Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

We have very different tastes. I think "Man's Job" is the one song that made me skip to the next track even on a first listen. It's so weird and uncomfortable to me to hear Bruce doing the "I'm a MAN" thing without irony, without seeming to question or push against the same traditional idea of masculinity that he's drawing on.

This is just to say that I love his guitar solo in "Human Touch."

This is just to say that I love his guitar solo in "Human Touch."

Yeah, it's great - it's a shame his compilations use the 'single edit' because it fades out early and loses a large chunk of it. Guterman thought it was comparable to Richard Thompson's work and it does sound a bit like it.

Re: Human Touch, there are nice bits and pieces all over the place that I can see being used for better songs - I haven't heard them in a while but if "Roll of the Dice" and "Long Goodbye" had a less generic sound and a better set of lyrics, they could be all right. I remember "57 Channels" and "Pony Boy" being not bad, though IIRC they're fairly low-key pieces, not enough to do much for an album that really needed a lot more substance.

Lily: we don't have such different tastes. We both love the Boss! :D

I hear more intelligence in that song than you do. But in any case I don't think it's all about the words - as I said, I love the crisp clean music.

"57 Channels" oddly became a kind of catchphrase / signature / buzzword, despite not even being a great song - didn't it?

For the kind of thing that D F Wallace was describing in his TV essay, published just the following year. I'm sure that Jonathan Lethem casually quotes it somewhere as a phrase that everyone knows (in the 1990s, or maybe early 2000s).

I remember Bruce performing it on SNL, it did sort of have a Zeitgeist-y feel back then (despite, yeah, not being a great song).

Dylan made sort of a similar effort a few years earlier, with "T.V. Talkin' Song"

In a September 2014 post on Facebook discussing the video, Springsteen wrote, "Shot back in the quaint days of only 57 channels and no flat screen TVs, I have no idea what we were aiming for in this one outside of some vague sense of 'hipness' and an attempt at irony. Never my strong suit, it reads now to me as a break from our usual approach and kind of a playful misfire."[1]

I was surprised my Late Era boys loved "57 Channels," my pick for worst Springsteen single to date.

I've never once thought of that song as being even remotely trenchant. Like songs deriding televangelists, it seemed like pretty easy pickings at the time, just one in a long line of "get off of my lawn" songs written about watching TV.

There’s a profile of Steve Van Zant from last weekend that makes me wonder if Human Touch and Lucky Town’s relative mediocrity was the by-product of changing the band’s dynamics.

Yet Van Zandt’s life has been bisected by his own decision to quit. He left the E Street Band in 1984, in protest at his lack of a formal role in decision-making. After that, he writes, suicide was his “constant companion and temptation”. Although he rejoined the band in the late 1990s, he still agonises over the decision. “It was the biggest mistake I’d ever made in my life, and everything I’ve accomplished was accomplished because of it,” Van Zandt, 70, says over Zoom from his home in New York.

E Street Band guitarist and actor Steven Van Zandt talks Springsteen, The Sopranos and why he doesn’t want to be the boss with @henrymance https://t.co/rTWblqBgoP

— FT Weekend (@ftweekend) September 28, 2021

There’s a profile of Steve Van Zant from last weekend that makes me wonder if Human Touch and Lucky Town’s relative mediocrity was the by-product of changing the band’s dynamics.

It didn't help. To my ears he started writing what people expected a Mature Bruce Springsteen to write and record with L.A. hired guns. The trouble is, Tunnel of Love and BIUSA were perfectly realized Mature Springsteen albums.

just one in a long line of "get off of my lawn" songs written about watching TV

I honestly think after "TV Party," no one should bother trying... those guys did it right, close the f'in book!

"Human Touch" is a weird song - the bridge/solo comes in really early (less than halfway through), followed by the first taste of the "outro" section; then the song keeps marking time until the real outro kicks in (followed by another solo), but the outro feels dissipated rather than having the desired "yeah!" effect.

There’s a profile of Steve Van Zant from last weekend that makes me wonder if Human Touch and Lucky Town’s relative mediocrity was the by-product of changing the band’s dynamics.

I can't find it at the moment, but IIRC Van Zant heard the two 1992 albums before they came out and told Springsteen he should re-record them with the E Street Band (probably a bit facetiously from a practical perspective but also as an honest critical assessment). They've done some songs like "Souls of the Departed" that weren't radically different but had an extra charge to them that really helped.

I think 57 Channels and Nothin' On is one of those lines that's better as a title than as an actual song. It's added a phrase to the language that instantly means something concrete to people who may never have heard the song, and the more our attention span gets eaten up by a huge variety of meaningless bullshit, the more useful the phrase is.

morrisp OTM there.

Broadly agree with Lily Dale but actually - I'd be happy now to actually hear '57 channels' again. That low bluesy edgy intro, Bruce singing into a big space about his bourgeois house - and the whole thing retains a kind of restraint doesn't it?

I like Bob's TV Talkin' Song too btw.

I quite like the Christic version of 57 Channels, it's more laid-back - doesn't take itself as seriously as the album version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNkqW-MrJZU

Yeah, the Human Touch songs don't sound so bad on those shows. One of my favorites from Springsteen's nugs releases, I wish he put it out back in 1991 instead of sitting on it for 25+ years!

Just when I wanted to cut him slack, I see his hair.

xp yeah, amazing shows all around. The performance I really love from Christic, though, is the one of "My Father's House," which manages to be better imo than the one on Nebraska.

I LOVE that song, and it really is a great rendition. Nebraska is my favorite (it's what made me a Springsteen fan for life) so the Christic shows were especially enjoyable for that reason alone - I don't think he performed many of those Nebraska songs alone and acoustic in concert before.

Those shows are great to hear back-to-back with the Broadway album. Sometimes the two blur together in memory, but the spoken interludes about his therapy sessions play well next to the Broadway show. I guess that was the first time the rest of the world found out about his personal struggles and how he found professional help? Even the (nervous?) audience laughter says a lot.

yeah, I think it must be! the way he says "I went to see this psychiatrist" and the audience laughs like it's the start of a joke and he has to say, "no, this is true, this is true." And then it's just such a good story; one of his best, I think. Up there with the Vietnam draft story, with that devastating last line just before the song starts.

If I'm remembering right, there's a similar moment at the start of "The Wish," which replaced "My Father's House" on the second night, so it seems like he deliberately carved out space in both shows to let the audience know about his therapy sessions.

The new song with mellencamp is pretty cheesy old man music, but it's fine.

wtf why is someone else named Lily writing about Bruce Springsteen for the New York Times?

I just saw the article, haven't read it yet, but felt the need to come here immediately and say that my name is not actually Lily and that is not me.

So I've found myself sort of fascinated by Adam Raised a Cain lately, and I'm wondering: what do you all make of the middle verse?

All of the old faces ask you why you're back
They fit you with position and the keys to your daddy's Cadillac
In the darkness of your room your mother calls you by your true name
You remember the faces, the places, the names
You know it's never over, it's relentless as the rain
Adam raised a Cain

The first and third verses are all epic East of Eden father/son drama, but this verse reads to me like it's Bruce's first comment on the price of fame, not being able to fully go home again, being The Boss, and yet feeling a sense of kinship and responsibility toward the same community that he's no longer completely a part of. A different kind of doomed inheritance from the one in the first and third verses, but related. He's not trying to antagonize his audience here; he slips it into the middle of a song about something else, and howls it out so that it's barely intelligible, but it's the start of a through-line that's going to end w/"Local Hero": "Well I learned my job I learned it well, fit myself with religion and a story to tell."

Anyway, that's the way I hear it, but I'm influenced by having read the Kipling story "The Knife and the Naked Chalk" - Kipling's version of the "Growin' Up" story - approximately one million times, and no one else has that particular problem, so tell me if this makes sense.

It's also the familiar story of the prodigal son returning home, and his friends family and former neighbors don't give a shit about where he's been or whether or not he's successful, just that he's back home and it's business as usual. Nothing's changed, not least at home.

Interesting. I hear "they fit you with position" as them caring that he's successful, wanting him to be successful, imposing a certain idea of fame and success on him. In later performances - like, around the time he starts playing it a lot for the Tunnel of Love tour - he changes "position" to "religion." And then that line pops up again in "Local Hero," but now it's "fit myself with religion" - it's something he's done to himself.

I guess one question is: is it good or bad - or neither good nor bad, just something you can't get away from - that nothing's changed at home, that your mother calls you by your true name? (Bruce getting all Ursula Le Guin on us.) I guess I was hearing it as a good thing overall - that for all the epic struggle of the first and third verses, home can also be a refuge from fame, one place where you're not expected to play the part of The Boss.

I feel like the ideas here are sort of deliberately muddled, like Bruce is trying to work through a lot of confused anger at people he loves - including the audience that he's very emotionally close with at this point in his career - without alienating anyone, and so it all kind of gets lumped in together: his father's anger, his mother's love, the burdens and expectations of fame.

Another way to read that verse is that they're basically asking him, wait, *why* are you back? We gave you a position in life, we gave you a car, we sent you on your way. Maybe home is a place he can't escape, or doesn't want to. Cain is cast into exile, but Bruce (or the narrator) doesn't have that luxury. He's compelled to return, in some way actually a *subversion* of the prodigal son parable.

Yes, that makes sense. and I think that's sort of what I was trying to get at - the feeling that the community he's trying to write about & stay faithful to doesn't necessarily expect him back or have much of a place for him; that he's gotten too famous writing about these people to really be one of them anymore.

and yeah, I think the Cain/exile thing makes sense, the idea that fame is its own form of exile.

And yet "you remember the faces, the places, the names." They're part of him whether he wants it or not; he's like one of those Faulkner characters who carry the whole entire South around inside them at all times.

my brain's all foggy today; I hope this makes sense.

It seems to me that this verse is about how someone who thinks he has reinvented himself and distanced himself from his family is caught up in those old ties when he returns home; and maybe he can honestly see that he hasn't changed as much as he thought.

that makes total sense to me and I think I was overthinking it

It could be from a rock star's perspective, but just as easily a doctor, an academic etc. who thinks they have transcended their class background.

I do think the "why are you back?" is really important, but you're right, he doesn't have to be famous for that to be the question everyone's asking. This could be anyone who was raised in a place where being successful means getting to leave.

Ken Rosen, who writes the E. Street Shuffle blog, has a series called "Roll of the Dice" where he analyzes every Springsteen song in detail, in a "What is this song about, what story is it telling?" way. He's offered me the chance to write guest posts whenever I have a different take on a song from him. My first one, on "Western Stars," is running today. Hopefully there will be more!

https://estreetshuffle.com/index.php/2021/11/04/two-faces-western-stars/

So what do you do when you discover a reader whose comments deserve a “Hold my beer” subject line? Well… I hold her beer.

Thanks!

Looking forward to reading it!

Last night I had to drive one of my kids and her friends up to Milwaukee for a concert. The first half I patiently endured their music and didn't even say anything. But about halfway through my daughter, sitting in the way back, surprised me by switching the music to Springsteen on shuffle, for my benefit. And then left it there! It was great to hear them all sing along with "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." One of them, in the passenger seat, told me she was trying to get School of Rock to do a Christmas show (she's Jewish, lol), and said they claimed there weren't enough Christmas rock songs. Then she pointed to the speakers and said "hello!?!"

The shuffle also played "High Hopes," which I hadn't heard since whatever year it came out. I know the song is only five minutes long, but it felt like 20, and it's one of the better ones on that album, iirc. It made me feel a little bad for Bruce, because for a couple of albums you can really hear him struggling to do something new or different, or sonically relevant, and it just rarely works. Sure, when it *does* work you get something like "Streets of Philadelphia," but when it doesn't ... oof. I think Bruce has only relatively recently come around to fully embracing that what the fans want is the same ol' Bruce, the best Bruce he can be, which is intuitive but he only in the last several years seems to have stopped resisting it. Reminds me of a reported exchange with Sting at a 2010 rainforest benefit.

The concert’s unannounced performer, Bruce Springsteen, joked that when Sting had told him the theme was ’80s nostalgia, he had responded, “Sting, we’re ’80s nostalgia.”

That's awesome! Makes me think of the bit in Bruce's book where he walks into his kid's room and finds him listening to early Dylan, and he's clearly just bursting with pride that his kid is voluntarily listening to the music he likes. A real "stars, they're just like us!" moment.

for a couple of albums you can really hear him struggling to do something new or different, or sonically relevant, and it just rarely works.

I know what you mean; it all feels so - directionless. Like he's just throwing anything in that sounds different from his usual stuff, without having a real sense of why or what he's going for.

"Streets of Philadelphia," otoh, feels like he did have a vision and a reason for working with that particular sound; I really wonder about the other stuff that sounded like it that he scrapped.

Heard “Brilliant Disguise” in CVS today; didn’t remember the tempo being as fast as it is. Good song…

One of his best.

Definitely. Even people I know who don't like Springsteen all that much tend to single that out as a great song.

didn’t remember the tempo being as fast as it is

I just went back and listened, and yeah, it was surprising to me to, but I'm not sure why. Something about the vocals, maybe? Definitely helps give it that edgy, jittery feeling.

too

I'm sure this has been posted here before (possibly by me), but I love the Brilliant Disguise video, and I love this piece by the director, Meiert Avis, about the whole process of coming up with the concept and pitching it to Bruce and then making it: http://meiertavis.com/archives/1215

Was googling around for other stuff and found this complete, pretty well shot/sounding video of his Paris 2016 "River" gig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBzrwbarzx4

xpost That was great, good find!

Loved your piece, too. I never listen (or did much listening) to that album, which makes your observations all the more fresh and interesting.

Thanks! I have mixed feelings about Western Stars the album - I think there are about four songs from it that I still listen to regularly - but I do like that song. I think it's partly that the use of the orchestra makes sense to me on that song, as part of the story the song is telling,in a way that it doesn't necessarily on the rest of the album.

The funny thing about writing for the blog is that I'm pretty much limited to the songs Ken and I disagree on, which isn't really that many of them. So I have kind of a random handful of songs to choose from, but it's fun trying to figure out what to say about them.

And thanks for reading! It feels like a silly thing to be proud of, but this is actually a major personal milestone because it's the first time I've brought myself to actually send out something I wrote to anyone.

Listened to "Trapped" again and was thinking (and I know he didn't write it) about what a good and odd and striking choice it was to have the anthemic chorus be the part about being trapped, not the part about knowing one day you'll escape.