Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

How many times in Bruce's work does a man sit up at night while his woman sleeps, and the moonlight shines through the window, and he thinks about [betrayal / love / being a cautious man / God's grace / Elvis Presley / a wreck on the highway] ?

Variant: he runs out of the house at night, through the woods, across the highway, and collapses, his shirt soaked from sweat, and finds himself outside his old house, and looks up, with a realisation about [betrayal / loss / his father / God's grace / a downbound train]

fwiw I heard Letter to You on the radio the other day and it sounded great.

xpost you left out the part where he puts on/takes off his jacket - a key moment in all Bruce's dream sequences and midnight epiphanies.

How many times in Bruce's work does a man sit up at night while his woman sleeps, and the moonlight shines through the window, and he thinks about [betrayal / love / being a cautious man / God's grace / Elvis Presley / a wreck on the highway] ?

Heh, now I'm imagining a Bruce song where he thinks about all of these at once.

One of the many great things about Dylan's Springsteen parody is that it totally ends this way: "Sometimes I think of Tweeter/ sometimes I think of Jan/ sometimes I don't think about nothin' / but the Monkeyman."

I think I read in Michael Gray's BOB DYLAN ENCYLOPEDIA that that was a Boss parody!

I don't think I would have realised otherwise.

Well, It's tricky, because the music doesn't sound at all like Bruce. It sounds, of course, like the Traveling Wilburys. But the lyrics are hilarious. Bruce and Bob are friends, or at least as friendly as anybody can be with Dylan. I wonder what Bruce thought of that? I've always wondered why he's never performed it, which would be hilarious too.

Sometimes I wonder if it makes Bruce sad that Tom Petty got to be in the Traveling Wilburys and he didn't.

I agree, that song doesn't sound like Bruce. In a way, it feels less like a straight parody and more more like a complicated in-joke for Springsteen fans. He bypasses the really obvious jokes - cars, girls, factory jobs, dads - and goes straight to the more obscure stuff, like the trans character, the sister, the "lonely guy thinkin' baout things" ending, and all those b-side song titles.

Sometimes I wonder if it makes Bruce sad that Tom Petty got to be in the Traveling Wilburys and he didn't.
I'm not sure I'd want to hear Jeff Lynne's signature on Springsteen's music. To be fair, it worked very well on (most of) Petty's Full Moon Fever where, on a modest scale, it fit the whimsical and occasionally wistful nature of those songs. Otherwise, his sound is usually way too glossy for my tastes.

no room for a gruff voice in the traveling wilburys, though that would have been a funny addition.

Yeah I don't think Bruce would have meshed well w/the Wilburys at all, for many reasons. But it is kind of funny that three of his musical heroes formed a group with another heartland rocker and then made fun of him on their first album.

handle me with CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRE ohhhh aaaa ohhhhhhh oooooo

unrelated: I love all the footage of Bruce in Roy Orbison’s “Black and White Night”
He looks so genuinely excited to be there & to be playing the songs, like he’s turn & grin at whoever’s standing next to him with a “can you BELIEVE this shit?” look on his face
he looks like a little kid at times <3

Absolutely. My friend and I find it hilarious that he was ever in a guitar duel with James Burton, but you can tell that Bruce truly understands and relishes his role on that stage.

I'm not sure I'd want to hear Jeff Lynne's signature on Springsteen's music.

Yeah, I can't even imagine what a gated snare would sound like on a Springsteen song.

there aren't any gated snares on born in the u.s.a (the album)?

(I was joking)

That childlike joy is one of Bruce's most endearing qualities imo. I love the bit in his autobiography where he gets to rehearse with the Rolling Stones and he can barely contain his fanboy glee and there are SO MANY CAPITAL LETTERS.

lol yes that was great

What's great is that Bruce reveals that same childlike enthusiasm whenever he pops on stage with anyone, from b listers like Southside Johnny or Joe Grushezcky (however you spell it, from Pittsburgh) to random bar bands

Yeah, I can't even imagine what a gated snare would sound like on a Springsteen song.
Clever, but it takes a lot more than a gated snare to make a record sound like a Jeff Lynne production. (thank god)

fwiw I may have mentioned it, but Bob Clearmountain has said the heavily gated BitUSA era snare was all Bruce's idea, so maybe he would have been all in on Lynne.

Of course. FWIW, this came up during Tracks, but the mixing engineers went on record at the time saying Springsteen loved bathing his vocal in echo and giving it a humongous sound, something he completely reversed by 1998 when they remixed those recordings and stripped out the reverb per his request as he now wanted a more "personal" sounding mix.

Besides the squashed, far-mic'd drum kit, Lynne likes a lot of acoustic guitars and not much bass, typically compressed to hell, and then you have the way he mixes those distinctive harmonies that are probably the most grating thing about his records. Above all, the key is the way everything is compressed (reportedly done with Universal Audio solid state limiting). Springsteen was making shiny, pop-friendly records in 1987, but they didn't sound nearly as synthetic.

(to be fair, a lot of people probably love that sound - Harrison, Petty et al wouldn't have sold so many records then if they didn't)

I finish with THE RIVER again. Still a bemusing LP, with so much seeming filler, but good songs also, and the title track a masterpiece that could stand for his whole career.

I go on to WORKING ON A DREAM for the first time in years. The quality of this record is so high. Songs like 'life itself' and 'good eye' take the Boss to a different realm. 'This life' with its Beach Boys approach and unusual chords, and lines about looking through a telescope! ... This feels to me like the greatest thing he's done since TUNNEL OF LOVE - save perhaps WESTERN STARS. No-one ever mentions it - maybe because, I always say, Bruce's consistency is just so high, people take it for granted.

October 23rd baybee 😃

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bruce-springsteen-letter-to-you-date-1066105/

Reviews are popping up and the ones I've seen have been very positive.

OK, first song is one of the best things he's done since "Tunnel of Love" imo.

Four or five tracks in and I think I'm calling it: barring some sort of precipitous nosedive, this is his best since "The Rising," by a long shot, and probably better. Seems to have finally cracked the production problem, too, because the album even sounds pretty great.

OK, "Power of Prayer" is not necessarily bad, but it's not really my thing, either. Immediately bounces back with "House of a Thousand Guitars," though.

Final (first) reaction. The album's great, but it's also the start-to-finish Bruciest album he's done in a long time, which I can imagine some will find exhausting. Factor in the three old songs and it's really doubling (tripling) down on his own mythology/mortality. There's a sense of self-awareness to this album that finds him finally giving in to the temptation to ... be himself? Rather than asking "what would Bruce/E Street Band do?" and then doing something different, this album is him leaning hard into his strengths from the perspective of an old guy whose friends are all dying and leaving him behind to carry the weight of their souls.

I didn't like "Power of Prayer" either, it's too corny.

But the album starts off great. It got less interesting as it went on, but that's just after one listen. Maybe it'll grow on me, so we'll see. I started listening in the late '90s, and no newly released Springsteen album (not counting archival releases) has ever won me over that quickly. I wound up liking Wrecking Ball, Magic, Devils and Dust and half of The Rising, and it took some time.

Gah, I wasn't planning to try to listen to it before the release date, but the suspense is driving me nuts.

I can't say I'm a fan of "Songs for Orphans" (which I didn't know about - it was written in 1971 and a publishing demo apparently circulates), but except for "Power of Prayer," the other ten track are hanging together pretty well for me.

xpost Do it!

Listening again, those first four songs culminating in a powerhouse like "Janey" are just unstoppable. But "The Power of Prayer" ... I just can't take it, it's too corny, and throws off my listening experience. But then it pretty much bounces back. I still think it's his best band album since "The Rising" - that's the easiest part. Whether it's as good as or better than "The Rising," I'll have to think about it.

Re: "Orphans," several different recordings actually circulate. What's probably the demo does nothing for me, but two live performances are very different and much better IMHO. All with just Springsteen on an acoustic:

From Springsteen's very first radio performances, still the earliest circulating 'live' material with what would become the E Street Band (though again it's just Bruce on this song). From WBCN-FM on January 9, 1973.

From the Devils and Dust tour, Nov. 22, 2005, this is an official upload from nugs.net and it's actually the first official release of this song ever (dated March 1, 2019). The whole show is up on nugs.net for purchase. Reportedly the 1st (and only) time he's played it in concert since the early 70's

*release dated March 1, 2019, performance is again from 2005

To be fair, Springsteen's albums tend to be longer than usual in the digital era, so even when I take out the ones I don't want to hear again, there's still more than enough for a standard LP.

Wrecking Ball without "Jack of All Trades" is over 45 minutes, Magic without "Terry's Song" is over 43 minutes, and even the leanest cut of The Rising comes out to 38 minutes for me (a more generous version I sometimes listen to would be 49 minutes). Without the new version of "Orphans" and "The Power of Prayer," this one's well over 48 minutes, and at the moment I don't find myself wanting to skip through any of these remaining ten cuts. Even "Ghosts" sounds better following the eight preceding and remaining tracks - it didn't feel like a great single, but it works well in this context, feeding off of everything that's been building up to it.

Yeah, for the sake of brevity I would have been cool with them cutting Prayer and relegating Priest to a bonus track.

I think WORKING ON A DREAM and WESTERN STARS are better than THE RISING. Maybe.

Haven't heard the new record.

Think I'll wait till it comes out; hopefully you guys don't get sick of talking about it before then.

I'm listening to his most recent radio show, and so far it's awesome. He just made my whole day by playing Sir Mix-a-Lot's "My Hooptie" and giving a detailed nine-point explanation of what qualifies as a hooptie.

<3

Nice interview in Forbes with Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebaltin/2020/10/18/qa-e-streets-steve-van-zandt-and-nils-lofgren-on-the-making-of-the-new-bruce-springsteen-masterpiece-letter-to-you/#2b56c56e77e3

Van Zandt: Bruce has performed the brilliant artistic task of being extremely personal, extremely detailed and nuanced in his personal explanation and descriptions and insights, and the more personal he gets the more universal the message becomes. And I learned from that... But it was Bruce really that said, "We don't need to generalize, we don't need to say let me explain the whole world to you as an artist. You don't have to do that. Just tell the truth about your own life, what you're experiencing, what you're seeing and dig into it. Don't be afraid of it, confront it. Let's see where it comes out. Let's describe our most intimate relationships with the hopes that other people can see themselves in our work." That's the great thing about art. Art can pass along inspiration, motivation, insights, even information. But the main thing art does is it lets you know you're not alone and I think that's what Bruce's gift has always been.

"House of a Thousand Guitars" wound up being a little corny for me too, but that still leaves nine tracks/44 minutes that add up to a good album. "Orphans" still ain't bad but I much prefer his previous renditions from 2005 and of course the early '70s without a full band.

Just listened to it! On my laptop while lying in bed with a migraine, so I'll have to give it another listen under better circumstances before I come out with any actual opinions. But I can confidently say I like it, and I'm very pleasantly surprised.

Apple+ releasing a making-of doc tomorrow too apparently

The intensity of the focus on his old bandmate from the Castiles is sort of unexpected but very reassuringly Bruce, at the same time. The years go by, the seasons change, the shadows come and go, but Bruce Springsteen will never run out of old friends to write sad love letters to, and I take comfort in that continuity.

predictably great interview with him on NPR right now.

This seems good so far...love the gallop of "Burnin' Train"