The first time I ever heard Bruce Springsteen was early my freshman year at Texas Tech in 1975. I was a know-nothing kid who thought he knew it all. But I learned real fast. When my new entertainment editor, and eventual mentor, Bill Kerns handed me a copy of an album called "Born to Run" and asked me to review it for the college paper, it was the first time I'd ever attempted to review something by an artist I didn't know and love.
I thought it was awful. But I had a few days to write it, so I kept listening. Within those few days I had fallen in love. Here was that symphony of rock 'n' roll's history, brought up to date (circa mid-70s) by a scruffy New Jersey guy singing about girls and cars.
This is a long way of telling you that what follows is my first attempt to review a Springsteen album after only one listen. I'm talking about his new album, his 24th album, "Working on a Dream," which was mostly written and recorded during the 2007-08 "Magic" tour and comes out Jan. 27, one week after the politician he championed, Barack Obama, is sworn into office as president No. 44, and just six days before the Boss plays the halftime show at Super Bowl No. 43.
While I anxiously await an advance copy of the new album so I can do a proper review by Jan. 27, I, of course, eagerly clicked on the streaming version that
NPR.org started offering at 9:59 p.m. our time on Monday, Jan. 19.
I'm not going to make any sweeping, please-quote-me rock critic remarks here, but I will say that there's an urgency to the record, a sense of timelessness and a sense of time passing on the record, as if the season of hope that has finally dawned and the loss of youth (the Boss turns 60 on Sept. 23), innocence and, of course, longtime E Street Band member Danny Federici, who died last April 17, all decided to look over his shoulder as he scribbled these songs.
There are echoes of America's agrarian past, its wild West and, in a continuation of the classic pop stylings that marked 2007's wonderful "Magic," a collective sound not unlike a wistful sequel to "Born to Run."
For the record, there are 13 songs on the new record, including recent Golden Globe winner "The Wrestler," which he wrote for the highly acclaimed new Mickey Rourke film of the same name. It clocks in at 51 minutes and 38 seconds.
Here's a song-by-song rundown (and, yes, I'm listening to the stream again as I write this):
1. "Outlaw Pete" — A grinding rocker about an Appalachian "outlaw, a killer and a thief" who leaves a "trail of tears across the country side" but meets his own demise at the hands of the next outlaw, suggesting that all of our archetypes keep being recycled. The haunting Morricone harmonica blasts adds to the '60s retro Western feel. Good stuff.
2. "My Lucky Day" — One of several sunny love songs, done in the style of one of those '60s-drenched "Born to Run" rockers, only this time he's not pulling Wendy out on the highway with him, he's finally settling down with the woman who is "my lucky day."
3. "Working on a Dream" — Max Weinberg's metronomic smack propels this rocker which evokes Springsteen's Guthrie-esque populist folk roots but layers its with lots of '60s pop-rock embellishments, whistles and some Beatles-meet-Brian Wilson harmonies.
4. "Queen of the Supermarket" — Teenage lust grows up, well, a little in this earnest account of a guy whose all atwitter about the girl who bags groceries with "her eyes so bored," propelled again by Weinberg's heartbeat drums, layers of Brendan O'Brien's nostalgic production and the sweet reveal at the end when he looks at her as he puts the groceries in his car and she flashes "a smile that blows this whole f------ place apart."
5. "What Love Can Do" — Sort of Bruce's update of the Beatle's "Love Me Do," fueled by a driving acoustic guitar line, a slightly Irish-feeling motif in the middle and a lyric, perhaps inspired by the nastiness of the last eight years, that simply asks "let me show you what love can do."
6. "This Life" — It starts out with Brian Wilson-styled harmonies and deteriorates from there. Probably the weakest, sketchiest song on the album, a testimonial to a lover that's buried in production, perhaps to cover up the fact that the song sounds unfinished, the consequence of trying to make a record quickly and during tour breaks to strike while the iron, well, the band was hot. Even Bruce sounds bored. You watch. Over time I'll think it's brilliant.
7. "Good Eye" — A deliciously swampy blues full of distorted harmonica and voice, some banjo, a rhythm right out of the Stones' "Turd on the Run" and a great story about faith and redemption told from the point of view of a man who had everything and lost it. "I gave my good eye to the dog and my blind eye to the sun," he wails. I think that's how the line goes. An early favorite.
8. "Tomorrow Never Knows" — Sounds like it could have been written during the "Seeger Sessions" when Bruce put the E Streeters on hold, gathered a bunch of fine acoustic musicians and mined the songbook Pete Seeger made famous. This one has finger-picked acoustic and an old hillbilly country feel, fiddle, trumpet, some willowy background voices, brushed drums, a hushed, husky vocal that evoke another time, maybe to make the message that we never know what life will bring sound all the more ancient and wise. It's also pretty short.
9. "Life Itself" — A dramatic reflection on the darkness "where the flowers of temptations grow" and the fulfillment of a love that is "like life itself, in your heart and in your eyes, I can't be without you." Sort of like life beyond the darkness on the edge of town. Neat backward tracked guitar solo by Nils Lofgren.
10. "Kingdom of Days" — A love song about growing older together, a song Springsteen couldn't have written back in the "Born to Run" days. He was too young to talk convincingly about feeling the autumn breeze and not noticing "the subtle change of light" on his love's face. A lovely song. Well-orchestrated.
11. "Surprise, Surprise" — Bruce's attempt at a birthday song? Kind of a companion piece to "Kingdom," with jangly Byrds-style guitars and an organ line that suggests that the spirit of renewal that comes with marking the annual milestone is a chance to "let your love shine down."
12. "The Last Carnival" — Its calliope intro, countryish finger-picked acoustic and Springsteen's throaty vocal suggest an end of an era. "We'll be riding the train without you tonight," Bruce sings, and you can't help but think he's singing that to Federici, the "Handsome Billy" of the song. There's a stark, almost gospel-like fadeout vocal over more calliope that's so fitting.
13. "The Wrestler" — The song was written spontaneously after a call from Rourke and offered free gratis for use in his new movie. Its references to one-trick ponies, one-legged dogs and one-armed men, sung over spare acoustic guitar and splashes of piano and percussion, certainly evoke the bruised and battered actor whose portrayal as an aging wrestler is certainly a metaphor for his own life and career.
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