Anxious Bruce

It's here, and you know you have an amazing wife when she calls to tell you to save that trip to the store because she's gone and picked it up: The 30th anniversay Born To Run box set. I've been waiting for this since March and now it's here. Ironically or fatefully enough, I broke my DVD player last night, God punished me by denying my ability to play the two videos. However, I had the privilege of listening to the remastered album and it was stunning. The greatest disappointment is the packaging; what the hell am I going to do with a giant box that won't fit in my cd shelf and is too tall or thick to fit with my DVD's? Shame on Columbia, the company did the same for the Simon and Garfunkel box set.

Born To Run is my favorite Bruce album. I have close seconds. He may have more powerful lyrical or musical statements on his other albums, but this one is by far the best. While I nearly clocked Chris "didn't Bruce Springsteen once act on General Hospital" Brown for his talking smack about the seventh song, he is right about the maturity and focus of Bruce's work beginning on Darkness On the Edge of Town. That is why I entitle my little treatise "Anxious Bruce"; I steal the title from a chapter in the greatest rock analysis and criticism book ever, Jim Curtis's "Rock Eras". He only wrote a single edition which never made it past 1984, but his chapter on The Beatles' White Album being and amalgamation of influences and a sign that the band was in a major transitional period make me think of BTR. What we hear is an artist, while entrenched in his personal past and musical statements, attempting to find himself in new modes. He may over-reach and out-do himself on the overall product, and when looking at Bruce's entire canon it appears that he's torn stylistically between Wild and Innocent and Darkness. Yet, what he produced in 1975 is a true masterpiece of emotion and powerhouse rock that made him "the future" even while reflecting the past of rock and roll. However, the songs:

THUNDER ROAD - sparse piano and rusty harmonica intro; clean vocal. When the band kicks in at the beginning of the second verse, you know you're on the wild ride of chance and adventure that the singer takes Mary on. There are guitar parts that I've never heard that were muffled or poorly blended on the original cd. Probably the most intricate guitar work of Bruce's career. Bruce calls the song an invitation; I think of it as two horsemen of the apocalypse getting the hell out of Dodge. Listen to Roy's piano run after "it's a town full of losers and we're pulling out of here to win" and argue otherwise.

TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT - Probably Bruce's last song with a direct connection to his earlier work. The funky 9th chords and soul-filled horn section make this sound like an outtake from "Greetings From" or "Wild and Innocent" yet the subject this time, instead of one of the wharf rats that inhabited Bruce's first two albums, is himself. Maybe his most autobiographical song?

NIGHT - This rocker could probably pass for an outtake from Darkness, as his theme of the automobile as Hermes, the transporter of people to the otherworldly realm. Straight ahead power chords erase any memory of a backbeat in Bruce's music and this three minute statement ends in a flurry of sax screams that mimic the speeding of the cars along the strip. One of his best creations of why people still see this part of our day as the time of redemption and resurrection.

BACKSTREEETS - I've written aplenty about this song, but the new remaster brings so much into light. The B-3 organ part is more prominent in the mix, bringing much of the failures of the singer to church. Isn't church the place where lost souls find salvation? It's clear where the singer believed his redemption lie and yet the Judas kiss does not take hold as the singer's faith in the alleys is stronger even than his faith in others. One of his most impassioned vocals and lyrics "on the backstreets until the end."

BORN TO RUN - Now cliche and mocked, which is a clear sign of how something becomes entrenched in culture. Listen with headphones on this new album and you'll hear parts you've never heard: strings in the chorus, a wah pedal in the bridge and the clear echo-drenched delay of Bruce's Fender Esquire as he descends down the fretboard and yet another dreamer blasts his way down the boardwalk.

SHE'S THE ONE - Buddy Holly meets Mitch Ryder: here's the one about "her", that undefinable woman who's bamboozled your senses and yet keeps you wanting more. This song belongs in 1965, a major return from the previous cut which reminds the listener of songs they think it reminds them of but makes them hope for his next album. Musically one of his easiest songs to learn (until The River, where basically every song is in the I-IV-V fashion), the girls on the stoops, the boys in the chinos and the vrrooooom of the motorcycles make this a girl group song from Motown.

MEETING ACROSS THE RIVER - the most unique song Bruce has ever written, as it's a vignette more than a pop tune. The singer's trying to be tough, trying to move up in the world of crime, trying to act the act and walk the line and yet he's still hard up for a set of wheels? Brilliant. Jazzy and sparse and not even an E Street song. Very noir-ish and yet a song that shows Bruce's desire to speak for people from all walks of life. Not just runnin' and funnin' but someone trying to make it however he can. The singer's insecurity reflects a maturity of songwriting and yet when Bruce would perform this song live (very rarely, even), he himself looks out of place, a little kid dressing up in his daddy's clothes. The character compromised his integrity long ago and yet his ego won't let him look foolish for his old lady. This song of this sort will never be repeated in Bruce's career as he becomes a more focussed song writer with an ability to be fun or real; however, he'll never be this literal.

JUNGLELAND - the perfect example of Bruce's anxiety. West Side Story meets rock opera. James Dean and Nathalie Wood, yet in the slums of Harlem where the punks don't look like they've stepped out of a Brill cream ad. This song, as Bruce said, nearly killed him, and it's apparent why. Crescendoing choruses, tempo changes, killer guitar solos and tembling sax solos; Bruce at his most theatrical. Clarence's sax playing only heightens the soulfullness and urban-ness of the song, taking the listener from a violent rumble to the deathly-silent after effects of the clean-up. Bruce will hint at "hugeness" in later songs such as Mary's Place, but Jungleland comes crashing down into what sounds like to me the introduction to television's "Hill Street Blues", a cop show that put the cops and the bad guys on both sides of the white line. Bruce's characters wind up wounded and not even dead, whereas his resilient previous cast and crew are still down running in the alleys, under the boardwalk, chasing skirts and riding the ferris wheel. Wounded but not dead will become the theme for Bruce's work throughout the rest of the 1970s and into much of the 1980s with songs like "Out On the Streets", "Atlantic City" reaching to his best example, "Born in the U.S.A." Only a near self-destruction of his own life, an art-imitating-life-limitating art act that nearly wrecked his musical career ended this era of song writing. And yet, Jungleland still rings of New York Serenade, an epic masterpiece from The Innocent that no one knows nor remembers. Both songs end each respective album in ten-minute songs, Bruce's wailing vocal trailing off into the night daring the listener to forget it and the stories he tells. In a way, I've always wondered what it would have sounded like if Bruce pulled off a sequel to Jungleland and conversely, I'm thankful that he left this song and this album untouched. He never would revisit this portion of his career; he moved on to new directions and finally discovered what he wanted to sing about. Thanfully he left this strewn trail of rough drafts and unfinished thoughts around for fans and critics to see this as truly one of the ironically greatest records of all time.