Poll: Best Song From Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love

For me it's Spare Parts v. Every and Any Song on Side Two.

Maybe the best Side Two on a rock-record ever.

brilliant disguise

One Step Up, easy

"one step up." and in case you, like me, haven't seen the video in forever, here tis.

One Step Up might run away and hide with this poll.

I wonder if anyone will vote for Valentine's Day. Sometimes that song sounds so awkward to me. The lyrics seem shoved together uncomfortably in the music, and Springsteen leans heavily on his lyrical crutches ("that great jukebox out on Route 39"). But other times it seems like the perfect album closer -- some weary, cautious optimism after so much heartache:

It wasn't the cold river bottom I felt rushing over me
It wasn't the bitterness of a dream that didn't come true
It wasn't the wind in the grey fields I felt rushing through my arms
No no baby it was you
So hold me close honey say you're forever mine
And tell me you'll be my lonely valentine

I won't vote for it in this poll. I doubt anyone will. But it's a fantastic song.

I've always been partial to "Tunnel of Love", which is sort of a forgotten Springsteen single, even though it reached #9 on the singles chart. Does Springsteen even sing the 3 Top 40 hits off of this album in concert anymore? The Mavericks, in 1994, did a good version of "All That Heaven Will Allow".

I vote for side 2

two faces - my itunes #1 played song

I love "Brilliant Disguise" to the point of hypnosis. Video is pretty powerful, too, given how little is going on.

Springsteen live occasionally busts out "Tunnel of Love" or "Brilliant Disguise" (as a duet with his wife), but I imagine given the subject matter of the songs and their general tenor, it's not something he wants to regularly revisit with his beloved by his side.

i love the cover. i wonder where the bolo tie came from.

The production on this hasn't aged well, but the songs are so strong.

Brilliant Disguise

I absolutely adore this record. Daniel OTM about Side Two and "Valentine's Day." I voted for the title track, but I could easily have gone for "Two Faces" (love the roller rink organ and nasty lyric), "Tougher Than the Rest," or, yeah, "One Step Up" (I still can't believe a song that bleak got as high as #13).

I wrote about this album a couple of years ago.

Bolo ties (accordions too) were briefly hip in 1987. (Hey, '87 was apparently the year New Mexico adopted it as the state's official neckwear! Just found that out now...)

Does Springsteen even sing the 3 Top 40 hits off of this album in concert anymore?

When I saw Springsteen solo in 2005, he played a bunch of songs from this album. (He hardly played any hit singles in the whole concert.) He did "When You're Alone" solo on the piano and...let me look up the set list...

Setlist: Idiot’s Delight/Living Proof**/Devils & Dust/The Ties That Bind/Long Time Comin’/I Wish I Were Blind***/Tougher Than the Rest*/Johnny 99/State Trooper/All I’m Thinkin’ About/Ain’t Got You/Highway Patrolman/Reno/When You’re Alone***/Racing in the Street*/The Rising/Further On (Up the Road)/Jesus Was an Only Son*/This Hard Land/The New Timer#/Matamoros Banks

Encore: Growin’ Up*****/Bobby Jean/The Promised Land/Dream Baby Dream**

*=piano
**=pump organ
***=electric piano
*****=ukulele
#=autoharp

I voted for "Brilliant Disguise". As the bridge ends and the organ swell carries into the next verse ("Now you play the loving woman, I'll play the faithful man"), the song has built up such momentum that the altar scene provides some relief (as altars will); but the organ doesn't go away, and so God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of. The song is full of delightful little percussive tricks (bells, castanets). And the "willow"/"pillow" is terrific, knowing what willows have signified in western literature.

Voted "When Youre Alone". Generally, the ballads work best here.

Eazy, that's an amazing setlist! When I saw him in I think 2007 he and Patti did Tougher Than the Rest together. That was also the show Win and Regine came out in the encore, but Tougher was the highlight of the show by far.

Um, Win and Regine from the Arcade Fire, I mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9ELrZZfZU8

"Tougher Than The Rest." this may well be his most beautifully realized record ever, tho. aw, maturity.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I have a comp bootleg from that solo tour (which was incredible, the three or four dates I caught). Over the course of the tour he played something like 187 different songs, sometimes radically different arrangements from night to night. One of the Chicago dates I caught got not only a haunting banjo "I'm on Fire" but also the first time he busted out the Suicide cover on harmonium.

It occurred to me, as I watched, that perhaps it and his previous solo tour were some sort of "what if ...?" experiments, given the age and health of the E Street Band. Like, what does he do when enough of the E Street Band dies that he can't get away with calling it that anymore? The solo tour was a taste of old man future Bruce.

Tunnel of Love, with a tip of the hat to Nils Lofgren, and an extra sha na na na na na na na oh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXEpLsooMJ0

The production on this hasn't aged well,

Maybe. I love how some of the guitars sound filtered through keyboard amps. The album has a no-fuss high-tech vibe matched only by Avalon (this is the anti-Avalon, I guess).

I remember at the time how the production on "Tunnel of Love" and "An Englishman in New York" was distracting in a similar way.

Tangential to the thread, but my favorite Bruce solo performance (along with "Seeds" from this same show):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnrbKL7MK5k&feature=PlayList&p=25D1105667B79E5F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

this is one of those albums that would be perfect except for one or two clunkers.

the two clunkers here are plainly "cautious man" and "spare parts."

springsteen has a quality control problem sometimes. (like, for example, releasing "working on a dream," or sticking that one song at the end of "ghost of tom joad.")

"tougher than the rest" gets my vote.

see also everything but the girl's wonderful cover of same:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsV2WTIpbGA

they get a lyric wrong i think

rather than "I've been watching you go out" it should be "I've been watching you a while"

Maybe. I love how some of the guitars sound filtered through keyboard amps. The album has a no-fuss high-tech vibe matched only by Avalon (this is the anti-Avalon, I guess).

ditto to this

for bolo tie action, cf. dwight yoakam's 1987 record:

ihttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/DwightYoakamHillbillyDeluxe.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/DwightYoakamHillbillyDeluxe.jpg

I've never heard that Everything But The Girl cover. I like it. The Mendoza Line do a killer version too. Not on youtube but you can hear part of it here

Bolo ties have never gone out of style in south and west Texas (not sure about east Texas but that's a country unto itself). I miss Texas sometimes.

the two clunkers here are plainly . . . "spare parts."

Spare Parts is one of my favorite songs on the disc. It's Springsteen in top story-telling form, he (mostly) avoids cliches, I love how he packs all those lyrics into the song's narrow frame, and how his growling, angry delivery could peel tree bark. Plus, the disc needed a bracing uptick after a few relatively happy opening songs.

I agree with Amateurist but for me Spare Parts is the only clunker. When I listen to Tunnel of Love on MP3 that song's off the playlist. Sometimes I skip Tunnel of Love the song, too, as it reminds me unpleasantly of Huey Lewis and the news.

there. are. no. clunkers. here. imo. ok. thx. bye.

I wonder if anyone will vote for Valentine's Day.

It's my 2nd fave; the end always chokes me up. Not sure he's recorded anything prettier (p.s. it's soooo adorable how he calls himself/Johnny "pretty" in "When You're Alone").

In many ways, this is his bravest album, lyrically and musically. Wtf is up with that awesome (almost Latin freestyle?!?) intro to the title tune? And I love how each song features at least one clunky turn of phrase surrounded by couplets worthy of Tom T. Hall. "Girl in white outside a church in June/But the church bells they ain't ringing" (from "One Step Up") matches Hall's knack for the bothersome and unfathomable.

My fave is "Two Faces." I wish Hall would have risked its Fripper-esque guitar and (mocking? psychotic?) organ which only deepen the unfathomability (what the hell IS that organ trying to say?).

This was my take a couple of years ago, Kev:

Take "Two Faces," essentially a demo, but elongated—deepened—by two solos: a guitar filtered through keyboards like Eno was ghosting; and a Farfisa, played I assume by Springsteen himself, answering the singer's own challenge, "Well, go ahead and let him try." On an album which questions whether a romantic union can prosper when both partners have wandering eyes, Tunnel of Love's musical sophistication shows that Springsteen learned plenty from the E Street Band, the longest-lasting relationship of his life.

btw this line blew me away:

Wtf is up with that awesome (almost Latin freestyle?!?) intro to the title tune?

"cautious man" is k-boring. more importantly, both that and "spare parts", in their different ways, don't fit the SOUND of the album. they stick out like sore thumbs.

I agree that Spare Parts is bracing compared to the rest of the disc. I don't see that as a distraction, tho; I see it as a welcome change-of-pace to prepare the listener for the hard, sad stories that are to follow on the disc.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Surprised and pleased that Valentine's Day got three votes; shocked that One Step Up only got five votes. Actually, surprised by a lot of the results.

not surprised about the tossed-off "ain't got you" (pleasant but not particularly inspired) but am surprised at "walk like a man"-- a very pretty song.

I prefer the Mavericks' version of "All That Heaven Will Allow" but here it's probably #3 or #4 for me; it's a feel-good tune that acknowledges the coming storms.

also lol but I listened to this album on the night before my wedding, leading my friends who were there with me to wonder what I thought I was getting into. I figured Bruce knew what he was talking about; a decade later, I'm sure of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFpJp29MELM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkFQHScyti0&ob=av2e

bleak

i think the last minute of that song is so beautiful

should've been the last track on the album.

then when it ends you can be all like

http://dessertdarling.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/sadface3.jpg

http://dessertdarling.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/sadface3.jpg

jesus am -- you're obsessed lately

i know. sorry.

i never thought i'd see the day when alfred told someone else they're obsessed on a tunnel of love thread

is that you dude or just a brilliant disguise

yes that is the only song from this album i can hum

btw this is a great setlist; lots of stuff from HT:

When I saw Springsteen solo in 2005, he played a bunch of songs from this album. (He hardly played any hit singles in the whole concert.) He did "When You're Alone" solo on the piano and...let me look up the set list...

Setlist: Idiot’s Delight/Living Proof**/Devils & Dust/The Ties That Bind/Long Time Comin’/I Wish I Were Blind***/Tougher Than the Rest*/Johnny 99/State Trooper/All I’m Thinkin’ About/Ain’t Got You/Highway Patrolman/Reno/When You’re Alone***/Racing in the Street*/The Rising/Further On (Up the Road)/Jesus Was an Only Son*/This Hard Land/The New Timer#/Matamoros Banks

Encore: Growin’ Up*****/Bobby Jean/The Promised Land/Dream Baby Dream**

yeah that's a great setlist. damn.

Yeah, it is. Love that encore.

word, probably three of the songs i'd most want to hear in an acoustic set all in a row

I remember the first time I heard this album, right after it was released. Bruce Springsteen is a talented enough songwriter to write lyrics that aren't necessarily autobiographical, but I remember distinctly thinking this album could not have been written by a happily married man. I was right.

"One Step Up" is the best. A song about a furnace that's not working, a car that's not working, a marriage that's not working. The last verse slays me:

"There's a girl across the bar
I get the message she's sending
Mmm she ain't lookin' too married
And me, well honey I'm pretending
Last night I dreamed I held you in my arms
The music was never-ending
We danced as the evening sky faded to black
One step up and two steps back...."

IOW, he pretends he's single, hooks up with a girl he meets in a bar that night, and dreams his metaphoric dance was with his wife instead of the random stranger he just met.

Wow.

i mean he's lyrically-on throughout the whole record (no better sad resignation disguised/designed as a love song than "tougher than the rest," and it also feels like he's narrating that song after the end of the relationship, which is killer) but i think "one step up" is sort of next level. "two faces" as well, in terms of being simple and devastating and effectively nightmarish

At night I get down on my knees and pray
Our love will make that other man go away
But he'll never say goodbye
Two faces have I

in "Brilliant Disguise", what's the little tinkling sound that you hear periodically in the background? is it a keyboard riff, something like an arpeggiation? or are they bells, or even just the piano? you can hear it clearly-ish in the "struggling to do everything right" & "gypsy" parts.

layers in layers!

synth program?

yeah maybe, that's why I'm trying to figure out. I want to hear the layers individually so that I can get for sure what the sound is.

er that's what I'm trying to figure out

Every stringed instrument in "Tougher Than the Rest" sounds so immaculate. I want to live inside this song.

i give springsteen so much shit but this album is jaw-dropping imo

every other break-up concept album i've heard sounds so unexamined, so immature in comparison

"Tougher than the Rest" was the highlight of Springsteen on Broadway for me.

Feeling like this is the album that should be getting the Suicide comparisons. I can imagine a lot of these tracks slightly stripped down/distorted with Vega’s croon. Slightly related but I remember a few years back hearing the opening seconds of the title track and briefly mistaking it for something off of the Downward Spiral.

the title track is my #1 bruce jam. i think. sometimes it's "state trooper" but it's usually "tunnel of love."

The lyrics to the title track are just perfect, I do think of them randomly sometimes.

"tunnel of love" is one of my dream cover songs to play
loooooooove it

"Valentine's Day," which is Springsteen on bass and synth, could be a warmer Suicide.

I've been on a kick of walking around after dark listening to side two of this album. I think the title track is still my favorite, with all those spooky background vocals coming at you from all sides. But I'm also realizing how much I love “When You're Alone.”

I can't really explain what I like about it, except that it seems to deepen as I listen to it. The surface of it is so bitter and vengeful and shallow, and then underneath is this wellspring of world-sorrow. There's no turn at the end like in Idiot Wind, there's nothing in the lyrics to shift blame back toward himself*. And yet the more I listen to it, the more the bitterness and the false pity fade away and what's left is just a gorgeous sweeping sadness.

*There's also, interestingly, nothing to suggest that she was wrong to leave him. Even when he's fantasizing about her coming crawling back to him, it's not because she realizes how great he was, it's because life is hard and sometimes stressful things happen that make you romanticize past relationships.

some of the most intricately synth work I've heard from the era

I don't know about intricate, but the synths are definitely integral.

for sure I'd call what he plays on "Valentine's Day" intricate.