Springsteen Darkness Edge

Springsteen Darkness Edge

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The Albums of Bruce Springsteen

The Boss is a hard one to nail down, a mega star who forges an intimate bond with his listeners; a mainstream artist who attains a street creed even amongst the snobbiest aficionados; a musician who has always being valid, being required, yet has never changed his clothes, never mind alter his image; one of the ‘next Bob Dylan’ brigade who succeeded in not being anything like Bob Dylan in some ways and who was perhaps the only one of the brigade to succeed; a rocker singing about small town themes that made sense to the world; The Boss who hates bosses; the list of contradictions is as lengthy as it is extraordinary. Bizarrely, too he began in as early as the mid-sixties, rocking out with his band The Castiles, wanting to be Elvis, who he had witnessed knocking around the world with his loins on the Ed Sullivan Show - Springsteen if anything is a link, between modern rock music and our grand-parents rock music, strange that. Springsteen came up the hard way, while Dylan went to the stars; and his influences, the Beatles and The Rolling Stones became legends, Springsteen reeled in and out of a glut of bands - The Rogues, Earth, Child, Steel Mill, Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom; it appeared that he was to go the way of his beloved Asbury Park, be forgotten, immersed in his own world, unable to escape his past, tied down by it. An earlier attempt to break the Greenwich Village scene with all the other hucksters and hipsters had failed, and he had found himself back in Asbury, back to the small-town, away from the lights and mucking around with other small-town, small-time musicians.

Or so it appeared, but appearances can be deceiving and this one was, small-town they were but definitely not small-time, some of these New Jersey shore guys included Steve van Zandt, Vini Lopez and Vinnie Roslin, all of who would be in Springsteen’s first successful band, Steel Mill and would go on to form the core of the E-Street Band. As would Asbury Park itself, Springsteen has drawn influence from the small town, right down to the present day. The decade spent in the wilderness, served him well as he honed his craft as a songwriter, musician and performer. He was never to forget, why would he? He loved it and he knew how good his New Jersey musicians were, when John Hammond signed him for Columbia in 1972, he brought them with him into the studio, effectively establishing the E Street Band. The resultant album’s title Greetings from Asbury Park (1973) said it all, as did it’s themes - youthful rebelliousness, strippers in local strip joints, Vietnam veterans, automobiles and hubcap heavens, ambiguous religion, heartfelt stories of Mary’s, rambunctious parties, run-ins with the law and messy love. The album didn’t smash the charts, but the critics were gushing in their praise, proclaiming Springsteen as the heir apparent to the Dylan throne. It didn’t concern Springsteen too much, he was ploughing his own furrow, working on his craft, prolifically releasing The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle in September 1973. Once again the public missed the boat, later with the release of Born to Run (1975), the record stores wouldn’t be able to keep it or Greetings from Asbury Park on the shelves.

Born to Run (1975) was to change everything, although Springsteen struggled terribly in recording it. Seeing it as his last chance at achieving a commercially viable record, he strove for perfection, becoming frustrated when the sounds in his head were not being replicated in the studio, indeed he was deeply unhappy with the final product. It was released to great hype, the rumours had been building and building, a rare thing, they were justified, the record re-defined the whole thing, rock and roll that is. It was also in a word massive, radios pumped out Born to Run, Thunder Road, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out  and Jungleland; the masses adored it, Springsteen made the front cover of Time and Newsweek on the same day. Yes, they were now trying to swallow him up, transform him into their star, mould him into the messiah that they wanted him to be. Springsteen had other ideas, his following album Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), was a darker, more politicised affair, Springsteen definitely was not going to sell out commercially. The songs were still about the small-town characters that had populated the earlier records but this time around they were broken and shattered by the pressures of modern living, he even left the songs Fire and Because the Night off the record because they sang too much of hope, which were later to become hits for the Pointer Sisters and Patti Smith. The record is raw, electric, powerful, searing; as was the tour to promote it, Springsteen et. al becoming famed for their live performances, playing every night like it was their last.

He completed the trilogy of albums with The River (1980), a double album tour de force with a staggering range of styles on show. If Born to Run and Darkness at the Edge of Town detailed the experiences, The River throws up what people do after the realisation of the betrayals committed against them and indeed their complicity in them. But Springsteen ain’t offering a candy-coated path of redemption, no sir, rather he maps out the Dreiserian paths that are taken, the method of simply finding a way, to deal, to move forward. Springsteen was just over thirty, yet his world-weariness and sagely conclusions were like late Whitman. The plight of the working classes troubled him, he had to sing their woes, the record’s diverse musical range had the paradoxical effect of making us dance, sing, thrash and swoon whilst listening to The Boss voice our worlds and lives, at least someone was. Springsteen wasn’t kidding around and this wasn’t no commercial enterprise, Nebraska (1982) proved that. A stark, lo-fi record that found Springsteen alone with an acoustic, bitter and raging, gone is the support of E-street, it’s all become too serious for musical distractions, Springsteen is facing down the barrel of it all, alone. Never mind the expectation, never mind the industry, Springsteen wanted to make Nebraska and so he made Nebraska. Taking the baton from a long line of radical troubadours such as Woody Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Blind Willie McTell and Hank Williams. He was opening up his arms to America, no longer restricting himself to the confines of New Jersey, taking up the cause of all the States, telling the people that he was the one to do it, and he could do it alone if needs be.

If Nebraska isolated him, the following album Born in the USA (1984), brought the world to his feet, it became on of the best selling albums of all time, seven of it’s singles broke the US Top 10. The band embarked on what would become one of their trademark mammoth tours to promote the album. For fifteen months, the Springsteen crew roamed the globe, night after night delivering marathon sets of spell-binding intensity. When the box set, Live 1979/85 went on sale in 1986, it sold three million copies, everyone wanted a little piece of Springsteen. On Born on the USA, The Boss was again singing about the people, but there was hope, faint hope but hope none the less; and he wrapped it up in the most elegiac yet affirming lyricism, he was telling us what we feared but we were also realising that we were far from alone. The album is like so much of Springsteen’s work, in that it is very much a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the music makes you want to sing and dance and forget. But repeat plays force the listener to pay heed to the lyrics and so it soon becomes evident that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Similar to life in modern America, at first glance everything may appear content, normal, satisfied…but the reality is far more grim. Springsteen was not willing to shirk from what he believed was inherently wrong with modern America -  a brave stance. He took an even braver stance on his following record, Tunnel of Love (1987), dealing with personal issues in an extraordinarily honest way.

His target was now more micro; romantic relationships, personal entanglements, warring domesticity; all are met head on. He rallies against the promises that we make and then break, the demons that pursue us, driving us from our lofty ideals of love and commitment. And Springsteen ain’t wagging fingers, he places himself at the very epicentre of the record, strikingly his own marriage was to break up in the wake of the album. Tunnel of Love marked the end of an extraordinarily period of creativity, eight stunning records in a fourteen year period, all of them cited by the critics as masterpieces. Five years of silence followed, Springsteen obviously requiring time away, time to re-group, to meditate. He returned in 1992 with the release of the albums Human Touch and Lucky Town, five years is a long time and The Boss had much to say. Also, much had changed, the E Street band were gone, the doubts and inner demons seemed to have dissipated, he was a family man now, he couldn’t afford to be so grim. The records threw many fans into despair, disgusted that the had so cruelly dispatched his faithful lieutenants and were perhaps feeling slightly dismayed that Springsteen appeared to have settled his fears somewhat, who now would voice their lives? They should have known him better than all that, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) was his darkest, most abrasive record to date. Gone were the anthems, gone was the uplifting music, the ruse and ploy was gone, no more cloak and daggers, there was no more need for second or third plays, the album was immediate, Bruce was still bugged.

The Boss was heading back Nebraska way, stirring up the ghosts of Guthrie and Steinbeck once again. It was grim, and after it’s release, Springsteen disappeared, it was like the disillusionment had become too much for him, that he had become sick and tired about the lack of change. Rumours abounded that that was it for The Boss, he was retiring, we wouldn’t hear from him again. And then September 11 happened, right on the doorstep of his beloved New Jersey, whatever the truth had been, what choice did he have but to return? And the Calvary was with him, the E-Street Band was reformed, the first time they were back on track since 1987’s Tunnel of Love. And they rocked! Many fans viewed the nineties as a lean time for Springsteen, and of course there is truth in that, Springsteen admits to that himself. If so, The Rising (2002) was a second coming, a resurrection which marked the beginning of a return to form which has lasted for the rest of the decade. But once again on his own terms - 2005’s Devils and Dust found The Boss alone once again, just him and his acoustic while in 2006 he recorded We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an album of covers of traditional folk tunes and hit the road with The Seeger Sessions Band. He reconvened the E-Street band for 2007’s Magic, he seemed unstoppable, it was his third release in eighteen months and it was an exceptional record, the return of The Big Sound. And so it continues, this year he hits sixty and he has kick-started it with the release of Working on a Dream (2009). The record has the feel of a debut; it is as fresh, energetic and vigorous as an offering by a new kid on the block. The E Street band is in as fine fettle as ever, as hungry as ever and The Boss is still The Boss.

About the Author

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net

http://www.visitscotlandtours.com

Favorite Springsteen song?

Ghost of Tom Joad
Born to Run
Downbound Train
Glory Days
Thunder Road
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Nebraska
Darlington County
Youngstown
Lutina, I like you to. I gave you a star for not answering my question.

Thunder Road is absolute poetry.

The Counting Crows have done Thunder Road embedded as part of The Rain King in concert in the past.

Just beautiful lyrically and musically.

(But Joad is a beautiful haunting song as well.)