell there is some bitterness on Johnny's side going on, thanks to a brutally honest line as the very last one is: Nobody knows where love goes, but when it goes, it's gone.

The music listens like more of the same, with minimal percussion, an easy to remember synth line and the guitar, mostly acoustic. But there's also that very accomplished refrain, boosted at the end by several members of the E Street Band (Clemons sole contribution, Lofgren and Scialfa). Weinberg on drums once again. Beautiful song.

You said my act was funny, but we both knew what was missing, honey





Calm after the storm




The last song, VALENTINE'S DAY, resumes the album's more usual pace, with the protagonism of Springsteen on both acoustic and bass guitar. The omnipresent synth adds a different and beautiful melody at the end, but the overall outcome is once again completely melancholic. However, the lyrics do not look sad to me, because an adrenaline-fueled protagonist (after the birth of his friend's son), is dying to be back home, implying that he's panicking at the prospect of being alone. But not from the point of view of someone whose mistakes have led him to a difficult situation, but from that of those who truly value their luck and their bond with someone. The standpoint of someone who feels for their partner what the narrator's friend feels for his newborn son.

I've read that one of the lines that Bruce sings at the end of the song (It wasn't the bitterness of a dream that didn't come true) could be a nod to his fanbase, referencing The River and its famous Is a dream a lie if it don't come true? The difference between both lines implies that the dream of the protagonist in Valentine's Day is coming true, at least for the time being.

So hold me close honey, say you're forever mine.





These last two tracks are among the least-played live songs in the entirety of Springsteen's career.



Patty Scialfa, his current wife




Springsteen's divorce with Phillips became a reality in 1989, but still in 1988, Scialfa and him began dating (on the record, I mean, for they had probably been seeing each other since 1986). They got married in 1991 (eighth of June), soon after she birthed the couple's first born (EVAN) the previous year. As of today, they live in Colts Neck, have three children and even a granddaughter (born in 2022 as the daughter of their third kid, SAMUEL). Their only daughter (born between both boys) is JESSICA SPRINGSTEEN, a horsewoman who won a silver medal in team jumping at the Tokyo Olympics of 2021. It needs to be said that her dad, besides being who he is and all his accomplishments, won an Academy Award for the best original song in 1994, thanks to STREETS OF PHILADELPHIA, included on the soundtrack of the film PHILADELPHIA (1993), by JONATHAN DEMME. I guess that success breeds success.





End of the sixth chapter





EVERYTHING ELSE: EXTRA STUFF AND LIVE ALBUMS



What you are about to read is just for the diehards. It is worthy of reading, of course (what else could I say?), for there are tons of song to be found here, and many of them as good or even better than those on the already reviewed records.

Be that as it may, this is to increase your mark.



Bruce Springsteen has always been a very prolific songwriter. Because of that, dozens and dozens of songs have been left behind after not making the cut of an album, and not due to their lack of quality, mind you, in many of the cases, but because they did not fit the specific narrative of the album in question and things like that. Some of them have become B sides of some single, and many other have officially resurface, many years later, thanks to reissues of important records which are filled with extra stuff, or to enormous compilatios. And as mentioned, some others are still waiting inside whatever vault they may be in.

That's why it's no wonder this chapter (despite being the least important one, in principle) is much longer than any of the orevious ones, and has many more songs than all of them combined.



A smiling Springsteen on stage during the late seventies




Let's go with all the extra stuff he has created during those fourteen previous years (but released long after), and with the live albums that have been released after 1988 but document live performances from this era.





EP'S



In 1987, a couple of live Ep's were released, but only in Japan, if I'm not mistaken. They were called LIVE COLLECTION I and II, respectively. The latter (with the additional title of Born To Run) featured five songs which were already included on Live 1975-85, but the former was more interesting, having two songs which were not on that live album: INCIDENT ON 57TH STREET and FOR YOU. Both had been B sides to some of the editions of the singles released off said record. The first one, a song from Springsteen's sophomore effort, had been on War's single, and the second, taken from Bruce's debut, on Fire's. This Ep was produced by Landau and Plotkin. I guess the other one shares production team with Live 1975-85, for it has only stuff that already was on that record.






Live Collection I / 1987




Live Collection II / 1987




The third Ep, also a live one, released during this era (first of August 1988), was the already mentioned Chimes Of Freedom. On it, besides that glorious and already discussed live version of Tougher Than The Rest,we do find a slower one of Born To Run, BE TRUE (a song Bruce played a lot during that tour and whose original version had been a B side to some of the singles off The River, back in 1981), and a cover of the BOB DYLAN's song the Ep was named after. That song was played in that famous Berlin show and, apparently, the crowd understood this number as a call to the falling of the GDR. This specific version is from a few days prior.

Be True was recorded on the 28th of March in Detroit (Joe Louis Arena), Chimes Of Freedom on the third of July same year, at the Olympiastadion in Stockholm, and Born To Run (same as Tougher Than The Rest) on the 27th of April in LA (Memorial Sports Arena). I have never paid too much attention to this artifact, beyond the Tougher Than The Rest version, because I have never been too fond of Be True (or Born To Run either, as a matter of fact) although the Born To Run version is nice and the Bob Dylan song looks good too. I did not know it.

The usual producing team of Springsteen, Landau and Plotkin worked its magic once again in that department.







GREATEST HITS



Springsteen's first compilation album took a long time to arrive (27th of February 1995, through Columbia) and my opinion is that it left a lot to be desired. I do not think you can summarize an almost twenty five years long career with just thirteen songs, let alone if that career belongs to someone who had already released a good ten studio albums up to that point. The outcome was a very typical and short selection of songs, some of them edited, that forgot completely about Bruce's first two albums. Weird. The only reedeming quality was the apparition of some new or unreleased on a Springsteen album tracks (Streets Of Philadelphia), mostly because some of them brought the E Street Band back to life, even if only for this reason and as one-off.

Out of those, let's say, new songs, the only one to be meaningful here (because it was created during this era) is the aforementioned Murder Incorporated, so we are not talking about something new, but about something still unreleased. If I am correct, and as I said when I reviewed Born In The USA, this is the original track although with a new mix; but I'm still in doubt here. Good song, a rocking one, but everyone else seems to be more excited about it than I am. This song is like a metaphor (there was an actual criminal organizaton of the same name in the thirties), I think, and so is the gun that is talked about. It's all about the few opportunities that some areas of american society have. The video was shot by Jonathan Demme, and the shooting meant playing this same song as many as six times in front of a small and very selected audience which did not know what was to be presented with. Murder Incorporated served the purpose of lighting the spark of the reunion of Bruce's band, and the audience was so focused on watching the E Street Band back together, that the actual meaning of the song went unnoticed. When Springsteen toured in support of The Ghost Of Tom Joad, before said reunion, made sure to give this song a treatment in which its message was understood.




Greatest Hits / 1995




The critic wasn't very enthusiastic about this release, and it even commented how convenient releasing it just one day before the Academy Awards ceremony was, given that Philadelphia had five nominations.

As for the production, it depends on each track and when they were released. That's why the usual names are all over.







From now on, what we can mostly find, is a run of huge retrospective collections, devoted or not to a specific album, on which we can find songs created between 1974 and 1988 that had not seen the light of day yet. Let's see.





TRACKS



Tracks / 1998




The first of them all, TRACKS, is the biggest (if we stick with the audio format) and, most likely, the most interesting one, for it has a lot of unreleased stuff. It's also the one I've listened to the most so far, because it was a much cherished christmas present only a meagre month and a half after its release date (10th of November 1998, Columbia). I've spent a lot of years listening to its contents, at least from time to time, and not only because of the songs that belong to this era.

It is home to sixty six songs, no less. Some of them had been released as B sides, some others were already known due to Springsteen's playing them live over the years, a few had already surfaced on unofficial releases, and many saw the light of day thanks to this box set. There are also a few demos, live numbers and alternative versions. In any case, this selection was still small, for it was said that, by 1998, the amount of recorded but still unreleased Springsteen stuff was around three quarters of his total recorded material at the time; there were more than three hundred and fifty which remained unreleased. There was a compelling selection process and a lot of work as well, in order to fill in some gaps, erase mistakes and improve the original takes. Out of those sixty six songs on Tracks, forty three belong to these fourteen year period which is the subject matter. The production differs, depending on the songs and their creation.

These are, more or less in chronological order (instead of how they are found on the discs), those songs. Beside the link, the album whose sessions each song belongs to is stated.



LINDA LET ME BE THE ONE - Born To Run. A boring slow number. Forgettable, although it is said it almost made the final cut for Born To Run. The protagonist is EDDIE, another one of those thugs portrayed by Bruce in the past, and his relationship with LINDA. The story includes a tad comical final twist, and the lyrics share a few lines with Spare Parts. Did Springsteen suddenly remember Linda some years later?

SO YOUNG AND IN LOVE - Born To Run. I believe this is the oldest song of them all (still in 1974). Little else, other than that. It is festive and in the vein of Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, although much worse.

RENDEZVOUS - LIVE / 31-12-1980, NASSAU COLISEUM, UNIONDALE, NEW YORK - Good live take of a song whose original version will be discussed later.

GIVE THE GIRL A KISS - Darkness On The Edge Of Town. It's kind of weird that this song is not from the Born To Run sessions, for it sounds like another version (music-wise) of Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out. Not bad, it is lively. Is that Clemons singing at the end? I'd say he is. He is, indeed, and the horns are from the time this compulation was released. During one interview, Bruce admitted that he did not even remember ever writing this song.

ICEMAN - Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Quite beautiful, only with vocals and piano during a good deal of the song, although I could live without the occasional backing vocals. Despite its mood, the story is more optimistic and shares some traits with Thunder Road or Badlands (and at least one line with the latter). The protagonist doesn't want to surrender to the hand he's been dealt due to the economic recession. Hence the metaphor concerning the old trade of delivering ice: what is it going to be when the only thing you know and are good at disappears? Springsteen did not remember this song either.

HEARTS OF STONE - Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Unlike what happens with the songs from The River, the outtakes from Darkness On The Edge Of Town are overall much worse than the ones on the actual record. This song is a good example. Slow and sad. The horns were added in 1997. The first (horns-less) version was gave away by Bruce to his good friend SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY. In fact, he not only donated the song, but also its actual recording, to the extent that this guy's version (produced by Van Zandt, by the way, for a namesake album by this singer released in 1978) is Bruce's, but with him on vocals. I couldn't have noticed, to be honest, because at the beginning of the Tracks version there is what I'd say it is Clemons' sax, and that is absent in the other one (and it has nothing to do with the later apparition of the horns). That to begin with. But who cares? The lyrics show the narrator saying goodbye to a former partner who doesn't seem to be over that break up. I don't know if they have just broken up or that happened time before the woman is lonely and, according to the text, has aged), but what the protagonist has to do is toughen his heart up (if we consider the song's title) to move on, despite how painful saying that it's over might be.



Can you spare a dime, mister?




DON'T LOOK BACK - Darkness On The Edge Of Town. This song could very well be an exception to the rule I explained in the previous song, for it's quite good. It reminds me a little bit of one of Bruce's oldest classics, Growin' Up, but with guitars all around. He played it live back in the day, and it almost made it onto Darkness, but it didn't, eventually, given that is about a usual subject of the day which had already been dealt with in songs like Thunder Road or Born To Run.

BRING ON THE NIGHT - The River. This is where this compilation's really good stuff begins. It could have outplaced some songs on The River, just like some others on here. Short and intense, so you can feel the anxiety the text depicts, of the shy and introverted protagonist's need of catching the eye of some girl called Mary (again). That is similar of what we'd see in Dancing In The Dark. It also shares its theme (and some lines) with another song which will come later. Brilliant.

RESTLESS NIGHTS - The River. One of the very best. I will not say the same thing every time it happens, for it does happen often, but this song outclasses most of those on The River, even the ones I really enjoy. There are two great, back-to-back, organ and guitar solos (there's another organ one at the end) and I even like the backing vocals. The refrain is glorious too, but I don't know what to make of the lyrics. Maybe what could have been for some couple, but never was.

ROULETTE - The River. What I just said about the previous one applies here as well, although this one is quite potent, more in the vein of Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Here's another refrain for the ages. Due to some strange reason, it became a B side, many years later, to One Step Up and Tougher Than The Rest, although with a different mix. This is about a radioactive leak which took place at the end of March, 1979, at a nuclear power plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, called THREE MILE, and how said leak and the malpractice of the authorities made the surrounding population panic. And all this from the standpoint of a paranoid neighbour who runs away from his home. I think this was the first song to be finished for The River, although it was discarded.

DOLLHOUSE - The River. Another great outtake. Tallent's great bass guitar lines are a constant on this collection, and this song is no exception. Very entertaining song, and the lyrics tell about a toxic relationship with manipulative woman who wishes to be in total control.

WHERE THE BANDS ARE - The River. And another one to remember. Once again, this is about the need of connection, and also of fun, and it's a bona fide tribute to life in a rock band and everything the whole band had decided to devote itself. And it also shares some almost identical lines with another own song: Jackson Cage, in this case, despite they both have nothing in common concerning their subject.

LOOSE ENDS - The River. What a belter about a couple which was supposed to fly high but ends up crumbling, as many others. There is also some toxic feel to it, because both parties want the other to take the final step, and when no one does, they both suffer. This line is very explanatory: How can something so bad, darling, come from something that was so good? I don't know. The lyrics and the verses are wonderful, but the refrain is simply musical bliss. Great solo by Clemons, by the way. Monumental. It was going to be part of the The Ties That Bind album (its last song, in fact), before said record became The River, but I think this version here is a tad different.

LIVING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD - The River. Not as brilliant as the previous outtakes from The River, but good anyway. I don't know why, but it feels like a song by The Ramones somehow. The harmonica is great. The subject is the same already seen in Open All Night, with more shared lines (Deliver me from nowhere, one more time), although this one is older: the protagonist drives by night to pick his girlfriend up after work. Part of the lyrics in State Trooper is repeated here too, and also in another later Tracks song, although the music is different. Perhaps, Open All Night was the final outcome of the idea that was born here, at least when it comes to the lyrics.

TAKE 'EM AS THEY COME - The River. Guitars and more guitars in another hard hitter that, inexplicably, did not make the album's cut. As some other times, the text is much darker than the music could imply (Loose Ends, just reviewed, or something like Hungry Heart), and it tells what it could pass as a retale of the BONNIE & CLYDE story. Someone who is always on a constant watch (maybe a criminal) and willing to draw first blood just in case, and his relationship with the woman he travels with.



Amsterdam, I guess




BE TRUE - The River. B side to Fade Away (Sherry Darling and Cadillac Ranch too), as already told. It's got its moments but it's quite expendable, although I have to admit that it grows on you a little. Who knows what I'll be thinking in a few months? Like Loose Ends, it was meant to be on The Ties That Bind. That record will be discussed in no time, but this version is a little bit different though. The other song it shares text with (or a great deal of it), as it has become customary, will be soon unveiled, and the lyrics are about one girl who demands high standards from all the men she dates, based on stuff she watches in movies; when it's time for the narrator to be in that position, he lets the girl know she has to play her part too (You be true to me, and I'll be true to you).

RICKY WANTS A MAN OF HER OWN - The River. Not the best song on here, but not bad either, and I like it better than songs such as Ramrod, I'm A Rocker or Crush On You. RICKY is a teenager who has already moved on concerning her time as a child, and the narrator, who seems to be her older brother (or at least he plays that role), depicts the situation while being sympathetic to both the girl and her parents.

I WANNA BE WITH YOU - The River. Similar to the previous song, but better. It's fun and good-natured, although the protagonist is a wimp somehow, and his obseion for the girl he has a crush on leads him to forget about everything else in life.

MARY LOU - The River. Again, far from being the best The River outtake, but better than a few songs on it. Quite forgettable anyway. This is Be True's the first incarnation (lyrics-wise, at least), like I just said. Light songs the both of them, but different regarding their music.

STOLEN CAR - ALTERNATIVE VERSION - The River. I honestly wasn't expecting something like this. The dark and tolerable song on The River had a tad longer previous version (it was to be on The Ties That Bind) which outclasses it by a long shot, to the extreme that this earlier version is simply wonderful. There were critics who even said that replacing this version for the one which eventually made the cut had been an act of self-sabotage by Springsteen, and I could not agree more. The overall mood is a little bit more optimistic, although still very sad, as the lyrics read (that part about the letters the narrator had written in the past is just amazing). This other vision of the same song, due to its having some sections which are not on the final one, is known by the scholars like the Son you may kiss the bride version, for the protagonist thinks about his wedding day while driving. In this version, the feeling you have is that the protagonist has already vanished, as if he was his own ghost, instead of that fear of dissapearing of the other one. A very moving song, and if those who may read this doubt my words, they just have to listen to it while driving at night.

BORN IN THE USA - DEMO VERSION - Nebraska. This is a song very difficult to envision some other way, but this is one of the steps it took to become what it eventually was. This take not only serves its purpose as a document, but it's quite good on its own as well.

A GOOD MAN IT'S HARD TO FIND (PITTSBURGH) - Born In The USA. Nice, but bland, and given the time it was written in, and how all the work devoted to this album blended with Nebraska's, it reminds me much more of the latter record, mostly at the beginning. It could have been beter had it remained that way, with no more instrumentation. The song was named after a book by FLANNERY O'CONNOR (the Pittsburgh thing is Springsteen's), whose work influenced Bruce a lot during the time he wrote songs for these two records, and the lyrics are about the pain of a widow whose husband had gone missing in action while in Vietnam.

WAGES OF SIN - Born In The USA. This song may not be easy listening at first, but the fact that it hasn't been on any of the albums from this era and it's been flying under the radar of greater audiences ever since its creation feels beyond comprehension to me. Exactly what I think about Loose Ends. This is among the five best songs on this compilation and a fine piece of art. It doesn't sound like the rest of the stuff on Born In The USA, that's true, although the synth that can be listened to at the end puts it close to songs like Downbound Train or I'm On Fire. I don't care. A song this good cannot be hidden. The voice, the distant percussion and, above all, the measured and elegant interplay between guitar and piano. We don't know what it is that the narrator has done to his couple for the lady to punish him with her silence, and to the point he begins to recall childhood's traumas, but this song is just immortal.



With Patti




JOHNNY BYE-BYE - Born In The USA. Short oddity with lines borrowed from a CHUCK BERRY song named BYE BYE JOHNNY, which this musician wrote as a sequel to its very well known JOHNNY B GOODE. This one is cool, and it became a B side to I'm On Fire. More about this track in another version which is on a later compilation.

SHUT OUT THE LIGHT - Born In The USA. Boring at first, but it is definitely a grower. There's some gospel music flair to this B side to Born In The USA. There's a lot more to discuss about this song and the reason why it was paired with that other number on the same single, but I'd like to make clear that my knowledge about this doesn't reach that far, and most of the things I explain here come from doing some researching about the subject, once again. Born In The USA comes from a previous song called Vietnam, as already mentioned, and it's about the lack of social recognition towards Vietnam veterans, while Shut Out The Light, which also stems from that same song, tells about the ravages of the post-traumatic stress on one of those veterans (JOHNSON LINEIR). The A side is loud and the B one is the other way around. This pairing is no coincidence.

CYNTHIA - Born In The USA. The keys play a predominant role, and that makes this song a light pop rock one, more than anything else, but it's quite entertaining. Proof of Bruce's ability to do good at different genres, as he's done with all those songs recorded with a drum machine and that proliferated in the nineties. In this specific case, Springsteen makes clear his undisguised admiration for Roy Orbison, with his own take on Orbison's OH, PRETTY WOMAN. I can understand him and also the comparison, given both lyrics, but while Bruce's song is fun, although miles away from being top tier Springsteen, Orbison's is a snore fest of the highest orders.

MY LOVE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN - Born In The USA. One of the best songs on Tracks and also one to be played live quite often. I'm not into keyboards, but I like them here, and they sound as small bells which replicate the main riff and Bruce's voice during the chorus. The subject has already appeared in songs like Bring On The Night, Dancing In The Dark and others: desire for acceptance, etc. Landau himself wanted it on Born In The USA, but perhaps its spot was already taken by its much more famous counterpart.

THIS HARD LAND - Born In The USA. It looks good at first, but just like A Good Man Is Hard To Find (Pittsburgh), would have been a better thing had it stuck to the acoustic format. A little bit boring. There is a later version of this song which saw the light of day on the greatest hits compilation from 1995.

FRANKIE - Born In The USA. It has a melody tailor-made to be whistled (if you know how), and a few good moments, but I do not care about it very much and it drags a little bit. It was written soon after Born To Run, to be included on a record which wasn't meant to be (due to the lawsuit I explained earlier), and it fact was the first post Born To Run song to have a live debut. It was kept unused until Bruce recovered it for this Born In The USA sessions, and it shares at least one line with Drive All Night. A love song for the title's lady, I guess.

TV MOVIE - Born In The USA. It reminds me of one song to be reviewed soon, and overall it's good as a rock & roll oldie, but I find the omnipresent piano excessive. The narrator dreams he dies and they make a movie about his life.

STAND ON IT - ALTERNATIVE VERSION - Born In The USA. This one is in the vein of TV Movie, but the old school rock & roll stuff was already covered by it. Fun and retro, but that's it. The originl version was a B side to Glory Days (STAND ON IT), but I am in doubt concerning the differences between them (the one on Tracks is longer though), and there's also a later version, more country, which features a pedal steel guitar (STAND ON IT - PEDAL STEEL VERSION). This song became a hit for country singer MEL MCDANIEL, and Bruce's original version appeared on the soundtrack to the movie RUTHLESS PEOPLE (1986), by DAVID ZUCKER. It was inspired on an autobiography of the same name, from 1973, about the life of pilot STROKER ACE. The motto here means doing in real life what that person did while racing: speed up and move forward.



His natural habitat




LION'S DEN - Born In The USA. Soul music, I guess. Clemons is the main man here, and the refrain is nice, but that's all that there is. The horns are from 1998, if I am correct. The protagonist is someone who is willing to face any challenge with a smile on his face.

CAR WASH - Born In The USA. Quite lively and funny, and the story is told from the point of view of a woman who does what she can to make ends meet. She compares her job at the car wash with a prison sentence, while she dreams of being successful as a singer and saying goodbye to her current life.

ROCKAWAY THE DAYS - Born In The USA. In my opinion, this idea and its joyful atmosphere could have been taken advantage of much better. It's long and uninteresting. The lyrics are definitely not that joyful, for they tell about an ex convict, BILLY, with violent tendencies and a substance-abuse problem, and his demise in a car crash.

BROTHERS UNDER THE BRIDGES '83 - Born In The USA. The verses, when the song is not bloated with embellishments, are ok. In fact, they even remind me of No Surrender a little bit (same with the song's ending), but the whole thing is boring. Not to be mistaken with a 1995 song which is called BROTHERS UNDER THE BRIDGE and has, in principle, nothing to do with this one. The subject is the anxiety experienced by some youngster when he watches the older boys doing things he can't do yet, like drinking and so on, and they usually do it gathered under the bridges (hence the name). But what the protagonist truly desires is being old enough to drive.

MAN AT THE TOP - Born In The USA. This is one of those song's you get fond of from the get go. Very good track. I even like that middle section in which the whole thing takes a turn to something more soul-like, I think, with the sax and the backing vocals (also at the end). This is about ambition and being at the top and the toll it takes.

PINK CADILLAC - Born In The USA. Another good one. It's danceable and fun, and Weinberg punishes his kit relentlessly. Clemons is another highlight too. B side to Dancing In The Dark, back in  the day, and also Spare Parts a few years later. As for the lyrics, there's more than meets the eye, for it seems like that car is actually a vagina. Springsteen has never acknowledged this metaphor explicitly, if I'm not mistaken, but it doesn't matter. He said, when debuting this song live (July 1984), that it had to be more than just an apple what EVE offered to ADAM.

JANEY DON'T YOU LOSE HEART - Born In The USA. B side to I'm Goin' Down but, wasn't it for the synth and its more modern flair, it would have been more at home on The River. Not very good, to be honest. I think this is about the narrator's empathy for JANEY, who's going through a rough patch.

TWO FOR THE ROAD - Tunnel Of Love. The best thing about it? It is quite short. It has some details, but even Bruce's singing, no matter how weird this is, feels overly sweet here. Another B side, to Tunnel Of Love this time, and it seems to be a song about love, more than friendship, inspired on the 1967 movie of the same name, directed by STANLEY DONEN and starred by AUDREY HEPBURN and ALBERT FINNEY.

WHEN YOU NEED ME - Tunnel Of Love. Similar to Two For The Road. You can tell it belongs to the Tunnel Of Love sessions, but I'm glad it was left out. There's some harmonica, unlike the slower numbers on that record, but that's not enough to save it. Apparently, this was one of the first songs Springsteen wrote for Tunnel Of Love, when the problems of his first marriage were not that obvious, and that's why the lyrics are bland and full of cliches; your average declaration of love, instead another story about doubts, sorrow and ruined relationships which swarm that album.

THE WISH - Tunnel Of Love. It wasn't something I was eager to listen to until a few months ago, beyond having some ground to review the song decently. But I like it a lot now, despite not being an amazing track, music-wise, because it is an autobiographical tribute by Bruce to ADELE, his mum, who passed away in 2024 after spending almost a decade subdued by something as atrocius and unfair as Alzheimer's. Springsteen couldn't know about this when he wrote the song, but its inclusion in the Springsteen On Broadway repertoire, many years later, and while Adele was still alive, was no coincidence. Moving.

THE HONEYMOONERS - Tunnel Of Love. More of the same, but a tad better. The absence of additional instrumentation (until the end, when there's some synth) and some harmonica playing give this song some Nebraska vibe which is more appealing. It's about a wedding and everything it entails, but from the grrom's standpoint.

LUCKY MAN - Tunnel Of Love. This track became a B side to Brilliant Disguise, but it feels like out of place when it comes to the entire feel of Tunnel Of Love. It might pass as a slower version of Spare Parts, and you are left waiting for the rest of musicians to join, so they can play a similar tune, but it never happens. It's good anyway. The story is atypical too, for it's about one guy who makes a living out of driving and seems to be content that way, with no ties of any kind.



With the great Debbie Harry!




As you can see, most of the songs are outtakes from The River, and the best ones are among them too, although the enormous labour of those years between that album and Born In The USA left great songs too. Not all of them are praiseworthy, but a great deal of them are. As I said, there are as many as sixty six songs on this collection, and some of the remaining ones are very good too (the most recent tracks, mostly), but they are from a different era.

Also, and as a commercial gimmick more than anything else, a single version of this box set called 18 TRACKS was released in 1999; it featured eighteen songs on just one disc, maybe those which might be more appealing for a broader audience. As an expected (and also embarrasing) marketing trick, there were three songs among those eighteen that were not present on Tracks, so you could spend your hard-earned money on both items. The three of them belong to different moments of Springsteen's career, because the only one that was created during this era, was re-recorded on the occasion of this compilation. I'll talk about the original one in no time. Out of the fifteen remaining ones, ten belong to this era.



18 Tracks / 1999





THE ESSENTIAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN



The Essential Bruce Springsteen / 2003




THE ESSENTIAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN is a huge compilation album which includes some of Bruce's most recurring hits (in this regard is something much more reasonable than that one from 1995), a couple of live tracks and some oddities, It was reissued in 2015 with a different set list which fitted all the new stuff that had been released since the first edition. It was on the 11th of November 2003 (Columbia) when it was first released, spanning the entire discography of the artist until THE RISING (2002). In 2003 there was a special edition which came with a third disc with rare and unreleased stuff, and there were six songs on that disc which belonged to this era. It was remarkable FROM SMALL THINGS (BIG THINGS ONE DAY COME), a great outtake from The River about a very special female, which Springsteen donated to a singer named DAVE EDMUNDS. THE BIG PAYBACK, a short song which had become a B side to Open All Night (both tracks are very similar) was very good as well. The first of these two songs is the one I meant when I reviewed TV Movie, when I said this one reminded me of another song I was to talk about soon. But From Small Things is much better. On the other hand, The Big Payback is the song number seventeenth I mentioned when I spoke about that famed Nebraska tape, and is about one guy who gets fed up of his horrific job and decides to devote himself to crime. Very Nebraska-like.

Bruce's live version of TRAPPED, by JIMMY CLIFF, which Springsteen helped to make popular and whose lyrics (protest song, I think) changed a little bit, is also very good. This live version had also appeared on the very famous charity record WE ARE THE WORLD, from 1985. NONE BUT THE BRAVE is a slow number belonging to the Born In The USA sessions, and it has its appeal. It's about pretty much the same subject Bobby Jean deals with (although from the point of view of an ex boy fiend, instead of a friend, I'd dare say), and maybe that's why it did not make the final cut. This is the second version of this song, for the first one was recorded before Born In The USA, and this one has a different vocal track which looks more recent, and a slight change in the lyrics which, according to the scholars, could hint at the fateful September eleventh.

The least striking somgs are HELD UP WITHOUT A GUN and COUNTY FAIR. The former is not bad, but this is a live version. The original one was a B side to Hungry Heart and it will be reviewed soon. The latter is another outtake from Born In The USA, and I think is just uninspiring and dull. It's about a perfect day at some town's fair, and if you listen closely, you can listen to some crickets, which were recorded by chance and later used on purpose, what gives this song a summer flair.

As on previous compilations, the producers depend on the song.












BORN TO RUN 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION



Born To Run, thirty years later / 2005




On the fifteenth of November, 2005, Columbia commemorated the thirty anniversary of the album which was supposed to be, in principle, Springsteen's last with them, with the release of a box which actually does not include unreleased studio stuff. It does have several other things.

A remastered version of the original album, to begin with, being the disc a CD-sized replica of the original vinyl. The good stuff comes next, with the one hour and a half award winning documentary called WINGS FOR WHEELS, which narrates the recording of the album and has some footage from interviews and a live show from 1973 in LA. I do not remember whether I watched it in its entirey back in the day or not. It's been a long time. If it won a Grammy award, it shouldn't be a fluke, right?

But the best thing here, in my opinion, was the world's inital contact, on DVD, with an unreleased live show from 1975, in London. Said show was released on CD the next year, as another live album by Bruce. The production of both audi and video formats was taken care of by The Boss, Landau, Wings For Wheels director, THOM ZIMNY, and a certain BARBARA CARR. More about the CD now.

And there was also a booklet full of pictures.



Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 / 2006



HAMMERSMITH ODEON, LONDON '75, was released in 2006, as a double disc affair, becoming Bruce's fourth live album. This concert took place on the 18th of November 1975, and it marked the very first time Bruce Springsteen played England, as part of a small tour which brought him to Europe for the first time. Bruce himself admits being anxious before and after the show, due to his self-doubt about his whole performing act. That's why he has much better memories from the second date at the same place (six days after, due to an enormous tickets demand), as an overall better performance.

As expected, the repertoire is comprised of songs from Bruce's first three records (and some covers), from the time when Born To Run was just another song, at least for the time being, and not the mega-anthem it would soon become, destined to be played at the end of his shows. This was also the time in which Springsteen did Thunder Road just on piano and vocals, just like it can be listened to on Live 1975-85 (this version is almost as good as that one). Some of the songs he played on that very day are on said live album, but out of those that don't, LOST IN THE FLOOD and FOR YOU's live versions  need to be remarked. They were both on Bruce's first record, and you can also find She's The One and  Jungleland.



















THUNDER ROAD - LIVE / VIDEO





THE PROMISE: THE DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN STORY



The Promise: The Making Of Darkness On The Edge Of Town / 2010




The previous boxset, and Tracks above all, were something remarkable concerning their size and contents, but not as much as what is coming next. On the sixteenth of November (is it me or Springsteen has a penchant for releasing stuff in November? Maybe it is just a trick, keeping the christmas days in mind), 2010, an enormous reissue of Darkness On The Edge Of Town was released. Besides the usual remaster of the original album, this box included two live shows, the documentary THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (a film about the record's creation, also by Thom Zimny) and a humongous book with tons of fun and trivia facts. This boxset won Springsteen another Grammy in 2012.



The box on the inside




One of the three discs (DVD or Bluray) with audiovisual stuff  has, besides some extra live footage, a very special document (that's why all the songs are linked here): on the thirteenth of December 2009, Bruce and the E Street Band played Darkness On The Edge Of Town in its entirety, at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, New Jersey (pretty much at home), without any crowd, in order to tape this performance and include it among the tons of extra stuff on this box.
















The third and last DVD or Bluray features an entire show recorded in Houston on the eighth of December, 1978. I haven't seen the documentary, or this show either, but I guess it has to be glorious, because the guys were on fire during this tour and the concerts were beginning to become something really long.

But the most important thing here (as if it wasn't enough) is another double album filled with unreleased outtakes from those sessions. That album was titled THE PROMISE (production by Springsteen and Landau), and it was also released on its own.



The Promise / 2010




This compilation features twenty-one tracks (plus a hidden track) recorded between 1977 and 1978, although one of them (SAVE MY LOVE) was completely re-recorded by The Boss and his band on the occasion, just like some other things were added here and there during that same 2010 (this motivated the involvement of some other guest musicians, besides the seven original ones). I guess it can be said this record meant the musical farewell, at least inside a studio and with Bruce Springsteen, of Clarence Clemons, who would pass away the following year. He takes part in Save My Love, which I will not review, for neither I like it, nor strictly belongs to the era I'm dealing with. I don't think there's an old studio version, and this current one was used as a decoy for both box and album, and it even had a video shot for it.



RACING IN THE STREET '78 - It takes some time and effort to get used to this second and later version, after so many years of listening to such a wonderful song like the one on the album, but you manage to. It is rockier, the drums sound amazing (as on the entire record), the way of singing is different (and so is the text), and the car is not a 1969 Chevrolet, but a 1932 Ford. What I truly dislike is the later addition (in 2010) of the violin of some DAVID LINDLEY. I just do not get it. The involvement of a full time violinist (the also singer SOOZIE TYRELL) in the E Street Band, since a lot of years ago, but mostly since 2002, is one of the things I don't like about Bruce's recent past and current affairs. Not because of her, of course, but I don't like or need someone playing the fiddle in this band, and providing it with an unwelcome country sound. Apparently, the guys played this version a few times after the release of this album, although with the lyrics we all know. One of them took place in Asbury Park (The Carousel), on the seventh of December 2010, being this show Clemons' last one with the E Street Band. He died the next June.


GOTTA GET THAT FEELING - Nothing to do with the overall sound of Darkness On The Edge Of Town. A very boring romance song which has to be among the worst songs to be reviewed from this era. Bruce's vocals were added in 2010, together with the horns and Clemons' solo.

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN - Things get better here and this short tune, although different, is fun. Springsteen's vocal pattern is cool, and so is his singing. Nothing to write home about, but it feels good after the previous song. The protagonist is tired of trying to make whatever he is that he has with a lady work.

SOMEDAY (WE'LL BE TOGETHER) - I have to admit it: after a first listen, and thanks mostly  to Scialfa and Tyrell's added vocal parts (which make Springsteen impossible to identify) during the refrain, I did not know what to think. Not only it has nothing to do with Darkness as a record, but also bears no resemblance to Bruce Springsteen as an artist at all. In fact, after a few minutes trying to find out what that refrain reminded me of, BLONDIE's ATOMIC came to mind, no matter how nonsensical that comparison may sound. Mostly forgettable, although it has some appeal with a few more listens, something I deemed unthinkable after the first. Those women's vocals are not the only thing new here, for it seems that the original track (SOMEDAY, TONIGHT) did not even have vocals at all and it was a tad faster, which leaves this song as something closer to a new track than to an old outtake. The lyrics written for the occasion were, once again, about love.

ONE WAY STREET - Here we go again with another song you just want to stay away from. This is not the kind of stuff I listen to Springsteen for. As boring as it gets. The vocals are from 2010 and this is about a relationship which is not meant to be.

BECAUSE THE NIGHT - Studio version of the famed song that Bruce and Patti Smith wrote together and that the latter helped popularize. This song is good enough to stand on its own, but this version is nowhere as vibrant as its live counterparts, and there is no guitar solo. As expected, this track deals with the bond between  the night and relationships.

WRONG SIDE OF THE STREET - Good song, and much better than most of those on here, although it sounds more similar to the The River album. Bruce's vocals are current and this number was originally named ENGLISH SONG, although it has also been known as ENDLESS NIGHT. This is about a couple in which both parties belong to different worlds.

THE BROKENHEARTED - This track leaves me with a broken head, more than a broken hear. As mediocre as Gotta Get That Feeling and One Way Street, and with trumpets to boot. It is like listening to a worse and more forgettable version of I Wanna Marry You. As if this wasn't enough, Bruce mixes his young voice with current add-ons. It feels like a tribute to Roy Orbison in a mariachi fashion, in which a repentant protagonist licks his girlfriend's boots asking for forgiveness. We all know Bruce Springsteen as the rock musician; that's what he is mostly known for. But we are all aware of his lighter side too, which has led him to write what we could call pop rock songs (and I don't even mean those with a drum machine), and that's ok, for everyone has its own influences. Many of those songs are, in fact, very good. But this is not the case. This is horrible.

RENDEZVOUS - Studio version of the song reviewed on Tracks. I had never paid too much attention to it, but it is listenable. It was written before Bruce's songwriting took a turn for the dark stuff, and that's why this song doesn't sound like Darkness On The Edge Of Town. The melody is ok, but the music is too light, and so it was left off the record, a trait and a fate are shared with most of the songs on this compilation. Love, couples and more of the same once again. Another trait shared with the rest of the bunch. The live version on Tracks is much better.

CANDY'S BOY - An early incarnation of Candy's Room, with which it shares many lines, despite being almost completely different. Pretty much mediocre at best on its own, it has no place to hide in when compared against one of Springsteen's best songs. As in some other songs here, it seems like Bruce were trying to forget about his own musical self, because he is hardly recognizable some times. What I think it is an organ solo, is just atrocious (meaning that is horrible for my taste; I'm not talking about the proficiency of musicians, songwriters, etc). I read that the singer copied some of this song's lines and pasted them in another one which was known back then as The fast song, a depiction that fits the final song much better. I'm glad he did. The lyrics are similar, but some differences hint at Candy dealing with someone she shouldn't have gotten upset.



Downbound train?




AIN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU - Danceable and party-like song, but with no resemblance to the music this artist is usually know for. Sort of an hybrid between Sherry Darling and Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, but much worse than both. That piano is boring. The protagonist wonders how his girl still wants to be with him, for she is always reproaching everything, and the lyrics feature a joke about Jimmy Iovine, Bruce's sound engineer, and a T-shirty, that the singer had come up with in the past.

FIRE - It pains me to listen to this studio version, which features current vocals, but lacks those pauses that created that wonderful atmosphere when played live. Barely nothing to do with the live version on Live 1975-85, which I have always loved. The subject is similar to that of I'm Going Down. Boring.

SPANISH EYES - Another slow number. Springsteen has written tons of great slow songs, but he chose to place here some of his worst. Far from being Factory or Something In The Night, two songs from this period too. This track is mostly horrible, and the only thing that saves it from complete oblivion is that the first two lines and some other parts of its lyrics would later resurface in I'm On Fire, a song which luckily enough has nothing to do with this romantic atrocity. The vocals are from 2010.

IT'S A SHAME - The second disc gains some height with this song, which is not top tier suff by any means, but it rocks and has its moments. The best thing here is the main riff. You listen to it and are left wondering where you have listened to it before. You did listen to it before, and to Springsteen himself, because after a few seconds you realize that said main riff is Prove It All Night's melody, something that enhances the value of the song. Jon Landau plays drums here, and the bass player is not Tallent, but BOB CHIRMSIDE, Bruce's then road manager. The voice and the trumpets are current, and so is the title, I think, for this number was simply known as JON'S JAM. The lyrics deal with the same subject already seen in Ain't Good Enough For You.

COME ON (LET'S GO TONIGHT) - The same happens with this song, but not as subtly, for this is Factory with a different set of lyrics. Not as wonderful as the song on Darkness, and the fiddle player I talked about before appears here again, but it's good. The lyrics share some lines with Out In The Street and Johnny Bye-Bye, and as for the latter, the events told in Come On also take place on the day Elvis Presley died. The message is interesting, for it deals with the brevity of success, with how said death affected Bruce, and Elvis' fans (who did not have other option but his music, as an escape from their mundane lifes), and with the mysticism of death. Some of this traits permeated Factory somehow, but this song covers more ground, despite not being on par, music-wise, with its younger sister.



He's always kept good company




TALK TO ME - I could say about Talk To Me something similar to what I said about Ain't Good Enough For You, although the former is a tad better and it lacks that boring piano. But it is also forgettable at best. It reminds me of Born To Run's lighter moments, but more because of the atmosphere than the actual music. I think those vocals are not from the late seventies, once again. At first sight this is another simple and romantic tune, until you realize that the protagonist is borderlining on stalking. Just like what happened to Hearts Of Stone, this song was completely (both songwriting and recording) donated for that same Southside Johnny record. The horns are taken care of by the ASBURY DUKES, Johnny's backing band (although I don't know if those horns were recorded back then or in 2010), and Van Zandt can be listened to in both songs, for they are pretty much the same track.

THE LITTLE THINGS (MY BABY DOES) - Better than the previous one (not something to be given credit for though), but quite below Springsteen's most mundane level. More adoration for a woman in another song with current vocals (with current I mean from 2010, of course) in which Bruce's shots at falsetto singing do not help the song's cause.

BREAKAWAY - Way too many slow, melancholic or romantic songs on here. I said it before and I'll say it again: you could fill two or three records with Springsteen's slow songs from these fourteen years which gravitate from good to legendary. Those on this album are not among them. I was about to say something similar to what I've already said about some other songs, but this one is a little bit better, thanks to some guitar licks which remind me of those in Something In The Night. The female vocals (Springsteen's is current, I think) and the horns do not help, but I wasn't expecting them to, to be honest. At least this track is not about love, and the lyrics are quite dark in fact. As already listened to in Reason To Believe, there are several stories, although they are starred by some recurring characters from Bruce's lyrics. It's all about the those characters' lack of hope, and it shares a few lines with Badlands.

THE PROMISE - This is the song whose re-recorded version appeared as a new song on 18 Tracks. Concerning this version here there's something I must admit: as a slow number, very much in the vein of Racing In The Street (just to name one), is the exception to the rule I mentioned in Breakaway. This track is good, although I still don't understand that string arrangement (I don't know whether it is current or it was always that way) which can be listened in the song's second half, because those strings make me have second thoughts about what I just said. The lyrics are very good, and the scholars consider this song Springsteen's ultimate tale about betrayal. It seems to be, or could be, somehow related to Thunder Road (words that are used in the lyrics too), as if the protagonist had achieved that song's goal, only to betray himself and his loved ones time after, when he fails to fulfill a promise due to a money affair. He tries to live with his guilt afterwards. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. But those strings have no room here, that's for sure.

CITY OF NIGHT - I do not know how to depict this song. It doesn't sound like Bruce Springsteen, and yet it reminds me of some stuff of his here and there, maybe because of the way he sings. Far from rocking Springsteen, but very nice. It has a soothing effect and it could be a wise choice to go to bed with it. As its title says, the night is the first thing that comes to mind when listening to it, and the narrator tells about his ride in a taxi to pick his girl up, no worries whatsoever, no rush either, and all happiness. The vocals are current only in some sections. This track was also known as TAXI CAB (CITY AT NIGHT) back in its day, and shares a line with All That Heaven Will Allow. There is one trivia fact concerning the music though, because Federici's organ is only listened here, in this version, meaning that it was either recorded in the past, and was left out of the mix, or is current. And if the latter applies, that means the work in this song began years before The Promise's release, because Federici died in 2008. This track includes, after a few seconds, another song titled THE WAY, which is the hidden song I mentioned earlier. This one is quite good too, and it feels similar to City Of Night. It's relax time again. Apparently, Bruce did not pay attention to this song for decades, because he did not like it, but given that his fans did and it had already been forgotten on Tracks, he decided to put it here, where it makes more sense, although as hidden as it is. Truth is, it is much better than most songs on this compilation. You can also take advantage from it to say a better goodbye to Clemons, with a last sax solo of his, given that The Way is the last song on a record which at least ends on a higher note. The text is still romantic, although it gets weirder and more obsessive at the end, and it does share a line with The River.



The critics said that the title track, The Promise, could have been the only one song capable of contributing something to the final set list on Darkness On The Edge Of Town. If who said that meant that the record as a whole, did not sound similar to the songs on the final album, they were more than right in my opinion. Apart from that, The Promise as an album is far away, quality-wise, from being a serious match to the monument Darkness ended up being. When Bruce could not enter a studio, after Born To Run, due to that lawsuit with Appel, he devoted himself to write many songs, but only ten of them made the final cut on Darkness. What is striking is the fact that many of them, like most of those on The Promise, were so different from those ten. I was expecting something else, to be honest, for this record, be it as a retrospective, or an alternative to Darkness On The Edge Of Town, is quite disappointing, and only if I am way too kind, I can save half of its set list from oblivion. Perhaps it could have been a very good idea to advertise this album as something different from Darkness; a collection of lighter songs Bruce wrote back then before deciding that his next record was going to be another different thing. It is funny, for The River is a worse record than Darkness, but the extra stuff from its sessions is vastly better than the one from Darkness.





THE TIES THAT BIND: THE RIVER COLLECTION



The Ties That Bind: The River Collection / 2015




Something very similar to Darkness On The Edge Of Town's happened when it was time to reissue The River, big time, at the end of 2015 (fourth of December). Columbia released another huge box set called THE TIES THAT BIND: THE RIVER COLLECTION, which included a remastered version of the original album, and many more things. THE TIES THAT BIND, to begin with, another documentary film courtesy of Thom Zimny, once again. How cool is that Springsteen tells some tales about the music that he adorns with acoustic performances, while everything gets mixed up with some footage. There's also another live show, this time in Tampa, Florida (fifth of November, 1980), but this one is not complete here (the remaining songs were posted on Bruce's web on the Christmas Eve of 2015, so the fans could download them for free). There's also more audiovisual stuff, and another one of those heavy books could not be absent either.

But the most interesting part of this whole is the audio stuff which is available, other than the original record, after which we do find The Ties That Bind, that single album that Bruce wanted to release in 1979, before having second thoughts about it and releasing a different and bigger version of said record which would become The River itself. There are ten songs here, and all of them but three are also on The River.



THE TIES THAT BIND - The vocal track is not the same as the one in the final version, for some slight chances during the refrain can be notices, and there's even a scream by Bruce during Clarence's sax solo which I think is only here. The rest? It's the same, I guess. As for the lyrics, I could not tell whether there are some differences between the texts on this album and The River's.

CINDY - Springsteen pulls one bomb out of his sleeve that I honestly wasn't expecting at all.. When I say bomb I mean the surprising quality of this track, because, music-wise, this is a very calm and short number with some lullaby flair to it (also thanks to what I believe is a glockenspiel). The middle section in which Weinberg joins and there's a glorious guitar lick as well, is another strong point too. But there's much more, mostly because of its creepy lyrics. And this is something remarkable, given the scarce one hundred and forty seconds of this song's running time. The narrator looks like your average exemplary boyfriend (or perhaps suitor), someone who goes above and beyond the call of duty for his dear Cindy to be happy. But Cindy seems to avoid him at every chance. So far, so good. But subsequent lines (that even get her parents involved) happen to imply that maybe what we are witnessing is a stalker at work,  more than anything else. That's why poor Cindy doesn't want to have anything to do with him. But the protagonist will not be deterred. And just like in the good movies, Springsteen leaves you scratching your head at what you just have experienced, without providing you with any clues about the ending. The conclusion is yours to reach. I love it.

HUNGRY HEART - Same as in The Ties That Bind, but even more difficult to notice. It's my understanding that this is not The River's final version, and I dare say the mix is different, but if I'm correct, they both are almost identical.

STOLEN CAR - I believe this is the exact same wonderful version already reviewed on Tracks.

BE TRUE - This take (mostly at the end of the song) is a tad different from that on Tracks.

THE RIVER - The mix is different too, but you can't almost tell, until you reach the ending, which is shorter here and lacks the backing vocals found on its more famous sister.

YOU CAN LOOK (BUT YOU BETTER NOT TOUCH) - This song is quite different. I did not like it at first, but I love it now. It is not as good as the one on The River, but it's very good anyway. It's kind of rockabilly, you know, and during the tour in support of Tunnel Of Love, Bruce came up with a similar arrangement to play it

THE PRICE YOU PAY - This version is longer than The River's, and some parts of the lyrics are different too. for they were later changed for the double album version, as I said.

I WANNA MARRY YOU - The music is the same, given what I read, although the mix and the vocals are not; when it comes to the final version, I mean.

LOOSE ENDS - Apparently, not the exact same song as that one on Tracks.



Funnily enough this album, the way it is, implies a very smooth listen, despite the inclusion of a couple of more forgettable songs like I Wanna Marry You or Be True. I could do some changes to have a total of ten that I would enjoy better, but it feels like there's no need to. This album is short (only thirty five minutes long, give or take) and it flies by.



Not that he ever left




And there's another CD full of outtakes from the The River sessions. Some of them had already surfaced on Tracks and the 2003 compilation, and some other haven't been released yet, but there's still some stuff to be reviewed. I'll mostly ignore From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come), which was discussed when I talked about The Essential Bruce Springsteen, and all the songs already on Tracks: Roulette, Restless Nights, Where The Bands Are, Dollhouse, Living On The Edge Of The World, Take 'Em As They Come, Ricky Wants A Man Of Her Own, I Wanna Be With You and Mary Lou.


MEET ME IN THE CITY - This song (together with PARTY LIGHTS) was chosen to start the collection's advertising. Not a bad one, but perhaps it would have been better off without the sax solo and some backing vocals. The main keyboard line is a little too much for my taste. I was thinking that Springsteen's vocals struck me more as those of someone older than he was in the early eighties, when I happen to read that he was forced to record some new vocal tracks for some of these outtakes, just like he had to do on The Promise. There's also some extra additions, for I guess there were incomplete parts or in nedd of something else. This trait doesn't help the song either and, if I have to be honest, was I told that this is Springsteen's brand new single from his latest record, I don't think I'd be willing to give it more than a couple of listens. The subject here seems to be someone who conducts a radio show while being in prison, but I'm sure there is much more than meets the eye and it's all a big  metaphor, like so many times before.

THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY - This is when the good stuff begins, with a much better and more entertaining song than the previous one. In my opinion there's too much predominance of the keyboards sometimes (one of those moments gets to live rent-free in your head), but at the same time it feels like every time that happens, the guitar players waste no time in restoring order. This is about some guy who, just when we thought he was just a moviegoer ready to watch a gangster film, we realize that some words he uses are ways to refer to the police, and he's the one who is being chased.

LITTLE WHITE LIES - Not bad. As for the music, this is shorter and darker than The Man Who Got Away, and the keyboards make sure they are listened to, although I have to give credit to the fact that this is no problem at all. This song had, at first, the same set of lyrics Be True has (something which also linked it to Mary Lou) and it was called WHITE LIES (DON'T DO IT TO ME), but I don't know the reason why, and it all seems to make more sense (lyrics and name) with the text of this version. BILLY, the protagonist, recalls a relationship which got colder and colder with time and, in this regard, this is similar to Stolen Car or Brilliant Disguise. On the other hand, the white lies subject and using them to avoid facing that something is not working, brings back what was seen in Loose Ends.

THE TIME THAT NEVER WAS - The drum intro might make you think that you are about to listen a rock song, but no way. This is a slow in number (more in vein with what was listened to on The Promise) which just goes unnoticed, but that has brought BONNIE RAITT to mind, mostly because of Bruce's singing and some vocal tricks. It's kind of weird that this lady has taken so long to show up around here, for it's my belief that Bruce and her share a few things, and that he even opened for her when he was beginning. Exactly, in 1974, and that wasn't the only time they played together. This is a song that has stayed in the dark until the release of this collection, for nothing about it has ever been bootlegged. It's all about unfulfilled dreams: the protagonist realizes what those things he misses, but will not come true, did not even come true when he was living the moment whose memory is revisiting in the present.



She sure looks familiar but I still
don't know who she is




NIGHTFIRE - This song operates the other way around, considering what I wrote about the previous one. The nice piano intro leads you to think this another ballad or something, when what we have is a song which may be far from being a joyful one, but also hits harder than expected, with a good riff and a guitar solo (followed by a sax one). Bruce's vocals are weird, for they are current, but at the same time sound very high-pitched. I don't know, but the track is worthy, and the lyrics tell about a girl (a hooker, perhaps) who is running the risk of living like there was no tomorrow.

WHITETOWN - Nothing to write home about when it comes to the music, for this is another boring,  romantic tune, with added vocals. Bruce doesn't help either, because his singing is halfway between falsetto and again, high-pitched. The funny thing is that the lyrics are not about what one could expect at first, but we get close to Glory Days territory instead: memories from better days.

CHAIN LIGHTNING - Springsteen at his most loutish, with a riff which makes me think of State Trooper's almost immediately, although with Weinberg's incessant drumming, tons of cool gang shouts, and even a final solo by Clemons, all of it to accentuate how thuggish this song is. As I have read around, Pink Cadillac is another song that also comes to mind when you listen to this one. I'm talking about the music. As for the lyrics, this is about youth and vitality.

PARTY LIGHTS - Good enough concerning its music, and lively too. It tells about some woman whose life has gone by too fast, because she got married and became a parent too soon, and now she misses what she could not enjoy in the past as much as she would have wanted to. Her youth, all in all. The narrator seems to be her partner, but not the same person she had married, most likely. As already explained, this is the story that inspired Point Blank, and both songs share some lines. The title also appears in Spare Parts, another song this one could have a lot to do with.

PARADISE BY THE C - Studio version of the very festive song to be found on Live 1975-85. Very good song. I love the guitar solo, which comes when this song seems to get serious for a little while. Quite fun. It had no name until that live album was released and the song was called this way, despite having been a very usual live staple in years prior. As I said, this is Springsteen's only self-penned instrumental.

STRAY BULLET - Another slow number, led by an intriguing piano and the occasional saxophone apparition, but very good this time. Truly good, in fact, besides being the very first song from this collection that I listened to, due to some coincidence I do not remember now. When everything seems to be over, that piano comes back for one last instrumental bit in which is also featured Springsteen on guitar. The protagonist mourns his dead girlfriend, due to a stray bullet, although he doesn't know why the bullets were fired.

MR. OUTSIDE - Short acoustic number which sounds as if it was a demo (it might be one) and not a finished product. In this regard, it reminds me of those demos from Springsteen's first two records which were on Tracks, although this song is nowhere as good as those were. An oddity, more than anything else. I couldn't explain the lyrics, to be honest. Maybe this is about someone who thinks highly of themselves.











These nine above listed songs were already reviewed on Tracks. If there's some difference between these versions and those on Tracks, because of their mix or whateve, I just can't notice them.


HELD UP WITHOUT A GUN - B side to Hungry Heart. Most likely, Bruce's shortest recorded song ever (at least to my knowledge, lasting only seventy-five seconds), and it was on the brink of making The River's final cut. So close it was that I have even seen pictures where it is listed on the third side of what it seems to be a provisional backcover three. Music-wise it is really similar to You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch), and maybe that's the reason why it did not make it onto the album. In fact, I think that second song was born from this one, when Bruce mixed a reggae-like arrangement he had for that song, with this one's. It is inspired on the oil shock of 1979, but it's not about it, but about venting some bitterness Springsteen still harbored after his lawsuit with Appel.

FROM SMALL THINGS (BIG THINGS ONE DAY COME) - I guess this is just the same take already seen on The Essential Bruce Springsteen.



Springsteen and the E Street Band got out on the road by the beginning of 2016, having in mind, among other things, playing The River in full. Not a simple feat, you know, considering the advanced age of the band's members by then, and that regardless of what else they could play, there were already twenty songs to be played. Credit where credit is due. As for the record itself, all this extra stuff reinforces what I have said before: The River could have been an extraordinay album had it had just ten songs (not those ten originally on The Ties That Bind, of course), but even having twenty-five or more, it could have been much better than what it actually ended up being, given how good most of the songs which were left out are. To each their own, I guess.

If I'm not mistaken, all those songs must have been produced by Springsteen, Landau and Van Zandt, who are the ones who were in charge of The River in that department. 





THE LEGENDARY 1979 NO NUKES CONCERT



The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts / 2021




The live album known as THE LEGENDARY 1979 NO NUKES CONCERTS (produced byBruce Springsteen), was released at the end of 2021 (nineteenth of November, Columbia), and documents two nights of the E Street Band (21st and 22nd of September, 1979) at the legendary Madison Square Garden, in New York, on the occasion of a series of performances arranged by MUSE (MUSICIANS UNITED FOR SAFE ENERGY).

The setlist is very well known and quite usual for that moment in Bruce's career, and even more if we think that this record is even short when it comes to Springsteen's then usual live marathons, so I guess those performances were shorter due to more artists being on the bill, and the overall context being what it was. I've dome some researching and Bruce's setlist on both nights was this album's, and, barring for the last four songs, said setlist is comprised of his most usually played songs back then.

There's Prove It All Night, at last on one of his live records, to open the show, although devoid of that guitar intro he usually used during those days in which this song was a new thing. In any case, you can identify that melody I talked about in the video I posted when I reviewed this song, at the end of the song, when Bruce extends the final section. The guys also played Sherry Darling and The River (the latter for the very first time, I think, in one of these two dates), one year before the The River album was even released. It is striking how The River gets no reaction from the crowd whatsoever, because people did not know it yet. The final version changed this one's lyrics a little bit. And apart from some other usual numbers which were also played, the very famous JACKSON BROWNE and TOM PETTY, plus one female singer I do not know, named ROSEMARY BUTLER, jojned forces with The Boss to sing STAY.

There's a third disc too, which has the same setlist, but on video, which gives an extra value to the product. An official live album from what is likely to be the best tour of this band, according to the scholars, is always welcome.



















TRACKS II: THE LOST ALBUMS



Tracks II, another monumental complement to
Springsteen's discography




Some months ago, Bruce became news once again, because of the release (27th of June, 2025, through Columbia) of TRACKS II (THE LOST ALBUMS), another gigantic boxset with as many as seven albums of unreleased stuff. The first one, LA GARAGE SESSIONS '83, belongs to this era, and it has eighteen songs recorded in 1983, between the Nebraska and the Born In The USA sessions.

I already introduced this when I began to talk about Born In The USA and tried to elaborate a decent timeline of the enormouse creative process of said record and Nebraska's, for both albums are somehow mixed up with one another. This is what I said back then:

*There's more. Some songs recorded amidst this gigantic process, at the beginning of 1983, at Bruce's place in LA, will be talked about later. The already mentioned Batlan and Springsteen managed to equip said house with an eight-track studio, in which they recorded Nebraska-like demos, only with a drum machine. Just like the Nebraska songs, the singer did not consider them suitable to be played by the whole band, and that fact led him to think about releasing another acoustic record, before he dismissed that thought. As I said, more on this later on.

This set of songs has been produced by Springsteen and RON ANIELLO.



FOLLOW THAT DREAM - This is a very personal cover of a song written by some guys named FRED WISE and BEN WEISMAN, and made popular by Elvis Presley in the early sixties, also thanks to a movie of the same name. Apparently, this is one of Springsteen's favourite songs, and he had been playing it live his own way (it's a good thing that he did it that way) and with a different set of lyrics, in the early eighties. Not bad, although it is a little bit sad. The drums are not supposed to be proper drums, but at least they do not sound as in those songs he usually played in the nineties, in which you could tell it was a drum machine you were listening to. The same can be said about the rest of this album in this concern. The lyrics are about not giving up, basically.

DON'T BACK DOWN ON OUR LOVE - A funny one, very Open All Night-like or something similar, only conceived to be played with more musicians. This is roadhouse music, something I guess goes very much hand in hand with american culture. The narrator misses a relationship from the past.

LITTLE GIRL LIKE YOU - This has to be one of Bruce's shortest songs ever, and there is no need for it to be longer, really. It's not bad, but listening to him singing something like this for a couple of minutes longer would have runied what little appeal the track has. What I've read about this song, and which I find much more remarkable than the actual music (as I said, nothing Springsteen will be best remembered for), has to do with its lyrics and the alleged sexism (probably unintentional) hidden in Thunder Road's. I mentioned this at the time. It all has little to do with this song, actually. Only indirectly. I'll explain myself: as unlikely as it seems nowadays, knowing Bruce's political tendencies, he was singled out in 1982 by the NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN, as someone who addressed women in a few song with the sentence Little girl (Fire was another one of those song which were not particularly enjoyed by this organization). Keeping this in mind, and regardless of how stupid the lyrics are, having included this song on Born In The Usa would have meant sparking unwelcomed publicity.

JOHNNY BYE-BYE - This is another, sadder (more in the vein of Nebraska) and earlier (I believe) version of the Chuck Berry song that Bruce rearranged and that was already found on the first volume of Tracks. I did not say it before, but I will now: the lyrics mention how someone on the radio gave the news of Elvis' demise, and the message is that fame can be dangerous. Very beautiful song, and it shares a few lines with Come On (Let's Go Tonight), seen on The Promise.

SUGARLAND - Very good too. I love Springsteen's singing here, and how nostalgic, but at the same time optimistic, the overall thing is. It reminds me, save for some differences, of another song of his, but I'm not sure which one. I'd say it is Man At The Top, reviewed on the first Tracks compilation. Yes, it has to be that one. The protagonist seems to be a farmer who is fed up of his own life.



He just can't help it




SEVEN TEARS - Another short (not even two minues long) and good track, very similar to Little Girl Like You, but much better. I believe Springsteen to be capable of writing good songs while in his sleep. More specifically, songs which suggest scenarios which can resemble that of Downbound Train, whose first lines are almost the same as those here. It's also true that the rest of the song distances itself from that one, in this department, for it tells about someone who had it all, lost it, and experiences some remorse when remembering it. As a penance, he gets one tattoo for each of the seven years of happiness he threw away.

FUGITIVE'S DREAM - Where did this wonder come from? The synth provides this song with a cinematic atmosphere, and the track itself is dark, mesmerizing and, I daresay, quite unusual within Springsteen's universe. The bass guitar seems to challenge the guitar and it sounds great. The lyrics are very good too; they tell the story of someone who has started from scratch in a new place, and when he feels he is finally makins dome sense out of his life, he receives the visit of a stranger who mentions him something he did in the past. Film noir, once again. This is brilliant, but this story goes on.

BLACK MOUNTAIN BALLAD - This song slows down a little the so far good run of mostly great songs, although it is not bad either. It reminds me of the overall feel of Tunnel Of Love, as if this number was Walk Like A Man's first incarnation (music-wise). Its last line would soon find its place in the lyrics of Downbound Train. As for the message, this is pretty much Don't Back Down On Our Love, for a great deal of the lyrics are shared by both songs. Another fine example of Bruce's recycling in this regard.

JIM DEER - More Springsteen from the early eighties, with just guitar, harmonica and nothing else. Very Nebraska-like, as expected, although more similar to the songs in that album's livelier and more luminous half. The lyrics are a different story though, for they have a lot in common with Johnny 99's. This is a variation of another own song called JAMES LINCOLN DEERE (or Dear, depending on where you read), but this story doesn't end here either. Great song.

COUNTY FAIR - I think this is the exact same track which was reviewed on The Essential Bruce Springsteen. A tad boring.

MY HOMETOWN - Springsteen leaves aside the synth which would make this song immortal the following year, to focus almost exclusively on the acoustic guitar. Some other instrument I can't identify replicates that famous synth line and Bruce sings as if he was out of breath. Apart from that, the song is identical to the one on Born In The Usa. Ok, is completely different, but my point is that is just another version of a song which can be easily identified when listening to this prevous incarnation. The lyrics are the same in both songs, I think. Acceptable as a document, and little else.

ONE LOVE - A strange song. On one side, you can notice some traits which belong to the songs created during this stage of Bruce's career (Nebraska's included, for the main riff reminds me once again of that one in Open All Night, for example), but on the other, the carefree mood of the song and the presence of more instruments make me think of something even danceable. It's not bad. Kind of addictive. This track talks about something already seen before: two are better than one.

DON'T BACK DOWN - More of the same explained in One Love, but only better and with less emphasis on the danceable aspect. The refrain is not very good though. It might be a variation of Don't Back Down On Our Love, although the lyrics seem to melt the subject of the previous song with some resistance in the face of adversity.



Anybody said something?




RICHFIELD WHISTLE - The album's longest song (almost seven minutes long) and the only one which can be considered a long one, actually. This is the same story already told in Jim Deer, but with extended lyrics and a different ending. I like the music in the other one better, but this one is ok too. As for the story to be told, I just hope to be right about this overview: Springsteen had a song which was previous to these two (James Lincoln Deere), still in a demo stage, in which (opposite to what was seen in Johnny 99, where the main character kills someone while on a drinking binge) the protagonist commits murder in cold blood and in an unnecessary and cruel fashion, to end up in Richfield's prison (I see my wife and kid through double pained Richfield glass). Another tale of someone who is at peace with themselves and society at large, but succumbs to the temptation of easy money. In Jim Deer the story is similar, but the ending is not as dramatic, even if the narrator and his accomplice fuck it all up in a somehow comical way and they go to the same prison for a while. And already in this third installment, the account focuses on a main character who makes a mistake, is discovered by his boss and fired from his job, and who, after an argument with his wife, storms out with the intention of robbing a store (it needs to be known that in all three songs, the protagonist is an ex convict). He regrets the idea before doing something wrong and makes amends with his woman, while the usual whistle of the nearby prison (as the title goes) reminds him of what could happen to him if he trespasses against the rules. Great story, isn't it?

THE KLANSMAN - Not bad at all! This is another track in which the dimension of the story at hand outplays by far the short length of the song used to tell it. As a kid, the protagonist and his family, are visited by a friendly member of the despicable KU KLUX KLAN. We don't know whether his dad was already a member of this terrorist organization too, or he got convinced of becoming one after they all attended one meeting, as the lyrics also tell, but the young boy explains how his dad tells him about this dream he has regarding the klan and the future of the country, and how he will understand it one day, when he's old enough to Wear the robe. Springsteen doesn't clarify which path this young kid followed, or if what he wishes to show is the pride of a boy concerning his dad, or his shame while remembering the episode as an adult. The occasional synth helps increasing the tension halfway through the song, and the rest is mostly acoustic guitar and a drum machine. Very good song.

UNSATISFIED HEART - This is pretty much the same story told in Fugitive's Dream, with some differences in the lyrics and a great refrain the other song lacks of (Can you live with an unsatisfied heart?). This one is lighter, a little bit epic (it features more instrumentation than expected, maybe too much, and even backing vocals), and merrier than the very dark previous song, although I do not think merry is a fitting description for a song like this one. Very good, although not as good as Fugitive's Dream.

SHUT OUT THE LIGHT - This was seen on Tracks, but this version is longer. Other than that, I think both songs are the same.

FUGITIVE'S DREAM (BALLAD) - Last song about Joe's story, already referenced in Fugitive's Dream and Unsatisfied Heart. Just like it happens with Jim Deer and Richfield Whistle (plus the previous demo which is not on this album), we are talking about different songs dealing with the same story, being this last one the least remarkable of the three regarding its music, although it's not bad (too many backing vocals though). There is this hypothetical bond with the main character in Downbound Train, to begin with, or at least these tales begin in a similar way: the narrator explains his own place in the world, the hand that he's been dealt, like implying he's someone with no roots and completely out of place. There's also some speculation concerning the relationship of this story with some later songs, like Brilliant Disguise, for example. But let's review what really matters. Apparently, it seems like these three songs are different stages of the same tale (lyrics-wise, I insist), and the darker text in this one probably evolved into Fugitive's Dream, and from that one to Unsatisfied Heart. Some guy arrives at a place which is not his own and settles down over there, creating a family as well, until one day along comes someone who happens to know something awkward about Joe's past. Joe gives shelter to this stranger, in exchange for everything he knows to remain a secret. In Ballad, Bruce makes us think that Joe is going to terminate that lingering threat, until he changes his mind. The narrator reflects upon his own existence, while wandering the streets, something that could imply he has eventually run away from his family and the main problem. In Fugitive's Dream, Joe does not think about any extreme solutions, but he realizes how his determination gets weaker and weaker and he chooses to run away, only to repent himself later, for he has this recurring dream which torments him, and which is very similar to the one that tortures the Joe in Downbound Train. Unsatisfied Heart is pretty much the same, only with Joe explicitly admitting how he succumbs to the weight of that guilt from his past and flees. The lyrics include that aforementioned refrain, as if focusing on Joe' dilemma.



I'm not going to purchase these songs in a physical format, most likely, as I'd like to in principle, and it annoys me for, unlike what I have experienced with The Promise, this record is much better than I was expecting. The problem is that in order to buy this stuff, I have to buy the entire box and it is way too expensive, and even more so when compared to the price of the rest of the artifacts reviewed here (not to mention that of the first Tracks volume, whose cost back in the day would amount to sixty current euros at most) which I deem much more interesting, and I'm not willing to invest money on it. As much as this first record is worth the effort and has turned out to be a pleasant surprise, the rest of the albums (despite including some good songs I have already listened to) focus on eras and styles of this singer I'm not very interested in. It would be a good thing to release all seven records one by one, separately, but that doesn't seem likely, given that, just like what happened with the first Tracks box set and 18 Tracks, a single album has been released as a companion piece to Tracks II (LOST AND FOUND: SELECTIONS FROM THE LOST ALBUMS, released on the very same day), and it includes twenty songs which summarize the contents of the box. Only three are from LA Garage Sessions: Follow That Dream, Seven Tears and Unsatisfied Heart.





NEBRASKA '82: EXPANDED EDITION



Nebraska '82 / 2025




Last October (on the seventeenth) Columbia reissued Nebraska big time, with no less than four discs and another one with audiovisual stuff. The first disc contains the outtakes (you know already: Child Bride, which would later become Working On The Highway, Losin' Kind, and more), the second is devoted (at last) to Electric Nebraska, the third features Springsteen recently (I can't find the exact dat, although this might have taken place during last April) performing Nebraska live in full, and the fourth one is a remastered version of the original album. The Bluray (directed by Thom Zimny, once again) includes that same live performance found on the third audio disc, but on video, and there's also a comprehensive booklet brimming with pictures (many of them never seen before, I guess), explanations (the font is definitley too small and in red) and so on.


As for the current stuff, which is that performance at the Count Basie theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey (it has recently changed its name to Count Basie Center For The Arts or Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre), I'll make an exception and I'll talk about it too, even if it doesn't belong to the era I am reviewing. Only to praise Springsteen, for I must admit this is a really worthy of credit performance. It's been forty-plus years since Nebraska was released, when Bruce was thirty-three; he was seventy-six when he completed this recording, so you can say his age is taking its toll on his singing, as expected, and you can tell mostly at the beginning (Atlantic City, for example); but once he gets deeper into the album and you are trapped by the whole atmosphere, you just forget about it. And I think Springsteen does a great job, also with the help of two musicians who play all songs but State Trooper. They are LARRY CAMPBELL, who plays twelve-string guitar, tambourine and even electric guitar in Reason To Believe, and CHARLIE GIORDANO, with an instrument called celesta and some synths. It needs to be remembered that Bruce never toured in support of Nebraska, and these songs were not played live until the Born In The USA tour, so something like this was long due, according to the singer himself, for this was the first thing he thought about when everything was given green light in order to release this reissue. Springsteen has admitted, after playing these songs, that he could feel their weight on him. He says that he has written several other albums with specific storylines, but that there's something special about these songs which make them magical.

I'll leave here some links to more documentary stuff (also by Zimmy, most likely) which I deem interesting, mostly because is not on this reissue (at least on the CD version, although I think is not on the vinyl one either), which is weird.








One of the pics on Nebraska '82




Let's go now with those two discs of unreleased stuff which are also part of this great reissue:



The outtakes disc comes first, and it has nine tracks which I think are all previously unreleased (leaving bootlegs, etc, aside) but two. Springsteen plays acoustic guitar and harmonica, but also mandolin, glockenspiel and some percussion and synth. According to the credits on this reissue, not all of them were recorded at Colts Neck. The Power Station studios in Nueva York show up again.


BORN IN THE USA is the same version found on Tracks, where it was said this was just a demo, something which I think can be said about the entire disc. Very good version.

LOSIN' KIND was already mentioned within the Nebraska review; it was the only song, out of those seventeen on that famous tape, that had not been released yet. Until now. According to the credits, Mike Batlan did not take part in the recording of all those tracks, and Losin' Kind was one of them. It was recorded by some TOBY SCOTT, helped by another gentleman by the name of JEFF HENDRICKSON. It's a nice and quiet song, bound to grow on you after several listens, and which features some solo guitar lines on the acoustic. It has some resemblance to Highway Patrolman, and its first line is pretty much the same, only with a different name (FRANK DAVIS). That Frank might as well be JOE ROBERTS's (the person who narrates the story of that other Nebraska song) troubling brother, for Losin' Kind's Frank happens to be someone who begins to date someone he gets to know by chance, and who is probably a hooker, and ends up killing a person unintentionally during a robbery. Soon after, they both have to face the law after a car crash, but the song seems unfinished in that regard. I like it a lot.

DOWNBOUND TRAIN disappointed me when I listened to it for the first time, given the scale of the final version to appear on Born In The USA, but it has turned out to be a grower too. This first version is even shorter than Born In The USA's, and lacks the latter's impact, but the rockabilly tone has its charm, once you get over the shock that listening to this song performed this way entails. It's entertaining.

CHILD BRIDE reminds me of Highway Patrolman, once more, and even more so than Losin' Kind does. And yet, I even consider both of them to be superior to the former. As explained, this song evolved until it became Working On The Highway, but as expected, this first incarnation is completely different. Barring the lyrics, which are more or less the same as in the final song, plus some additional lines at the end that make it a longer song. Working On The Highway, despite its festive tone, is about corruption of minors, no less, and Child Bride makes it perfectly clear, when it assures that the girl is way too young, something that wasn't quite clear in the final version. Great song.

PINK CADILLAC is very likeable. It's the same thing as the version on Tracks, but completely bare; in fact, there are times, mostly at the beginning, when Bruce's strumming is difficult to hear if compared with his voice's volume.

THE BIG PAYBACK is also great, although it's been reviewed before. This is the song that became a B side to the Open All Night single.

WORKING ON THE HIGHWAY is also here on an acoustic format. Child Bride has already evolved here to the same thing that can be listened, played by the entire band, on Born In The USA, although the lyrics are not the same yet. In this earlier version, the protagonist doesn't have to face his bitter end, and once the lady's dad refuses to let her go, he swears he'll do whatever is needed to convince him.

ON THE PROWL is another short and rocking number in the vein of Open All Night, Johnny 99 or The Big Payback, although it feels more restrained from time to time, music-wise. But not when it comes to Springsteen's singing, which feels the other way around, bent on equalling his voice's pitch to how willing is the protagonist to find the girl he's got a crush on.

GUN IN EVERY HOME closes this disc and it is another brief and quiet number, more similar to that Nebraska's half in which you could find Nebraska itself, Used Cars, My Father's House or the aforementioned Highway Patrolman. It is beautiful, but you blink and it's gone. The text is weird though. If I'm not mistaken, the narrator has a dream after which, thinking that he is doing the right thing, he relocates to a suburb; but while he has to admit that his neighbourhood has everything he needs, he also realizes that that also includes owning a gun, something that makes him to have second thoughts about whether he has done the right thing or what to do next. This song, and the previous two, were also recorded by the Scott & Hendrickson team, just like Losin' Kind.



Well, as you can see, this short album (little longer than half an hour) has no waste. It is great, not only as a document for completists, or as an oddity, but for itself.



Springsteen's more difficult times; but special at the same time




Next is what I believe to be the biggest decoy of this collection for many: another short (even shorter than the previous one) album which gathers those sessions known as Electric Nebraska. These songs were produced, one more time, by Springsteen, Landau and Van Zandt, and in the recording (again at The Power Station), Scott and Hendrickson played their part as well. Every song but one (Downbound Train), were taped during the same session, on the 27th of April, 1982, while the remaining one was recorded the next third of May. Clarence Clemons' absence in both sessions is remarkable, although maybe not that much if we keep in mind that not only was Bruce the only one who took part in the recording of Nebraska, but also that this set of songs is not suitable for a saxophone to join them.


NEBRASKA makes clear, in my opinion, the reason behind Springsteen's frustration while trying to convey these tracks to a full band atmosphere. A song like this one can't do wrong no matter what, but this version, even if it is quite similar to the original one, is devoided of a great deal of its drama and restlessness when played this way. It's not bad, in any case. Roy Bittan is nowhere to be seen either.

ATLANTIC CITY is completely the opposite. The original version is enormous, and this is too, as if it had been conceived this way from the get go. Van Zandt's backing vocals can be heard clearly, but Bittan is missing again. And so is Federici this time, but this is spectacular anyway.

MANSION ON THE HILL begins more or less like Nebraska's version did, and the remaining instruments join little by little, with Federici's organ being a stand out addition. I could say something similar to what I said about Nebraska itself, but this song fares better than the title track in this format.

JOHNNY 99 is, as everyone was expecting, quite lively and rocking, although if I have to be completely honest, I would have cut Bittan's piano down a little (now is Federici who is missing). Little complaining anyway, and apart from that, is quite similar to the original.

DOWNBOUND TRAIN sounds the same as the acoustic version on the previous disc, but this one works better, with a rampant Springsteen who uses a very high pitch. I could live without that bloody piano, once again, but at least is not that overwhelming here. No Federici again.

OPEN ALL NIGHT is pretty similar to its great companion piece on Nebraska, and in fact I believe that original version already featured some electric guitar, but this electric version rocks harder, of course, thanks to all the additional instrumentation. This is just rock & roll in its most primal form, with just Weinberg and Tallent, besides Springsteen, listed in the credits. Guitar, bass and drums, and that's it. Great.

BORN IN THE USA is very good too. At the beginning you get the feeling that the guitar riff is going to nail that of the synth we all know from the final version, but this is a different beast. You can tell this is Born In The USA, without a doubt, and yet it's not the same thing, as if the song had gotten rid of some kind of burden, for, as much as I have never grown tired of this track, I must admit that the absence of synths strips it from that sometimes over the top Born In The USA sound and its connection to the eighties. And that's a good thing too. Only the three above mentioned musicians of the previous song take part in this track, which indicates that this is just a basic approach to the song.

REASON TO BELIEVE has always meant a soft spot for me, and this electric version only increases that feeling. Truth is, this is the same song, but more optimistic somehow when played this way. The harmonica and some trademark screams by Springsteen contribute to that sensation. And this song's refrain has to be simply immune to anything; it can't be damaged. Outstanding.



And this is over. Only Nebraska feels a little bit subpar within this electric ensemble, which is easy to picture, for a song like that is difficult to move out from its comfort zone. Other than that, you could feel these extras are not enough after all these years of wait, because the last two discs combined only run for a little more than just an hour. But it is what it is. I've read something about one song called DANGER ZONE, which belongs to this era and is not featured here, but apparently it is related to Child Bride and Working On The Highway, so perhaps we are talking about a vert primitive idea or version of the latter. Who knows if there's something else still lurking in the shadows, but it is also true that it would have been weird to not taking advantage of this occasion to show the world everything which was created during those years and still remained unreleased.

Let's not forget that this collection includes the remastered version of the original album, the book and the more recent stuff already discussed.





To this day, only Born In The USA and Tunnel Of Love have not been reissued in such a sumptuous way as the other four studio albums from these years have. I do not think there is much else to be known about the latter, for I believe only nineteen songs, roughly, were recorded for it and some of the extra ones were already featured on Tracks. But that's not the case with Born In The USA. The strange thing is that the summer of 2024 marked the 40th anniversay of its release, and it's kind of weird that nothing of the sort was done back then. It is also true that there is no special reason for Nebraska to be reissued in 2025, other than the movie's premiere. We'll see.



Deliver me from nowhere




To finish off, let's talk about those times when Bruce collaborated, one way or another, with several other artists or on some collective record during these fourteen years. This is only a really quick recap of all this, just for the sake of information and completeness. I am not familiar with most of this stuff and, to be honest, I did not know anything about the vast majority of these songs. Next, I list those works and some other oddities too.



The My Hometown single, released in 1985, includes as a B side a live performance (twelve of December, 1975, in Long Island, New York) of the carol SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN. It had already been part of a children compilation from 1981 named IN HARMONY, and there is no studio version, as far as I know. It's been a very popular radio staple at christmas time, and also in Bruce's repertoire during that last stretch of the year.




As we all know, in 1985 Bruce contributed his vocals to the famed WE ARE THE WORLD song, found on the charity album USA For Africa which was already mentioned when I wrote about Trapped's live version. I do know this song remains as an indelible memory from the eighties, but I wish it wasn't that indelible. 




On this Wikipedia link you can read about Springsteen's contributions to other artists' records (which go beyond the year of 1988). He even sang (uncredited though) in one song of an album by THE DICTATORS, no less. This is new for me.




More stuff. In 1987 (the album wasn't released until 1990, I think), he took part on a live album which paid tribute to HARRY CHAPIN, with the song REMEMBER WHEN THE MUSIC.




In that same year he also collaborated on another charity record (for the Special Olympics) titled A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS, with MERRY CHRISTMAS BABY, another live carol which I do not know when or where was recorded.



And last, but not least, in 1988 he contributed two songs to a tribute album to both Woody Guthrie and LEADBELLY called FOLKWAYS: A VISION SHARED. Those tracks are I AIN'T GOT NO HOME and VIGILANTE MAN, and both are Guthrie's.





A guitar hero completely aware
of his limitations




And here ends my vision of the most glorious and creative years in the entirety of Bruce Springsteen's career; those who saw him go from having a very humble and almost anonymous status, to reaching the biggest international stardom (let's say that happened after Born In The USA), to the point that he is among the thirty best selling musical artists of all time, if I'm not mistaken.

That era was quite something, no doubt, and I guess that almost everyone agrees on the fact that the american singer has never achieved something both that successful and great (and that is understandable). These are classic records in their own right we are talking about, and they have been for decades now. And they also coincided with a Springsteen at the very peak of his physical powers (he wasn't even forty yet during the Tunnel Of Love tour, which was the latest time of this era), whose shows ran for longer than four hours sometimes.


There are many good things in his post Tunnel Of Love career as well. That goes without saying. As I said, I have barely paid any attention to any of the music he has created after Magic, released in 2007 (there are six more studio records after that one until today), and that one included, there are another seven albums after Tunnel Of Love. With all those records released after Tunnel, up until Magic, I could make a very decent compilation filled with songs I deem more than good, even leaving the outtakes aside (there several amazing ones on Tracks). And all this considering that I haven't even listened to all of those records. From that moment (Magic) on, the decline of his artistic quality is evident (as far as I am concerned, of course), in spite of his regrouping the E Street Band many years ago. IN fact, all those kind of weird years of his career, during which he chose to disband the E Street Band to record and tour with different musicians, are even better that what came next. But to each their own.


They say that form is temporary and class is permanent, and Springsteen remains fit at seventy six; and selling out arenas, or almost, wherever he goes. And if he still sells those many records is not only because of nostalgia or the completionist ambition of many diehard fans, but also because many people still love what he does. He was never lacking in charisma, in any case. And speaking of the devil, I must admit that I had never been interested in finding out where his very well known and charismatic (THE BOSS) nickname came from. I thought it was the fans who had come up with it, once his fame began to grow bigger and bigger, and also taking his role as the ever perfectionist leader into account. The latter could be accurate somehow, but apparently that was the E Streeters' idea, already from the seventies, and that is something Bruce has never been very much fond of.




As another funny anecdote, the past seventh of September, and during the 2025 US Open final in New York, he was seen with his daughter Jessica while he watched CARLOS ALCARAZ winning the title at the expense of Italy's JANNICK SINNER.


He likes tennis




So far, so good. These events are filled with celebrities. But the thing is that another one of those celebrities approached him to say hi. That person was Courteney Cox, his dancing partner in Dancing In The Dark. I'm sure they have run into each other many times before, but it's kind of funny how everything comes full circle sometimes.



You can't start a fire without a spark




I could never see him play live during that era, and it took me a long time to attend one of his shows, but I have been at two of them already in this century. The first one took place in Gijón, at ESTADIO EL MOLINÓN (15th of May, 2003). As for the cons, I have to say that the setlist was mostly centered around The Rising (2002), the record Bruce was touring in support of. That is an album people usually adore, but that I don't consider that good. He played like ten songs off it. Too many, and even more so if we consider the repertoire he could have used. At least he played the best songs from that record (truth is, he played almost every song). There was also a version of Dancing In The Dark that, as I already explained, did not do it for me. It featured a special guest who, if memory serves, was Jon Landau. Concerning the pros, I must admit that a fifty-something Springsteen was on fire and completely devoted to the occasion. He ran, he jumped and he threw himself to the floor. And I could see the whole thing from a relatively close spot.

The second time happened to be in Madrid, at the SANTIAGO BERNABÉU stadium, on the 17th of July, 2008, with Bruce touring to support Magic. The venue was much more special, but also quite bigger, and I had to witness everything from quite afar, from the most distant stands. But I remember a much better show than the previous one. Magic is a more accomplished album than The Rising, and Springsteen also left it pretty much on the back burner on that very day (he played like four songs only), if compared with what he had done with The Rising five years earlier, so there was plenty of time for more classic tunes (some of them unexpected ones) and I could listen to the guys playing The River, a song that in my opinion should never be left out of his setlists, and Jungleland.



Patti and him with Jessica, the horsewoman




I'm glad that I have written all this. I think Springsteen deserves it, and this is my own personal way of saying thanks for all the happines his music has provided me with. And much more to come, I'm sure. And also, this has led me to dig deeper into some records, remember certain songs, and pay more attention to some of them that, despite not being new at all, they were for me until a few months ago. This has been fun too, and it has helped to increase my own interest in Springsteen as well. Not that I had stopped liking him, for I have already said it always was the other way around, but considering how little I care for his current music and the fact that I do not like certain things he currently does or says because I find them contradictory, it all felt as if I had distanced myself a little from someone who has always been there. It doesn't feel that way anymore, and I'm eager to watch the movie so I can write about it.

*As I said before, I have already watched it.


There is another side of the Bruce Springsteen's universe that I'd like to remark here and that I wasn't aware of until I did some research, in order to know more stuff: it is, indeed, a whole entire universe. It is amazing how several songs have their own family tree and they are somehow related to many others, and how Bruce has been capable of creating so many songs and ideas that weren't used back then, and shelving all of them so they can be dusted off in the future. He has been vert creative and methodical on all fronts. On one hand, the ramifications of some songs are worthy of mention, and on the other, it is so cool to know that among hundreds of songs, there are dozens and dozens of them that did not make the cut considering any of his studio records, and that have been made public much later in time, and yet are even better than many of them whcih did make that cut.

But nothing like his twisted ability to conceal true miseries and more or less repulsive characters in songs you would never think they were about those issues. Another proof, and an ultimate one this time, that at least in Springsteen's case, his lyrics matter much more than one could ever imagine.



When I started writing this series of entries, I mentioned that the idea of writing about Bruce Springsteen dawned on me while I was listening to his music. It was Independence Day what I was listening to at that very moment. And just in case someone is wondering which my favourite record of his might be, I have to say that I could not pass without Darkness On The Edge Of Town if I had to choose just one of them.

Anyone reading this blog on a more or less regular basis, knows that my knowledge is limited and flawed, and that it is much bigger once any given entry is finished, given to all the research I do in order to write. That's why I must thank the help of something that comes so much in handy as Wikipedia, several sources related to the artist himself, and also one amazing blog devoted to him called E STREET SHUFFLE. There you can read real studies about almost every song (this is the source where I took what I linked about My Father's House from). And much more. The rough side about it is that the casual reader will notice my clumsiness when it comes to depicting some things concerning which I did not have that extra help. But it is what it is.

And I'd like to dedicate all this to ROBERTO ANTÓN and PACO REYES, two of my best friends ever and by far the ones I was the closest to during those days in which Springsteen's music, of whom they were (and I hope they still are) big fans, was almost everything. Roberto and I attended together  that second show I already mentioned. All the times I have remember them while writing this are countless. They might never reach this far to read this, but it doesn't matter.


I just hope every link is correct, for this time they are too many for me to check them all. It's been a pleasure. I'll see you soon!


Thanks Bruce Springsteen, and thanks to you for reaching this far.






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