My Pantheon: Bruce Springsteen

If you don't know who Bruce Springsteen is, fuggedaboudit. I'm not going to waste time rehashing the info that you can find out at eighty gajillion other sites. Instead, I'm going to show you why this guy is one of the rare mega-stars in history that is also a true artistic genius. Prepare to get bossed around! Get it? "Bossed"? "The Boss"? Aw, hell with ya.

Anyway, Springsteen typically releases his albums in a kind of allegro-adagio alternating pattern, one focusing on a more upbeat (or at least high-tempo) feel and the next a more minimalist and contemplative. To be sure, most of his albums feature a combination of fast and slow songs, just that the general album focus usually alternates. So, we're gonna replicate that same binary opposition, except we're gonna start with a slow number first.

"Lost in the Flood" from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

Although The Boss's first album was not particularly well received by the public (selling something pathetic like 25,000 copies), it was praised by the critics and later came to be seen as one of the strongest debut albums in the history of rock and roll. Led off by the blisteringly paced lyrical dynamo "Blinded by the Light," my favorite cut has always been this stark, piano-driven ballad of street life. It combines many of the tropes Springsteen would go on to use to great effect in later songs: war veterans, street and racing gangs, youth, Christian imagery and symbology, racial and class tensions, and Americana. It also showcases the talents of a very early version of the E Street Band, who would later be fleshed out and developed into a seriously badass rockin' ensemble -- for now, though, their talents were used to best effect on slower tracks like this one.

"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" from The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

I was highly tempted to include "Incident on 57th Street" here instead of "Rosalita," but I've gotta keep to the adagio-allegro switch, so I went with this balls-out killer instead. Not to say that this song isn't one of Springsteen's best -- the E Street Band closed with "Rosalita" for more than ten years of touring. This track features an early example of a theme that Springsteen would address in many of his hit songs: grabbing a girl and running away from a shitty situation together. "Thunder Road," "I'm on Fire," and his breakout "Born to Run" are all major successes that follow a similar theme. This cut always impressed me because of its constant, headlong, crashing pace. It just barrels forward, seeming like it must, somehow, some way, hit its terminal velocity and stop -- but it never does until the last note. If you wanna get jacked up for a sporting event or for a night out with buddies, you won't do better than this.

"Thunder Road" from Born to Run

So, I'm gonna get a little sneaky here to maintain our fast-slow motif. While this song was the leadoff track to Springsteen's fantastic, breakthrough album Born to Run, I'm not going to play you his version which, while still quite plaintive in its lyrics, is pretty upbeat and jaunty. Instead, I'm including a live performance by country-rock legend John Prine, that I think captures more accurately the tone of the song than even Springsteen's original performance. Why do I say that? Well, Prine's vocal here is quite similar to Springsteen's (hell, they even have similar sounding voices), but the tempo and general "feel" of the song are slower and more contemplative in Prine's cover. The audience helps a bit, because hearing them conveys a sense of waving cigarette lighters, but mostly I like Prine's version because, well, it's sad.

"Badlands" from Darkness on the Edge of Town

To me, this is the quintessential Bruce and the E-Street Band song. It may not be my favorite, it may not be the best, but it's the most representative of the elements that make up a successful Boss number. "Badlands" is a desperate, wildly paced, piano-and-sax driven motorcade of a song, that focuses on a classic Springsteen theme: a down-on-his-luck street guy with big ambitions and just enough smarts to understand what it's all about. Although it was sort of a disaster as a single (rarely receiving radio play on mainstream stations), it remains a staple of Springsteen's live shows, complete with pyrotechnics and lighting acrobatics synced to the music. Anyway, this song always gets me going and I hope it brings a smile to your face in the same way.

"The River" from The River

The title track from Springsteen's massively successful 1980 album is typical of the artist's slow-burning approach to heartland rock. Despite the album's success, this track was not a big hit in the U.S., and has sort of grown slowly in popularity the way its lyrics grow slowly in gravitas as the music progresses. The titular river of the song is more a concept than a real body of water -- it's a place the singer can go when his dreams have been battered by the slings and arrows of the real world. Whenever things go wrong, the singer "goes down to the river" to try and draw the waters of inspiration, even when he "knows the river is dry." It's a sad song, sure, but it's also delivering a message about the unbreakable hope that inures in every human spirit. The river may be only an illusion, but when you've got nothing else, sometimes an illusion is enough.

"Atlantic City" from Nebraska

"Everything dies, baby, that's a fact./But maybe everything that dies,/someday he comes back." With it's message of hope for even the most down and out, desperate, and dejected people, "Atlantic City" is one of those odd Springsteen laments that's simultaneously an upbeat rocker. That said, I don't like his version as much as this fantastic cover by that ultimate cover band, The Band. Adding a folksy, accordion-driven bounce to the more straightforward Springsteen version, The Band helps get across the song's image of Atlantic City as a beacon of hope for last-chance desperadoes, rather than the seedy, underworld town it's often portrayed as being (and probably really is, more or less). I also just dig Levon Helm's Southern drawl when he sings this.

"I'm Goin' Down" from Born in the U.S.A.

One of the lesser-known tracks from Springsteen's massive smash Born in the U.S.A., "I'm Goin' Down" was the sixth single released from the album (yes, sixth!!), and is my favorite song from the whole record -- which is saying something, because this is one of my favorite records of all time. Basically, this is one is about a guy who just can't get right with his female companion, no matter what he does. The thrill is gone, the spark has died, Elvis has left the building -- whatever. But the song itself is so catchy that you can't help but feel happy for this guy. Sure, his relationship isn't working out, but hell, this chick probably wasn't worth it, anyway. So here's a song we can all dance to, instead of all crying over bygones.

"Brilliant Disguise" from Tunnel of Love

It's no secret that I really dig country music. It's also no secret that I really dig Elvis Costello. And Elvis Costello has done some great versions of famous country songs. So why not include a his country-fied version of this classic Springsteen cut from Tunnel of Love. This particular track was included on a big ol' album of Springsteen covers called Light of Day, that had a fantastic lineup of impassioned performers covering classic Boss tracks... with a very lukewarm result. Only this boom-chika-boom version of "Brilliant Disguise" (and a couple other cuts) really stood out as interesting and worth more than one listen. I hope you'll agree, as I've included it here in lieu of Springsteen's original, which is also really great... just a bit overplayed in this blogger's opinion.

"Secret Garden" from Greatest Hits

This song is lugubrious, overly sentimental, working way too hard, and, ultimately, a little silly. But, for whatever reason, I love it. Sometimes, a song -- like any work of art -- can be very direct and very obvious, and yet still very touching. Not every aspect of the human experience needs to be a subtle drop of dew on the petal of a rose, people! Anyway, "Secret Garden" was featured in a film called Jerry Maguire, and was never released on any album, other than this first collection of Springsteen's best.

"Santa Ana" from Tracks

This is my second favorite Springsteen song. It was never officially released, only appearing as an "outtake" from The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle on his 1998 boxed set Tracks. Rather than give you my usual exegesis here, I'll just let the song (which is sung with atypical clarity, for once) lay itself out. I will say that I absolutely love the lyrics in this number, not only are they fun to sing (and hear), not only do they tell a fantastic story, but they also provide tons of catchy phrases to form up as album titles for my future band, The Giants of Science.

"Into the Fire" from The Rising

Springsteen's The Rising was his well-received return to studio recordings (and to the E Street Band) after a prolonged hiatus. The theme of the album -- and it is very much a "theme" record -- is the idea of rising up; both in the sense of rising above the crap that tries to bog us down in our quotidian lives and in the sense of rising up out of the ashes of what destruction had come before. This track, the album's most beautiful, is a direct reference to the event that inspired the entire album: the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. It's sung from the perspective, one assumes, of someone related to or friendly with one of the emergency responders who died going "upstairs, into the fire" -- that is, into one of the burning towers. The song's literally plaintive chorus "May your strength give us strength..." might seem maudlin in some contexts, but here, knowing what we know, it ends up being very powerful and reminds us that the sacrifice those men made on September 11th continues to provide us with gifts even to this day.

"Land of Hope & Dreams" from The Essential

This is a long, live, epic number that showcases a bit of Springsteen's greatest strength as an artist: his live shows. This guy brings his 'A' game to absolutely every venue he plays, and audiences love him for it. You get a sense of how his bigger, broader songs, like The Land of Hope and Dreams, are almost interactive pieces when played at live events. Springsteen involves the audience not only in the listening experience, but in the very fiber of his music. You can almost hear people connecting to him on this recording. Anyway, this track, with its theme of unity and togetherness ("this train carries losers and winners") and focus on the power of, well, hope and dreams, is a perfect vehicle for Springsteen's persona to shine through in a live recording -- a version of which from his Essential collection I've included here.

"Jesus Was an Only Son" from Devils & Dust

This is a song with an overtly religious, almost hagiographic theme, that's really just about the relationship between parents and their kids. Parents always want to protect their children from the harm that they know the world is inevitably going to throw their way. It's just a basic instinct. Unfortunately, there's only so much that any parent can do. Even Jesus' parents couldn't, as we're told in this this slow, sad ballad, stop him from fulfilling his own destiny; a destiny that's ultimately and inexorably separate from their own. Anyone who's a parent, regardless of religious bent, will relate to the message in this song and will, I hope, be at least a little moved.

"O Mary Don't You Weep" from We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

Some time in the mid-2000's Springsteen was exposed, for the first time, to Pete Seeger's folk and American roots music from the 1960's. Prompted by his own interest -- and that of his children -- Springsteen delved into the tradition and put together "The Sessions Band" of American roots musicians to record an album of his versions of these classic pieces. Most of these songs date from the nineteenth and very early twentieth century, including this song, which is a Negro spiritual from the antebellum South. The Mary of the song isn't Jesus' mother, but the sister of Lazarus, the man that Jesus raised from the dead. Like many Negro spirituals it disguises its message of hope for freedom and deliverance in a religious mask, but this song really focuses on a series of examples from the Bible in which downtrodden people were able to overcome terrible oppression due to God's assistance or their own ingenuity. In particular, the chorus of the song reminds you directly of that most famous story of slaves being freed (and the slavers being punished): "Pharaoh's army got drown-ded!" and would have been very relatable for black slaves and black Americans in the years following the Civil War. Today, it's just a powerful song of hope performed in a raucous, ear-to-ear-grinning version by Springsteen and his Sessions Band.

"Jesse James" from Live in Dublin

Aw, what the heck. This music may not be original Springsteen material, but he performs it so damn well, and it's so much fun to listen to, I couldn't resist putting one more on this list. This rendition of the classic (and almost entirely untrue) Western ballad "Jesse James" was performed live during Bruce and the Sessions Band's awesome concert in Dublin, Ireland. I won't belabor the historical issues or any of that, just enjoy this one.

"Terry's Song" from Magic

Written as a tribute to his longtime assistant Terry McGovern, who had died earlier in the same year, this song appeared as a secret track (that is, it was unlabeled on the album artwork) on Springsteen's 2007 masterpiece, Magic. In my opinion, this album is the finest rock-and-roll record of the 2000's, and this quiet, introspective song represents just one part of what Magic does so well: recreating personal relationships in music. Of all the songs -- including the brilliant "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" and "Long Walk Home" -- this one best captures the life-enhancing power of human contact. Although its lyrics sometimes border on the sickly sweet and lean on some tired cliches ("when they built you, they broke the mold") you can still sense the real, heartfelt pain that went into writing this piece from a friend for a friend. It's the ability to harness that kind of raw emotional power that has always endeared Springsteen to fans who feel this stuff, but have a hard time expressing it themselves.

"The Wrestler" from Working on a Dream

Following the brilliant Magic would've been a tough mountain for any artist, but if anyone could do it well, The Boss could. Unfortunately, he didn't. Working on a Dream is a mediocre album with a few decent tracks, but nothing approaching the raw power and polished excellence of Magic. What it does have, though, is a bonus track featuring Springsteen's song for the film The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke. Good movie, and this song is better for its ability to encapsulate the struggles of the titular wrestler in a three-minute ballad. Mostly, this is due to Springsteen's great talent at writing expressive lyrics, but it also comes through in the simple instrumentation and unadorned musical style the song is recorded in. I know I said I wouldn't feature two slow songs in a row, but heck, with the Pete Seeger stuff above there were two fast songs, so this balances out the alternating tempo paradigm for us.

"Incident on 57th Street" from The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

Ah, screw it. We'll keep it adagio all the way to the end. I figured I'd leave you with this one, which is the best of Springsteen's earlier epic ballads, and one of my favorite songs of all time. In fact, it's my third-favorite Springsteen song. So there.




Hope you guys enjoyed this pantheon installment! Got more posts coming soon.