Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

Listening to the official nugs release for August 20, 1985 - didn't notice this until now, but the Band's studio version of "Atlantic City" released in 1993 is based on the full-band live arrangement heard here. (The Band basically made it all acoustic, adding mandolins, an accordion instead of a synthesizer, etc.) Always thought it was a nice arrangement, but credited it to the Band.

I take poster birdistheword's point to be specific -- that 'dancing in the dark' is a dark song, or a song that involves or emerges or struggles with darkness -- and the video doesn't recognise any of that.

(But I haven't seen any of these videos for a long time, if ever. Did 'born in the USA' itself ever have a video?!)

Yes. Directed by John Sayles.

xpost Of course even the "Nebraska" version has mandolin, doesn't it? So it was always on his mind.

The videos also turn Bruce into a physicalized version of the songs’ narrators, and kind of makes the songs situations “iconic” instead of living purely in the imagination. I’ve always held up the Tunnel of Love photos as what I haven’t liked about Annie Liebowitz’s photos from that era, as perfectly staged as they are.

Thinking of Tom Joad’s songs in this context, and how they do live more as short stories because Bruce never did a video or photo session around the songs in a way that inserted his image into them.

xxp Thanks pinefox, that's a more succinct explanation.

And "Born in the USA" did have a video, directed by John Sayles - Springsteen knows his auteurs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ

(Josh beat me to it - ugh I'm too slow with typing)

xxxxp Yeah, I really love that about Springsteen's music, and it really distinguishes itself from, say, the Eagles. In fact, I would say it's enjoying oneself in a very communal sense. They're utopian thrills - everyone is entitled to them, everyone is a part of it.

Re: MTV, I agree, he would still be massively popular, but at minimum it does make a huge difference for someone looking back who wasn't really there. Think about how much the Beatles encapsulated the '60s and how much of that was dependent on what was broadcast all around the world. They still would've sold a lot of records, but being seen on TV, etc. definitely made an impression that's lasted over the years. It really makes a difference in establishing history (or at least the historical record).

Re: videos, the very first video I've ever seen of Bruce Springsteen was "Streets of Philadelphia." I didn't really know Springsteen until his legendary height had past (though he was still massively famous).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z2DtNW79sQ

So that was all I knew of Springsteen's image in the beginning, but I did get a hint that it was a little different because some guy in the room said something like "who's this bum moping around complaining about the world" (he didn't know what the song was about or what film it was from, he was just being a smartass) and I was like "Bruce Springsteen." And immediately he went "holy shit...that's Springsteen?"

I like the “I’m on Fire” video (also directed by Sayles)… It’s better than some feature films! (haha)

“Glory Days” (yet another by Sayles) also memorable.

The "Dancing" video was shot the first night of the tour, iirc, by De Palma, and was the first single, too, wasn't it? So my guess is they wanted to gloss right over the darker subtext of the lyrics and play up Bruce the entertainer, especially for his first "real" music video. Worked!

Growing up at the time, being on the east coast, I kind of got a victory celebration feel from BitUSA, like it was less of a breakthrough and more of a peak of his local-guy-done-good ascent. That's sort of the same vibe as (later) Metallica's "And Justice for All" or the Cure's "Disintegration" or even DM's "Violator" (all helped to some extent by videos). Sure, they crossed over, and I'm sure for some those were the first (and last) albums bought from those respective acts, but their fan bases has been getting bigger and bigger all along, anyway, and just absorbed all these new fans all at once, too.

I doubt Bruce would’ve been as huge without MTV, but it’s hard to imagine a counterfactual 80s pop landscape in which MTV doesn’t exist.

I heard "Dancing in the Dark" before I knew much about Bruce, and I remember how striking those lyrics were when I first focused in on them. It's hard to remember at this distance, when I've listened to it so much that its edges have been worn off. But I think the darkness and self-loathing of the lyrics stood out to me a lot when I first heard it, and even the energy of the song felt restless and fidgety rather than fun.

This is one reason why I really love listening to the live concert downloads; sometimes there's just enough newness to let me back into that feeling of hearing a song for the first time. In the performances from the Bitusa tour, there's a little "sometiiiimmmes... I just feel so lonely," bit that Bruce does toward the end of "Dancing in the Dark." I was listening to the latest release, from 1985, and this time he added, "I feel so ugly," and it was really jolting, in a good way. Like, oh, that's what it felt like to hear "wanna change my clothes my hair my face" for the first time.

iirc he and the band rarely played it on the reunion tour, if at all. But it slowly found its way into subsequent tours, and the times I saw him play it were just such a joy.

I dug out Glory Days for the “Dancing In The Dark” video info, and it was played twice on the opening night of the tour, with the house lights up, in order to get the right camera angles etc. Regarding the contrast between the lyrics and the video, Greil Marcus wrote, “On record, the song is about blind faith and struggle; here, as the comic Bobcat Goldthwait put it, Springsteen looks like a member of Up With People.”

DePalma was Bruce’s second choice. He spent a day shooting with Jeff Stein (who’d made The Kids Are Alright and I think a Cars video or two), but it didn’t work, for whatever reason.

I think Dancing in the Dark is a Good Bad Video. I wouldn't call it good in the sense that "Brilliant Disguise" and "One Step Up" are good, but I like it. It's big and cheesy and performative and try-hard and awkward, and Springsteen looks like he's playing the part of a hot muscle-bound pop star and doesn't feel quite comfortable with it yet. And none of that really matches the darkness of the song, but what it does match - maybe more than it means to - is the feeling of self-consciousness and effort and wanting desperately to transform yourself and making it work by sheer force of will, which is also part of the song and is definitely part of my whole sense of Born in the USA the album.

Lily – you should, like, write a book on Bruce (assuming you haven’t). I’d buy it immediately!

“Wanna go see some live music at My Father’s Place Thursday night?”

“Let’s wait until Friday night because I heard Alex Taylor is playing. I promise you totally won’t regret this decision for the rest of your goddamn life or anything.” pic.twitter.com/bh3So26RRr

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) August 21, 2021

Lol

xp wow morrisp, thank you so much for saying that! I've never written anything for publication, but I hope some day I can get my act together and make myself more of a writer. That's a huge confidence boost and I really appreciate it.

Lily – you should, like, write a book on Bruce (assuming you haven’t). I’d buy it immediately!

― Shallot Shortage 2021 (morrisp), Saturday, August 21, 2021 6:53 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Seriously

Might be just a matter or editing your posts in this thread together

This might be the best thread on ILM

I have a hard time mentally moving the tracks of BITUSA around because I feel like a lot of the songs come in pairs. Darlington County and Working on the Highway are a pair; so are Downbound Train and I'm on Fire - two Nebraska tracks that still sound like Nebraska - and then Bobby Jean and No Surrender. I've never seen that kind of sequencing anywhere else and it's one of the weird things about the album that I like so I wouldn't want to mess with it.

Loved this^

Book aside, would totes listen to a Lily & JIC 'Are You Talkin' Bruce At Me' pod.

And Furthermore Are You Emailing Me About the E Street Band?

All praise otm. Also I really appreciated the Obama podcast commentary cuz I'm not going near that

Great posts from JiC as well, for sure

would totes listen to a Lily & JIC 'Are You Talkin' Bruce At Me' pod.

― “Heroin” (ft. Bobby Gillespie) (C. Grisso/McCain)

Would subscribe to the patreon

Anyway I was actually thinking of starting a thread for albums with unusual structures. The two I had in mind each have a pair of songs or tracks, but you're right, I can't think of another album with three consecutive pairs of songs in the middle.

Any thoughts as to the structural role of the 6 'outer' songs? BitUSA is so much bigger and redder musically- like, there's a striking contrast, I think, between the monumental scale of the opening track and the rest of the album, but in particular the last song. And the national/local scale thing is spelled in the song titles, but that's all i got.

I would totally read a Lily Bruce book!

BitUSA was one of the first albums i had on tape as a kid, i think my very first unsophisticated impressions were of different light

...different light sources. A few of the songs were daylit, cover me had more of an 'indoor' feel, dancing in the dark had a distinct torchlight glow etc.

I listened to it once a couple of months ago but otherwise hadn't heard it since childhood

I know BITUSA better than most albums, from hearing it so much as a kid; but probably haven't listened to it all the way through in... 35 years? Looking at the track list now, I'm a little surprised at how it shakes out – "Cover Me" is track 2? "Dancing in the Dark" is the next-to-last song? I would have thought for sure that the "Darlington"/"Highway" pair fell on Side 2... etc.

xp You guys are so kind, and this is all filling me with combined elation and despair because I would LOVE to write a Bruce book but I have no confidence at all that I could do it. I'm one of those people who writes essays just for myself and puts them away and never sends them out. And I have a lot of impostor syndrome when it comes to writing about music because I know so little about it. But I want to write for publication, I'm just paralyzed by how confusing and daunting it seems. This is lovely encouragement to start trying.

I think of BitUSA as having a kind of v-shape to it - a journey down into the depths of Nebraska and then a climb back up, ending with a song that has a lot of reflective sadness to it but also less desperation, less anger, and more sustained human connection than the rest of the album.

For real, this is the only book I wanna read right now. So, so sorry if this causes you despair of any kind :(

Just wanna say that if you don't know a lot about music, it really doesn't seem to be getting in your way at all. This is everything I want from music writing but never really get.

I can totally relate to not having confidence, not finishing things, don't wanna push. You have something to offer that I don't think anyone else has. We have every confidence that you can do this. Or if this thread and board is where it's on offer, that's great too, I'm so glad to have found it.

I think of BitUSA as having a kind of v-shape to it - a journey down into the depths of Nebraska and then a climb back up, ending with a song that has a lot of reflective sadness to it but also less desperation, less anger, and more sustained human connection than the rest of the album.

Yeah :)

No, it's a good despair! Don't apologize!

One thing about all the paired songs on BitUSA, it makes me start mentally pairing other songs that might not otherwise go together. Does "Born in the USA" pair with "Cover Me?" If they weren't stranded together at the start of the album, right before three sets of pairs, I would probably say no. But when you put them together like that, you can hear "Cover Me" as an answer to the isolation of "Born in the USA," and the two of them together could even be a kind of rough road map for the album as a whole.

See, I'm not even much of a Springsteen fan but it's this kind of analysis and care which keeps me on ILX. So add me to the agitator chorus please.

Certainly Lily Dale is the best poster on the Boss, on ILM, that I can remember; and maybe on Dylan also.

Being realistic, the best way to start 'writing' is probably just posting things up on a blog. That can sometimes get a good writer a reputation that takes them forward (Chris O'Leary on Bowie being the most distinguished example I can think of).

Um, not to be that guy, but didn’t Chris O’Leary have a day gig writing about other stuff?

writes essays just for myself and puts them away and never sends them out.

So you're halfway there! Just keep writing essays for yourself, make some of them about Bruce, and when you've accumulated a lot, reassess, and then pitch it as a personal journey - essays and epigrams and whatnot - about Bruce from (insert perspective here). No surrender!

James Redd: I know little about him, but I know (as I suppose others do also) his vast Bowie book (or is it two books?) was originally a blog that he was writing and posting up for free.

So he seems the best example I can think of of someone who went from blogging about something he loved, to making a book (or two).

I was hoping Lily could do a 33 1/3 on BitUSA but Gregory Hines published one in 2005.

when you put them together like that, you can hear "Cover Me" as an answer to the isolation of "Born in the USA," and the two of them together could even be a kind of rough road map for the album as a whole.

The midway between isolation and connection might be "Shut Out The Light," the b-side to the "Born in the USA" single.

I can see that - the kind of profound alienation that having someone there to reach for can't actually help with. And "Dancing in the Dark" is another midpoint, in a different way - it captures that in-between moment where you know you need to make a change but aren't quite sure how.

I do find myself thinking about the b-sides and outtakes a lot when I'm trying to wrap my head around this album. I was looking through something I wrote in my notes about BitUSA a while back, and realized I ended up summing up the album by talking about two songs that aren't on it at all. But I thought I'd copy the last paragraph of it here anyway bc it more or less fits with what we're talking about. Some of this is stuff I've posted bits of before.

And all that's without talking about the way this album sounds. I used to think that the key to listening to Born in the USA was looking past the big arena-rock fun-times sound to the bleak lyrics behind it. Now I think it’s just the opposite. The bleakness is the starting point, not the end point. This is an album about starting from emptiness and desolation and just pushing and pushing it until it turns into fun, until a sucking black hole of depression becomes a source of pure, joyous rock and roll energy. If this album has a guiding philosophy, it might be this so-dumb-it’s-profound lyric from the b-side “Stand on It”: “If you’ve lost control of the situation at hand/ grab a girl, go see a rock-and-roll band.” Think of that, and then of the ending of “Child Bride,” the original version of “Working on the Highway”: “I imagine I put on my jacket/ go down to a little roadside bar/ pick a stranger and spin around the dance floor/ to a Mexican guitar.” One song is upbeat, the other hauntingly melancholy, and yet it’s fundamentally the same vision of freedom and salvation: a stranger, a band, a dance floor. A single night, a fleeting human connection, some music. It’s nothing much, really. It’s no substitute for family, friends, meaningful work, a place in a community. And yet when you see it here, juxtaposed against the abyss, it feels like everything.

Yeah, that's great. And possibly explains why the album was such a blockbuster: he broke the code. We've all talked about it a bunch here, but it's telling that "Hungry Heart," his first top 10 hit, was conspicuously both bubblegum pop and strikingly dark. Though few explicitly recognized it or knew about it at the time, Springsteen himself, as a person, kind of represents that same contradiction as well. He's a guy that's prone to depression, both in his music and personally, and yet has come to epitomize the joy and salvation you so astutely describe. I think maybe that explains the connection so many have with his music and his performances. The release is there, it's real, but we all maybe see or sense the side of ourselves that yearns for something more, even if it means sacrificing what makes your life stable or safe. That right there is some high romance. Bruce would risk it all for the sake of Rosalita, rock and roll, and racing in the streets, and if you bring the beer he'll bring you along with him.

Both really excellent posts^

I def think "My Hometown", rather than "Cover Me", is "Born in the USA" 's complement and pair, and that the V-shaped structure of the album highlights those 2 songs.

They're a contrasting pair but there's a symmetry.

xps

I think that's right, the darkness and the stadium-rock energy are not either/or on the album, they are twin fuel sources. It's not that one is more true or real than the other, they feed off each other. The implicit sadness in "Glory Days" is what makes its big jaunty riff so necessary, and also what gives it weight. (See in contrast Knopfler's self-consciously Bruce-y "Walk of Life," which feels cheap and easy because there's nothing at stake.)

A binary kind of a pair and a binary kind of symmetry, is what i was trying to say
xp

Yes, I agree. I was thinking of it almost as the structure of an essay: "Born in the USA"/"Cover Me" as the thesis statement/road map for the arc that's going to take us all the way from "Born in the USA" - total vertiginous isolation - to the tenuous stability of "My Hometown."

There's something so grown-up to me about "My Hometown," the couple lying in bed at night having a conversation about their future and realizing they have to leave the town that they love so their kid can have a good life. I think this might be the most stable relationship I’ve seen in a Springsteen song; even if the community this couple lives in is crumbling and they’re on the verge of a move that could upend their lives, they’re still two adult human beings making a difficult decision together. And it might be Springsteen’s calmest, sanest song about his hometown: all the adolescent guilt and angst and anger have burned themselves out, and what’s left is just an honest, reflective sadness about what’s happened to small-town America.