Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

I can't get worked up and annoyed about Bruce in the way I can about some other rockers. He has an ear for a great line (the opening of "Hungry Heart" for instance) and I can forgive him a lot for that. He doesn't resonate with me and like the Replacements I think that's a cultural thing.

I also - and this is totally subjective - never get the impression Bruce ever thinks he's particularly cool. Which is not something I can say of most other 'real rock'n'roller' types, mainstream or otherwise.

File under yet to be discovered. I was listening to an apologetic defence of his work from Sean Rowley on the radio the other day, and it got me wondering again. People of my generation's first real exposure to him was the 'Born in the USA' air-punching era and that obviously wasn't likely to engender much interest. Yes, I know it was all ironic.

What I have heard of his 70's stuff sounds like I might grow to love it. That midwest blue-collar world his songs inhabit seems harder to relate to than any other, but even in 1988, I had the feeling Paddy McAloon was missing the point with the song 'Cars & Girls'.

At the moment, I'm afraid the song of his I like best is a 90s one - 'If I Should Fall Behind', which I only know from the Grant McLellan cover version.

Badly Drawn Boy is a Springsteen obsessive, which I thought was quite cute.

N.

And yes, Tom, he's got a very good ear for a line.

I heard the version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" when I was young and that is pretty spiff, I freely agree. Circa 1984, liking El Bruce was unsurprising for me as that was a pretty damn good radio year -- Chuck Eddy specifically called it as such in _Stairway to Hell_, and he was goddamn right. Thus liking all that stuff he made was a matter of course alongside all those singles from _Purple Rain_ and _Like A Virgin_ and etc.

Time went on and I proceeded to not care. I never cared enough to buy an album anyway, and the 'classic early singles' only made sense in my classic rock phase, which lasted about nine months in senior year.

Then I ended up in LA and encountered the first of Robert Hilburn's 345,234,843 printed sermons on How Bruce Springsteen Heals the Sick, Raises the Dead and Means More to Human Existence Than the Combined Efforts of Louis Pasteur, Billie Holiday and Charles Schulz. I encountered other blowhards. The music touched me with the impact of a dying flea. A roommate was obsessed with him to the point of near mania. I cried.

The end.

Frankly, the Walkabouts any day of the goddamn week, month, year, decade, century, etc. If the relative fame levels were reversed, I would cling to this assumption with even more deep, abiding passion because then I would have The People on my side. Even alone, though, it's comfy. And Frankie Goes to Hollywood's version of "Born to Run" is my fave.

i actually liked born_in_the_u.s.a when it came out at age 7, but later, i found it to be an obstacle in getting to love bruce, and i'm sure there are a ton of artists out there whose work at that time has kept people away from them.

as sterling said, it's funny what driving a car can do, especially when it's another dark and lonely night out on an empty anonymous new jersey highway and "born to run" comes on the highway. but i've been there, so i'll move on.

you can get by on the first five or so albums on the music and production alone -- unless of course you hate phil spector and are, therefore, destined to spend eternity in hell -- and the later stuff will stick if you find something in the lyrics that rings far too true. sure, he mines the same territory in a lot of his songs, but so do belle & sebastian and so did the smiths; except the kids in bruce's songs could kick the ass of their counterparts in the aforementioned.

ned, i think you have the same problem as tom: it's a cultural thing. ;)

It's not a cultural thing; I mean for god's sake Motorcycle Emptiness might as well be Bruce Springsteen on a literacy trip in terms of subject, and I know Tom likes the song, and I believe Ned does too. Whether that particular statement was tongue in cheek or not, it's a tired excuse and reasoning, one usually used by the saddest of Bruce Springsteen fans, the ones who "identify" with his sentiments, seemingly losing track of the fact that BRUCE'S CHARACTERS NEVER ACTUALLY MAKE IT OUT. Some positive role models to rock out to.

The thing is, I think it's the voice and the earnestness, which was already said. The stylistic values of it....the basic cultural and escape sentiments, lyrically, of Motorcycle Emptiness and Born to Run might be very similar in tone, but the style and vocalisings are entirely, 100% different. Bruce has a very sarcastic bent, a very dark bent, lyrically, but his style of music softens the blow and sometimes people just don't like it.

And those people are wrong, incidentally :P

Nebraska is half good but doesn't deserve the plaudits it gets as the Springsteen album it's cool to like.

The rest is pretty much DUD.

Nevermind that Born in the USA was my first record not meant to be played on the Fisher Price record player (with the STEEL NEEDLE)

Nevermind Tracks Nevermind the fact that Born to Run is one of the best driving albums ever when your top is down and it's summer and the road between Ventura and home stretches out and empty at night with no cops...

Nevermind he has out Dylan-ed Dylan

Nevermind that he can outrage The Man as he pushes the dark side of life. (41 Shots)

Nevermind the line "The record company Rosie, JUST GAVE ME A BIG ADVANCE!"

Nevermind the Live box set, reminding us just how powerful he was

Nevermind Time and Newsweek

Nevermind Thunder-Fucking-Road

Nevermind The cover of Jersey Girl

Nevermind Tracks

Nevermind the MTV Unplugged set where he scrapped the entire notion of an acoustic show and just plugged in and tore down the house

Nevermind everyone on this list who called him a dud.

well, Bruce isn't *that* bad! ;)

La Bruce just collectively calls to my mind a stunted bastard vision of music that presumes he was the sole carrier of the 'spirit of rock and roll truth' that the Beatles and Stones 'started' in the sixties. A CLAIM I HAVE ENCOUNTERED MORE THAN ONCE, though thankfully not here, and happily never from the man's own lips either, at least to my knowledge. Without that rhetoric I would just shrug and ignore him for somebody more interesting, but with it, frankly, he becomes a very very useful target to kick against. Perhaps only a straw man, but one I wouldn't mind seeing go up in flames.

The boy has fallen off of late, but... I'm reminded of the Bangs article where he describes how he dismissed this Maoist band as sounding like Bruce, and the band replied "oh, good, the working class like that stuff" or something of the sort, and I'm reading this thinking -- no. no. no. The correct answer is "oh, good. Bruce fucking rocks!"

What I appreciate about Bruce is how he can capture the majesty of a major chord. How so many of his songs have the same progression, but you don't realize it 'till you try to play 'em yourself. How he can take gospel music and write it to a girl instead. And yes, more of them damn anthems.

I mean.. I know that anthems aren't an alien concept to the UK -- after all, The Who were full of them. But maybe British anthems are a different type a "get off of my cloud" or "sod off" type, more cynical and pissy than dreamy and wide-eyed. Maybe this is, after all, because America is The Big Country, The Great Bitch, et cet. Maybe to get America you have to get just how there's always somewhere you might go, maybe.

Along these lines, "Not Fade Away" which is a novel by Jim Dodge is a great rock road story, sort of like the lighter side of Richard Hell's "Go Now" or the more earnest(?) side of Bruce McCullough's "Doors Fan" sketch (on his album, Shame-Based Man). Yes. Get that spirit of the open highway.

I will say, though, that I do lack a car and have never had one. That might serve as a better explanation. ;-)

I wish I wasn't misinterpreting.

Inspirational in some ways. I have often felt that England needed a Springsteen, albeit not just a a copycat 'rocker'; I mean, someone who would write about all the lost and found small-town lives. But to be fair, I suppose there is already a UK tradition here: the probably Jarvis Cocker is a case in point.

1. they don't understand that he's actually not as "pro-america" as they might think he is

2. they don't have as close a connection to "old school" code (which includes "old school" rock)

3. they are mostly college kids on their way up to some office job or whatever that is removed (if not far removed) from the "underworld" (the "blue collar" or "real" world) to get the lyrical sentiments

4. well, and...sometimes people just don't like something 'cause they just don't like it

I, however, do not apply to any of those 4. For I actually do "get" some of the appeal of Bruce (albeit, it took my until my mid or late twenties to get there). Sure, his overly sentimental (downright broadway or maudlin) look at the working class can be a bit (or a bunch) too much. And sure, his music can be too simple and/or too derivitive. But, that's a part of the whole. Familiarity in both music and lyrics, is a large part of the appeal of his stuff (and those like him, ala Mellencamp, etc). He just had the concept to put nearly a whole career on the working class/blue collar life like no other has (not in such a wide reaching broad sense, at least - other than Mellencamp, but Bruce did it a bit better and first).

Classics:

Having said all that, 'Nebraska' and 'Ghost of Tom Joad' are the only two full albums that I would declare anywhere near a "classic" state of existence (with 'Nebraska' being the one clear-cut vote). Many of the rest of his 70's and 80's albums have some good solid worthy singles on them, but. I can't go so far as to get 'The River' (for example) anywhere near a "classic" nod. That one, in particular, I find to be overrated (though still having the wonderful track "Stolen Car" and the title track deserving of 'Nebraska'-like attention).

Anyways, I forgot to mention to huge (to the point of shadowing) element as to one of the why's (or why not's) of enjoy/appreciating Bruce. Which is: DRIVING. Cars and driving is such a central and/or reoccuring figure/subject in his work that...I can't believe I forgot to touch upon that (only after reading some of the others posts, darn it). But yea, I do LOVE to drive. Which also helps to explain the appeal of Springsteen (to me, at least).

*By the way, I do own that McCulloch album 'Shame Based Man' and...love it (some really funny stuff and one of the very rare comedy albums worthy of many plays - if not it's own discussion here on "I Love Music"...anyone?). Every single one of my girlfriends (one present, others past) hated it. "And if (after torching the stolen car) you can still hear the Doors playing...then you have become...a DOORS...FAN!" I'm not a Doors fan, however.

I hadn't listened to this record in a couple of years, but god, it still sounded great. Actually, I kept getting shivers down my spine when it was playing and it had me close to tears a few times (mostly on "Thunder Road" and "Backstreets.") Listening to this today finally settled an ILM debate for me: Music can never affect me quite as much now as it did when I was a teenager. No record I've heard in the last few years, including Loveless, has had as much affect on me as Born to Run did this morning, and I know it's not just because Born to Run is such a great album. This is a record that got to me when I was young and emotionally vulnerable in a way that I'm not anymore, at the age of 32. I still feel music very deeply and appreciate and enjoy a wider range of music than ever, but music doesn’t completely overpower me the way it did when I was 15. Oh well.

Springsteen is still a big classic, by the way, despite all the incredibly corny lines on Born to Run.

"candy's room" is the grebtest song ever written about being in love w. a prostitute when you sound a bit like david bowie

Is this a new genre? Cos that'd be fucking incredible.

I still love Bruce Springsteen. Put on Rosalita and you will see me go insane.

ok.

A figure in green haunted my dream
Maybe a man, maybe a lady
My sister heard a siren scream
Gypsy said "that was your maybe"

Rhonda was stuck in between
Blood in the mist out by the beach
Vanished behind a smokestack screen
The cops arrived, she was out of reach

[unintelligible moaning]

AND THEN WE HAD SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR! <sax solo>

SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!
SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!

All right!

Keep it rockin' boys!

How are you all doing these without using the word "sir"?

Sex In The Car, Sir

<Nils does a dance on a trampoline>

Out from under the shadows of the pulasky skyway
Speeding past the Sbarro sign at the Walt Whitman rest area
We can ride this turnpike all night but the ride ain't free
just tell me what exit and I'll punch your ticket baby

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, October 10, 2019 12:42 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like it should actually be "Burnin' past the Sbarro sign..."

Fair point, it's not really Springsteen unless something's on fire.

or he gave away the g's

I put those g's in Sir Sbarro's sign, honey, and then I torched it

And she said "Honey you should know by now that pizza's no good!"
as she lit a cigarette and flicked the ashes on my hood

Another American job lost to high tech outsourcing

Saw her in the Sbarro's by the dynamo
Just a-twirlin' that pizza dough

The bar band there was hopping
I got lost in Rhonda's world
Redemption was the topping
As the pizza slowly twirled

They closed down the Sbarro's 'cross the railroad track
Ralph went out looking for pizza and never came back

Everybody knows a hungry Ralph

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E17/509675.jpg?b64lines=V2VsbCB0aGV5IGJsZXcgdXAgdGhlIApjaGlja2VuIG1hbiBpbiBQaGlsbHkgbGFzdCAKbmlnaHQKCgoKCgoKCi4uLm1tbW1tLi4uY2hpY2tlbi4uLg==

Meet me tonight at Panera Bread

no dude that's mark kozelek

his songs are even easier to parody because he pretty much writes them as parodies of their own style to begin with

I had to listen to "The Promise" earlier - Bruce's most self-referential song? That 2-disc lost album sort of thing they put out with the Darkness box is nice, but the 3 year gap (lawsuit-imposed?) between Born to Run and Darkness probably did him a lot of good in the long run.

IS THERE SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR?
YES THERE"S SEX IN THE CAAAAAARRRR!

That killed me because Bruce has never directly sang about sex, eh?

--

https://the-niche.blog/2018/04/16/the-top-ten-horniest-bruce-springsteen-songs/

On Badlands: "Any given lyric in this song could be about overthrowing American capitalism or getting gloriously, generously rawed. Or both!"

Because The Night Belongs To Fuckers

that list of horny springsteen songs is glaringly missing "candy's room."

and the ILM springsteen song is glaringly missing a river. or lake. or some body of water.

good point.

We kiss, my heart's pumpin' to my brain
And the blood rushes in my veins, the fire rushes towards the skies
I go driving, driving deep into the night
I go driving deep into the light, in Candy's eyes
...

i'm gonna take a shower

There's that song on "Devils & Dust" about a prostitute in Reno that's about as explicit as Bruce has ever gotten, or for that matter could be.

my. goodness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5PoIrcyd34

and the ILM springsteen song is glaringly missing a river. or lake. or some body of water.

It's also missing the part where he listens to the radio. We have so much work to do.

The buildup and release in the beginning of “somewhere in the night” was my first big OH WOW Bruce moment (outside of “tunnel of love” and certain BitUSA singles). Now I love all the classic stuff

By the moonlit lake, there's a teenage punk
Jackin' off into a ball cap which is full of spunk
Meanwhile a Chevy roars across the bridge over the river
And the old faded mine worker does some more damage to his liver

Willows weep and hangdogs creep like barflies crawling down the street
While the lights from the swamps glow bright with high pomp for the girls we're trying to meet
The wheels on the car spin fast to go far from the places we want to escape
But the draw of the dump smells strong of gas pumps and we all pass out from the heat

A+

"Pink Cadillac" also belongs on the list of horny songs. I love that Springsteen wrote a song about a black Cadillac and a song about a pink Cadillac, and the black Cadillac is a metaphor for death and the pink Cadillac is a metaphor for vaginas. That is some sophisticated symbolism right there.

I was thinking about adding a verse about driving Dow. To philly with a girl from basking ridge and stopping on the way to make it under the Trenton makes bridge.

I don't know, that sounds a bit too happy. Better throw in a state trooper or two.

Red Headed Woman from the Not Unplugged album is pretty frisky:

Listen up stud, your life's been wasted
till ya got down on your knees and tasted
a red headed woman, a red headed woman
it takes a red headed woman to get a dirty job done

Tight skirt, strawberry hair
tell me what you got baby waitin under there
big green eyes that look like, son
they can see every cheap thing that you've ever done

Well I don't know how many girls you dated man
but you ain't lived till you had your tires rotated
by a red headed woman, a red headed woman
it takes a red headed woman to get a dirty job done

That's one I always try to forget ever happened. Bruce in couch-jumping mode. I'm glad you enjoy going down on your wife, Bruce, but please stop writing songs about it.

"Secret Garden" is fairly explicit too - "she'll let you in her mouth/ if the words you say are right" - and I don't much like that one either. I feel like something happened to his way of writing about sex when he got married, where he's more explicit but also more self-conscious and awkward about it.

Speaking of horny Bruce, this performance of the e.street shuffle was a bit startling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81QcctmsodI

He's on Graham Norton, along with Robert DeNiro.

That's a chat show lineup!

Latest official live archive release is 10/23/99, in Los Angeles, a show that changed up a lot of the reunion set (for example, nothing from BitUSA!). I saw a chunk of reunion tours, and each time I remember telling the person I was with, man, he is so incredible it's hard to believe that in '98/'99 he was about 20 years past his '78 peak as a performer, when he was even better. And of course we are now another 20 years past him being 20 years past his peak ... and he was still pretty good on the 2016 tour!

Josh in Chicago, can you explain something to me? Why is it, exactly, that '78 is generally agreed to be his peak? I have only videos to go on, and I think his '78 performances are amazing, but I can't quite see what makes them so much better than the River tour or the Born in the USA tour.

smaller venues

It's a good question. Keeping in mind that he's really never been *bad*, and just about every show I've ever heard from, say, '74 to the Tunnel of Love Express tour (and beyond, tbh) has been pretty great, I'd say a few factors were at work. Yeah, smaller venues for sure, but Bruce also still had something to prove, at least to some degree. Born to Run made him a critic's darling, and the covers of Time and Newsweek introduced him to a wider audience, so expectations were pretty high. The tour also followed the infamous lawsuit that kept him out of the studio for a few years, time Bruce and the band (still probably breaking in new additions Max and Roy and, post-BtR, Steve) largely spent touring and woodshedding. When the suit was finally settled Bruce was at last free to record Darkness, whose sessions were fraught but whose material was A+, and also marked a shift to a more-direct sound, away from BtR's cinematic fanfares. Not only did all the live versions of songs like "Badlands" and "Prove It All Night" absolutely top their recorded counterparts, Bruce also had a pile of live-only sure-fires like "Fire" and "Because the Night" and even "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" that he busted out, plus the occasional early appearance of "River" songs like "Independence Day" and "Point Blank." And yet his well of songs was not yet so deep that you were still more or less guaranteed to hear many of your old favorites, and his shows were punctuated with some great storytelling, too, which he later had less room for.

So there's all that, imo. Then there was also the still somewhat novel proliferation of bootlegs, and shows like the Roxy, Passaic/Capital Theater and Winterland not only made the rounds, but Roxy and Winterland were so revered (and well recorded) they even made up a chunk of his official Live 1975-85 set (albeit sometimes in edited form). So between the live recordings official and otherwise, many of the shows on the '78 tour were essentially canonized as part of his catalog.

That show in the Darkness box is phenomenal. Love that recording of "The Ties That Bind," even though the intro is a little rocky. Did Bruce play much 12-string electric onstage other than that song/show?

There's not much footage of Bruce playing anything but a Tele on stage (as far as electrics go). There might be something I'm forgetting, but from memory the only other 12-string stuff from that "River" era is from some versions of "The Price You Pay" and the outtake "Loose Ends." Maybe he thought 12-string was a little on the nose?

In recent years it's usually Steve who gets the Rickenbacker or White Falcon or mandolin or whatever. Even Nils I want to say largely sticks with one guitar, his Jazzmaster, though he occasionally gets in some Dobro or lap steel.

Ok, thanks, that makes sense. It sounds like it's as much about the venues and the songs, and, like, the whole context of the tour as it is about the performances.

If someone showed up in a time machine today and offered me a ride to the Springsteen tour of my choice, I think I'd be pretty torn. I do love all the interplay with the audience in the '78 shows, and how the energy is so high but it all feels a little rough around the edges still. And it's great to see him all young and lithe, before he decided to encase himself in muscle. But so many of my favorite songs came a little later. Darkness is actually pretty low on my list of favorite Bruce albums, though I do think almost everything on it sounds better live.