There’s one of throwaway rock’n’roll songs, made for playing live, but a little shrill on record. There are two albums interwoven on The River. With Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Springsteen crafted his first genuinely indelible song – still a setlist staple – with the single best expression of what it must be like to be young with a life in music ahead: “Tell him this is his last chance / To get his daughter a fine romance / Because the record company, Rosie, they just gave me a big advance!” 6. The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle (1973)Ī definite step on from the debut: the songs sprawl more but also seem to have become sharper, more cinematic. The soon-to-be-giant sound of the E Street Band hasn’t fully grown, and charm abounds. “Madman drummers, bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat,” were the opening words of Springsteen’s debut, setting the scene for a record of shaggy-dog stories, the sound of a man wide-eyed at everything the world might have to offer him. Even on something as downbeat as The Hitter, there is a picaresque quality that relates back not just to Nebraska, but to the very early Springsteen records. Devils and Dust (2005)Ĭommonly viewed as a successor to Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad – acoustic guitars, desolation – Devils and Dust was more musically diverse than either of them, and the desolation was tempered by the hope in Long Time Comin’ and Maria’s Bed. The dramatic, anthemic title track was a deeply moving reminder that there remained possibility, even in the wake of despair. The Rising (2002)Īn album that could have gone horribly wrong, but didn’t: both a reunion with the E Street Band, 18 years after their last album together, and a set of songs that reflected on 9/11 and its aftermath for the individuals caught up in it, leavened with the celebrations of Mary’s Place and Waitin’ on a Sunny Day. The anger comes through in a triptych towards the album’s close – Magic, Last to Die and Long Walk Home – that plots how far America has travelled from life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Magic, the first E Street Band album since The Rising, revisited the bar-band R&B stomp on tracks such as Livin’ in the Future, but there’s a bittersweet feeling to much of it: Girls in Their Summer Clothes isn’t just lecherousness, it’s also about ageing. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006)ĭespite the politics implicit in covering songs associated with Pete Seeger, The Seeger Sessions was the most joyful record Springsteen had made in years, perhaps since The River: a compendium of American folk styles that sounded like an astounding house party, and played out like one in the accompanying live shows. Photograph: Frank Lennon/Toronto Star via Getty Images 12.
Where that dealt with lives that were the focus of attention – the blue-collar dispossessed – this paid attention to the migrants who had slipped off the edges of society.īruce Springsteen in concert in Toronto, January 20, 1981. Tom Joad was, if anything, even bleaker than Nebraska.
Springsteen found his way back after Lucky Town/Human Touch by stripping back and turning his gaze towards the dispossessed. That said, the Irish folk elements throughout sit oddly. Wrecking Ball was a furious record: We Take Care of Our Own was a statement that America had very much failed to live up to the title’s statement Death to My Hometown was a very different version of home to My Hometown.
Springsteen’s joyous live shows tend to overshadow the fact that almost all the music he has made this century has been sombre. Sadly, the most startling moment on Working on a Dream is Outlaw Pete, a Western fantasy that appeared to have been cribbed, implausibly, from I Was Made For Lovin’ You by Kiss.
Working on a Dream (2009)Īnd now into the run of albums for the 2000s that, without ever touching the heights of the glory days, regularly offered startling moments.
0 kommentar(er)
