Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

"The Promise" was always such a beloved Boss leftover that there was shock it didn't make it to "Tracks," and only showed up - in a piano only re-recorded version, no less - on a bonus disc that either came with/after "Tracks" or came with the "Songs" book (iirc).

When Springsteen appeared on Charlie Rose in November 1998 to promote Tracks, Rose asked him why he left off "The Fever" and "The Promise" (he asked specifically about those two in separate questions - I guess Rose was a diehard Springsteen fan or had someone on staff who was). Springsteen said it's well known he was never of "The Fever" and that he was never happy about the way he recorded "The Promise" in the studio. Just about every review of Tracks probably mentioned "The Promise" as a major omission.

18 Tracks came out in April of the following year, and according to the liner notes (assuming they're accurate), he re-recorded "The Promise" in 1999, so it's likely he heard all the complaints and came up with the compromise of recording a studio version he could be happy with.

I actually prefer the re-recording. Ideally I think he should've used one of his original live performances from '77 or '78 - they were more or less the same solo piano arrangements too - but I think he sings it more convincingly on the 1999 recording. He really sounds older and beat down by life, and it fits the song perfectly.

(Forgot, he also included "The Fever" and for some reason "Trouble River" on 18 Tracks. The disc was supposed to be a budget sampler of the box set, and not a very good one since it missed a lot of highlights in favor of some so-so material. Not surprisingly, adding those three bonuses made some fans cry "rip off" but it eventually became a common staple of dollar bins.)

xpost to Josh in Chicago:

Yes! That's a powerful one. "Don't Back Down" has some good lyrics as well: "I want to weep but I'm broke inside and the tears won't run/ I want to sleep but there ain't no dream and the sleep won't come."

"Drop on Down" is absolutely gorgeous and sort of gives me W.H. Auden vibes for reasons I can't quite explain.

And Fugitive's Dream/ Unsatisfied Heart both strike me as very revealing - I hear both of them as a naked expression of fear that one day he'll get married and then his attraction to men will leap out at him like the beast from the jungle and drag him away from the life he's worked so hard to build, but I suppose there are other interpretations.

There's so much full-on depression in these songs - not the vibrant darkness of Nebraska, not the reaching-for-human-connection-by-any-means-necessary energy of Born in the USA, but just sheer listless misery, and I kind of love it?

Personally, I think Springsteen made the right call not releasing "The Promise." I think it's good, but it's also self-pitying in a way that is fine in an outtake/b-side/concert highlight but would be off-putting (to me, at least) on an album track.

The songs I most want to see on Tracks II are "Drop on Down" and "Child Bride." I honestly think "Child Bride" is one of Springsteen's best songs, and the version on the Nebraska tape is complete and doesn't need any re-recording, so why not just release it?

Sorry, by the way, about hijacking a discussion of Letter to You to talk about "Because the Night" and a bunch of outtakes from 1983! I've reached a weird place in my Springsteen obsession where I've listened to the albums too much, and now I'm chasing the same rush by trying to dig up live performances and outtakes that I missed the first time around. Declining returns, I'm afraid.

My favourite TRACKS track is 'Sad Eyes'.

Josh in Chicago's post about artifice is good - with that marvellous quotation:

"I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. So am I. By twenty, no race-car-driving rebel, I was a guitar player on the streets of Asbury Park and already a member in good standing amongst those who “lie” in service of the truth . . . artists, with a small “a.”" - etc.

Yes, the intelligence is marvellous as that book shows such awareness of his persona, as does the Broadway show, with the great line about having made millions from songs about work and never done a day's work.

But does LETTER TO YOU do this? My impression is that it replaces the mythology of blue-collar work with the mythology of the bar band.

.... great series of posts over past couple of months. Appreciate the deep knowledge and analysis. Bruce merits the time and energy.

My favorite outtake from that era is the "Born in the USA" b-side "Shut Out The Light." It almost combines "Born" and "Dancing in the Dark" as far as a PTSD-suffering veteran picking up a woman in a bar. It has all those motifs Lily Dale just articulated so well, of darkness and escape and literally being held.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uy1lb5s7gg

Heard (though barely listened to) "You Give Love a Bad Name" on the radio today. There is definitely some small element of Bon Jovi that is just bad, warmed up leftover Bruce, but this song in particular ... it's totally a vaguely hair metal "Because the Night."

I had bad joke once that Bon Jovi just wanted to be Mellancamp who just wanted to be Bruce who just wanted to be Dylan who just wanted to be Guthrie.

I think at some version there were a few other people in there.

Eazy, I meant to reply to your post about "Shut out the Light," but got delayed by a migraine. I like that one a lot. I was just thinking the other day about the last verse and how much it conveys without saying it outright. There's something very chilling about the way Springsteen switches from "Johnny" to "Johnson Lineir" just for that verse. It somehow gives the effect of reading a friend's obituary and seeing his full name written out for the first time.

Wow, I never caught that as his name before. (Listened to the song hundreds of times but never saw the lyrics until now.)

I love how this one has narrative fragments without continuity (we get the woman’s point of view for a few lines, and then she’s gone; the forest gets two lines before he’s in the picture). And that change of name, wow.

I loved his inauguration performance. I've never had much use for "Land of Hope and Dreams" before, but in this setting, on this day, it seemed exactly right.

Just saw "Blinded By the Light." Good feel good movie from a different perspective, we all liked it a lot.

Nothing to do with me, but I was surprised to see a post from a FB friend tonight--someone older than I am, someone whose opinions on music and films I respect a lot--saying he was let down that Springsteen had a jeep commercial in the Super Bowl. The post seemed very out of character.

Has he done ads before?

Makes him look like a joke...

Since the Capitol attack, he's been trying hard to reach Christian Trump supporters; there was A LOT of religious language in his latest radio show. It sounds like Jeep approached him with this message, it lined up with what he was already trying to say, and he liked the idea of being able to reach a broad audience that would otherwise tune him out.

I think it's a waste of time and not worth giving up his rep as the guy who never does ads, but if he still hopes he can bring people back to sanity, I can't really fault him for trying.

Has he done ads before?

No. There was a long article about this in Variety but he's NEVER done advertising before. The closest thing they could find was an appearance on a radio show in 1974, when the deejay let him read some copy for a wine ad as a joke.

The short version is that the CEO of that car company had been pursuing him on and off for ten years after Jimmy Iovine introduced him to Jon Landau. Before Springsteen rejected every pitch, Landau always made it clear that it wasn't likely to happen, ever. This time, the agency came up with a pitch that had the church, and how it was always open and considered the geographical center of the U.S., and how they wanted to use that as a metaphor. Springsteen actually liked it, but the agreement was that he got complete control, and he basically treated it like his own short film/PSA - he directed and produced it (insisted on visiting the place himself, planned out the shots, supervised editing), and it was his call not to use any songs, he decided a new score was more appropriate and composed it himself.

I'm not surprised if some fans are disappointed but I think it's misguided to equate this with, say, Dylan's commercials where it's completely about selling cars (or IBM).

From what I can see, a lot of people are interpreting the "meet in the middle" message to mean that both left and right need to compromise, and I don't think he intended it that way; I think it's very much directed at white christian MAGA types. But I can see why a left-wing audience would react poorly to an old white dude in a cowboy hat standing in front of a church and talking about "the middle." Overall I think it was a bad idea.

I like Bruce (and don't think advertising is necessarily a betrayal).

But yeah I do rather bristle at the implication that for all of us to heal, we need to go to rural white America and go to church. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't intend it this way, but it can be read as implying that the people who need to change are coastal atheists, and (of course) people of color. City dwellers. People who don't drive cars. Etc.

Agree with Lily Dale that we're probably not the audience.

"But yeah I do rather bristle at the implication that for all of us to heal, we need to go to rural white America and go to church buy a Jeep."

Boss needs to eat, too.

Haven't seen the ad yet, to be honest. But if Bruce's message the last couple decades has largely been one about healing, politically I think he's a little left of centrist, so this was probably strategic messaging on his part. Reading the write-up on Backstreets, it doesn't necessarily sound like a message of finding *political* middle ground, just personal middle ground, to encourage people to mellow out and appreciate the things we have in common , which is a pretty innocuous message, ultimately. Though the era of that message finding receptive ears might be long gone. My wife told me that she's already read a lot of push back from our Jewish friends who felt pretty alienated by all the crosses and church imagery.

A lot of stuff here:
http://backstreets.com/news.html

Gotta say, for a Jeep ad, this is a pretty canny way to get your brand identity out there:

"We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground.
So we can get there.
We can make it to the mountaintop, through the desert...
and we will cross this divide. "

I'm not surprised if some fans are disappointed but I think it's misguided to equate this with, say, Dylan's commercials where it's completely about selling cars (or IBM).

true it's wrong to equate this with Dylan, who all least isn't bullshitting us or, more importantly, himself

Corny or no, it sounds like more of a brand integration than a mercenary project. This isn't Bruce doing a Victoria's Secret ad. Cynicism is not his jam.

I said bullshitting himself

I don't doubt he believes it

A perfect mom text. pic.twitter.com/MlivBhLeii

— Frank Pallotta (@frankpallotta) February 8, 2021

good thread

How @springsteen and @Jeep created a #SuperBowl advertisement that exalts & perpetuates white christian nationalism. And maybe more later on how this horrific use of religious and patriotic iconography perpetuates white supremacy

A thread, with verbal/visual translations by me. https://t.co/FmvKpV4CeN

— Rev. Phil Woodson (@phil_woodson) February 8, 2021

Saw in a Variety article posted on twitter that an ad agency hack wrote the script and sent it to Jon Landau who loved it. He gave it to Bruce and they all changed it a bit.

Disappointing that both could be sucked into a unity plea without recognizing need for accountability and remorse first.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/bruce-springsteen-super-bowl-commercials-jeep-1234902575/

Bruce's life changed forever when he switched from Buicks to Jeeps.

I thought it was his dad who drove the big ol' Buick(?)

he got to steer it though

Until it overturned

these Jeeps are goin' boys, and they ain't comin' back

it doesn't necessarily sound like a message of finding *political* middle ground, just personal middle ground, to encourage people to mellow out and appreciate the things we have in common

You're half right - it explicitly identifies 'the middle' not as a political middle ground, but as our nations founding christian values, at the 'middle' of who we are as Americans. By showing only crosses, flags, Bruce's white face, his white hands, and his (white) jeep, imo its hard not to read it as an call to despairing right wing christian whites to keep the faith. Shot of the cross in front of the red white & blue USA map made me gasp out. Against that backdrop the v/o lines read as sinister: "our light has always found its way through the darkness". (Lines about "red and blue" are weak tea & echo the self-soothing lines those people tell themselves, "I'm not all-democrat or all-republican, I just think theres some questions that still havent been answered about the election", etc.) If Bruce was doing all that intentionally to reach to Trumpists across the divide on their own terms by speaking their language (big assumption), he forgot to actually deliver a message beyond "I hear you and youre right."

Ad is bullshit and Bruce is a fuckin clown for pulling something like this

Feel like people are overthinking this for the sake of thinkpiece fodder.

i know that sometimes these old rocker dudes like bruce and neil young fumble the ball with this kind of stuff when it comes to political ideas surrounding 'the heartland'/'real america'/etc, but its 2021, standing in front of a pile of crosses at a flag-draped church while telling americans to iron out their differences has a meaning

Suspect they aren't so caught up in the symbolism beyond Americana + Christian + "Real" (middle) America + Springsteen resonates with our core Jeep buying demo on both sides of the political spectrum and social activity will drive brand engagement and brand perception blah blah blah

Feel like people are overthinking this for the sake of thinkpiece fodder.

someone paid somewhere around $20 million to put this message in front of 100 million americans. i think that makes it worth thinking about.

also, as 2-minute rock star endorsed super bowl car ads about middle american places goes, i prefer this more clear and less preachy sell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLD798UrKC8

Feel like people are overthinking this for the sake of thinkpiece fodder.

it was really out of the blue.. like... lol is the deepfake Bruce??

like its not even that its a milquetoast 'unity plea', its literally him telling red america that the solution is for us all to meet inside a flag-draped church ("a hard place to get to, lately"), a place they believe their opponents hate and would never go to. its not even subtext. cant believe he gets a pass on shit like this.

"its not 'red' or 'blue' to think that we all need to go to church more and not be ashamed of the flag. i dont care if youre black, white, red, purple, whatever..."

For context, here's part of what Bruce said on his radio show a couple weeks ago, after talking about Jan. 6th. The last paragraph is the key to why he did this stupid ad, I think.

Now, I don’t know about you, but sitting in front on my TV on the afternoon of Jan. 6, my responses went from ‘What?,’ to ‘Huh?,’ to ‘Whoa!,’ to surprise, to shock, to becoming infuriated, to depression, to deepening anger as the days passed by and what had actually happened, most of which we barely knew yet, began to seep in.

Now, I’m curious: What kind of narcissist are you that thinks you have the right to trash our People’s House, stop the wheels of our democracy, while we are in the process of performing one of our most sacred duties, the peaceful transfer of power, in the most powerful nation on Earth, and to act based on a cheap, easily disproven lie of a stolen election, a lie that has been reviewed, disproven, debunked and rejected by every court in the land, including our own Trump-filled Supreme Court. I mean, who do you think you are to desecrate the halls of our democracy purely on the word of a delusional, broken carny barker of a president, who knows allegiance only … to himself. He is a dime store seditionist and a low-rent traitor to the Constitution, and to the United States of America.

I ask my good American brothers and sisters to value yourselves and your allegiances more deeply. Donald J. Trump does not deserve your good soul and your honest and heartfelt commitment. Your country, your real country, awaits and needs you. So I say this with pain and love in my heart: Don’t waste your compassion on those who do not deserve it. You are better and worth much more than that. In this world, God’s world, no infallible truth resides in just one man. There is only one truth, God’s truth, and it is a truth of deep inquiry, humility in the face of facts, and it is grounded in the faith and love and respect you carry for your neighbors and your country. Let us all pray to God we have the strength to see clearly with our mind, heart and eyes, and that we may hold our faith high, humbly, and in service of our country and the truth.

i totally understand one eye open's reading of it, but at the same time bruce is an old man and his ideas of "unity" and "america" were formed in the middle of the 20th century so i think it's not surprising that he has blind spots to how the commercial would come off that can be explain more by his age/frame of reference rather than mal intent