Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

Ah good point Niels...so the thing to do would be make a YouTube playlist of those tracks and then import to Spotify via:

https://soundiiz.com/login

That site has been very handy in the past btw.

Starting to wonder which Jimmy Cliff songs he covered. I had forgotten about "Trapped," which was popular for one hot minute because it was on a benefit album, (We Are The World?) and see some other tunes on YouTube from The Harder They Come, including "The Harder They Come" with Jimmy himself. But I also seem to recall him playing "Vietnam," although I am finding little evidence of it.

(We Are The World?)

Yep, that's the one (and I wish the question mark was actually part of the title), and "Trapped" got a ton of airplay at the time.

I don't know why I am thinking he covered "Vietnam." Did he? Or did it appear in some other context - the "Treasure Island" section in Stranded?- and I am just confounding.

There's bootlegs of a song he did called Vietnam that later mutated into Born In The USA. I don't know if his song has anything to do with the Jimmy Cliff song.

New Order (!) covered Vietnam, but don't think Bruce did.

i love bruce in jersey shred devil mode. could watch bruce solo vids a lot actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euwbwRAITa4

oh but i was reading richard ford on chronicles vol.2...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/books/review/bruce-springsteen-born-to-run-richard-ford.html?hpw&rref=books&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj8jGgUDHqw

Mr. Ford will be hearing from the Dutch embassy...

"Springsteen’s part Scots-Irish, part Italian family was a caldron of these bubbling forces."

I like Springsteen guitar but he's best when he knows when to get out of the way, especially when paired with James fucking Burton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la2H9OCOlrQ

This is a great one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACSeVC6umzg

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/bruce-springsteen-call-trump-moron-228586?cmpid=sf

“The republic is under siege by a moron, basically. The whole thing is tragic. Without overstating it, it's a tragedy for our democracy,” the rocker said, when asked what he makes of the “Trump phenomenon”.

Countdown to Trump slamming the Boss on twitter, aka the end of his candidacy.

Boring Bruce slams me in low-selling Rolling Stone! Sad! Not A Fan!

#JohnCaffertyIsBetter

You're on firefired!

Countdown to Trump slamming the Boss on twitter, aka the end of his candidacy.

If/when this happens, Chris Christie's brain will explode.

that jersey shred devil mode is great!

Bruce looked nervous talking to Colbert about the book on tv last night. Interesting if not totally insightful.

Perhaps you will find something in this interview more to your liking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XZWmpWbinY

Bruce seemed fine on Colbert. Meanwhile, Nils's Jersey shred devil by proxy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd6c6z2owak

Noticed recently that he tends to "borrow" song titles: "Party Lights," "Mansion on the Hill, "All Or Nothin' At All" to name three that come to mind, don't know how many more there are.

Reason to Believe

http://www.impawards.com/1958/posters/thunder_road.jpg

http://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/movieposters/5362/p5362_p_v8_aa.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e6/Badlands_movie_poster.jpg

I do like the bit in the doc where Bruce concedes he still doesn't know what a "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" is. Love this on wiki:

The song tells the story of the formation of the E Street Band. However, when asked, most Springsteen fans cannot answer the question, "What is a Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out?" The meaning of the phrase is still a mystery. Even Springsteen himself says, laughing, in the Born to Run documentary Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run: "I still have no idea what it means. But it's important."

perhaps he was familiar with the Visions of Johanna working title "Freeze Out"?

I was excited to hear the news that he was writing this until I realized I have no interest in learning more about him

I am doing the opposite approach, going to try to read this thing right away before I know too much from interviews and reviews.

Reason to Believe

perhaps he was familiar with the Visions of Johanna working title "Freeze Out"?

― niels, Sunday, September 25, 2016 4:14 PM (one hour ago)

There are also lots of reoccurring images and phrases in his lyrics. "Killing floor," "darkness on the edge of town/other things," "promised land," "debts no honest man can pay,"(used twice on Nebraska), "Got on a dead man suit and smilin' skull ring. Lucky graveyard boots and a song to sing.," etc. The "Darkness" outtake "Spanish Eyes" begins "Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?" Lots of repetition I imagine is due to his rewriting songs and lyrics over and over again, finding the right place for the right phrase in the right song. In the case of "Nebraska," it's no doubt because the songs were more or less demos to begin with.

Not that I think it's this, but as the song talks about the early days of the band, I always think Tenth Avenue Freeze Out means not being able to crossover from NJ to NY, as 10th avenue is one of the western most streets in the city.

i was listening to his new years 1980 show where he played songs with similar titles in suites and i thought that was hilarious and smart

I was excited to hear the news that he was writing this until I realized I have no interest in learning more about him

― calstars, Sunday, September 25, 2016 12:54 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same, i probably wouldn't have read Peter Ames Carlin's (very good) five hundred page bio if i'd known Bruce had his own thick tome on the way so soon after

Carlin's book was great, I have a feeling the Bruce book will be pretty different. Maybe almost like a collection of chapter-long essays.

yeah you're prob right, i just won't personally have won't have the appetite to read 1000 pages about Bruce in the space of like 3 years.

Seems like Carlin had a lot of access for that book as well so perhaps not so much left to be revealed. B-b-but The Boss's unique storyteller's voice!

yeah...the occasional times BS has penned an essay or whatever he's seemed pretty capable as a writer

this is the most excited i have been about a memoir in recent memory

i love his writing & i think he's a v good storyteller, just keen to see what sorta visual tapestry he weaves idk

Spoiler-free takeaway on that point from the Richard Ford review:

It helps that Springsteen can write — not just life-­imprinting song lyrics but good, solid prose that travels all the way to the right margin. I mean, you’d think a guy who wrote “Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night / With bruised arms and broken rhythm and a beat-up old Buick . . .” could navigate his way around a complete and creditable American sentence. And you’d be right. Oh, there are a few gassy bits here and there, a jot too much couch-inspired hooey about the “terrain inside my own head.” A tad more rock ’n’ roll highfalutin than this reader really needs — though the Bruce enthusiasts down in Sea-Clift won’t agree with me. No way. But nothing in “Born to Run” rings to me as unmeant or punch-pulling. If anything, Springsteen wants credit for telling it the way it really is and was. And like a fabled Springsteen concert — always notable for its deck-clearing thoroughness — “Born to Run” achieves the sensation that all the relevant questions have been answered by the time the lights are turned out. He delivers the story of Bruce — in digestibly short chapters — via an informally steadfast Jersey plainspeak that’s worked and deftly detailed and intimate with its readers — cleareyed enough to say what it means when it has hard stories to tell, yet supple enough to rise to occasions requiring eloquence — sometimes rather pleasingly subsiding into the syntax and rhythms of a Bruce Springsteen song.

I liked in the Colbert interview how he described his songs as the blues during the verses and gospel during the chorus, and I thought that was a brilliant way of getting at why his music can be so anthemic. Hard times in the verses, transcendence, redemption, hope and escape in the choruses. "The Promised Land" is possibly the best example of this. In one verse he declares "take a knife and cut this pain from my heart" (one of the best lines of Bruce or any writer, ever), but by the chorus he still believes in a promised land.

Interesting. Must have missed that part of the Colbert interview.

Noticed recently that he tends to "borrow" song titles: "Party Lights," "Mansion on the Hill, "All Or Nothin' At All" to name three that come to mind, don't know how many more there are

half his catalog. quite possibly literally half his catalog. it's one of his basic songwriting tools.

I always think Tenth Avenue Freeze Out means not being able to crossover from NJ to NY, as 10th avenue is one of the western most streets in the city.

more likely, it's where the band used to rehearse in the early days: corner of 10th avenue and -- drum roll -- e street in belmar, new jersey.

I always like to sing it as "Tenth Avenue Freak Out" and imagine the song is about the E Street Band having a bad acid trip.

I figured it was about his favorite ice cream vendor.

Wonder what Jonathan Schwartz thought about "Dancing in the Dark"?

Bought my copy at lunchtime & read the first chapter...he's the best, basically <3

I read the R Ford review and whoever did the NYT daily review, that's as far as i go unless he discusses John Ford movies much in the book.

i lol'd that he didn't drive until "well into his 20s" tho

v weird family setup, parents & grandparents shared a house but his grandmother basically annexed him as her son as soon as he was born & spoiled him rotten & his parents begrudgingly rolled with it. his parents moved him out with them when he started school but it was almost too late he spent most of his childhood thinking of his grandmother as his mom

Bought my copy but am trying to finish something else before I start.