Bruce Springsteen’s Dream


Last week, following a Super Bowl halftime performance gloriously packed with the kind of cornpone usually the preserve of country performers, Bruce Springsteeen dethroned teen singer-songwriter Taylor Swift atop the Billboard charts with his 16th studio album, Working on a Dream.

Springsteen’s chart success probably has more to do with the fact that middle aged men tend to be less at ease with Limewire than do 13-year-old girls–not since the dual releases of Lucky Town and Human Touch in 1992 has Springsteen made an album more personal and less in tune with its zeitgeist. In times as dark as any since the days of Nebraska (Springsteen’ brilliant response to the recessionary despair of the early 1980s), Bruce has delivered what is mostly a contemplative album of domestic bliss.

Lucky Town and Human Touch seemed somehow lesser for their being removed from the world. They also sounded like the work of a man at war with himself–at the time Springsteen was recently divorced and remarried, had broken up his band of a dozen years, and had released simultaneous records spotlighting different styles of music. By contrast, Working on A Dream sounds like a man in an almost serene condition, embracing instead of running from the sounds and styles that inspired him, still looking outward–but in a nearer circle–finding an enviable peace in the little details of domestic life, marriage and aging: This Life/This Life and then the next/I finger the hem of your dress/My universe at rest goes one new chorus. Badlands this ain’t, but, at the risk of sounding like Yoda, beautiful, it is.

Springsteen insisted to Rolling Stone that the aging lovers in the touching Kingdom of Days weren’t autobiographical. But, it’s frankly impossible to read anything but autobiography in lines like And I count my blessing that your mine for always/We laugh beneath the covers and count the wrinkle and the grays coming from a father of three, pushing 60, almost 20 years into a second marriage. And for my part, I find it impossible not to be moved by the sentiment. This is an album devoted to the sudden moments of transcendent connection that come when you least expect them and are born out of the most mundane things like the swelling emotion of watching the joy in someones eyes when you throw them a surprise party or the lonely guy’s aching unrequited love for the check out girl. (Yeah, I know, there’s a whole meme going around that Queen of the Supermarket is the worst song Springsteen ever wrote. Anyone who tells you that is nuts and doesn’t know shit about songwriting. This is the kind of glorious pop songcraft most pros would give their right arms to achieve. Schmaltzy? Sure. But hey, this is pop music we’re talking about.)

Some folks, and rock fans in particular, eschew this kind of sentiment much as they choke on the cornpone (I was surprised by the vitriol aimed at Springsteen’s Super Bowl jokey lyric changes and hammy theatrics which I found both entertaining and wholly in keeping with Springsteen’s entire career). But unless you’re the hipper than thou type who needs your rock angst-ridden or not at all, you may find, as I do, that this is Springsteen’s most listenable album of original tunes in many years. On balance it’s better than Magic which was written contemporaneously and features many of the same sonorities. Sure, there are some slight songs here–the title track for one, the bluesy Good Eye, the tossed off Tomorrow Never Knows–but even the slightest songs feel so good they go down like a cool glass of lemonade on a muggy August day.

Musicly Working on a Dream is packed with old school pop hooks (Andy Whitman of Paste must have been listening to a different album) and is almost an encyclopedia of generational rock gestures. As Jon Pareles catalogued in his Jan. 28 Sunday NYT Arts & Leisure article there’s the Brian Wilson homage in the massed harmonies and reverb laded woodblocks that introduce This Life, the CCR chug of the title track, the psychedelic backwards guitar solo and 8 Miles High distorted 12-string of Life Itself, and, I’ll add, the spacey, Pink Floydish coda to Queen of the Supermarket. (Oddly, there’s no obvious Dylan influences in the mix, although the 8-minute spaghetti western Outlaw Pete which opens the album does have echoes of Dylan’s warped late period versions of Marty Robbins western ballads, songs like Romance in Durango or Brownsville Girl).

Although sonically the records Springsteen has done with producer Brendan O’Brien leave a lot to be desired–this one has a flat, in-your-face quality that apparently even a great mastering engineer like Bob Ludwig couldn’t fix–there’s no question that O’Brien has inspired Springsteen to expand his sound with the kind of dense orchestral overdubs which Springsteen largely turned away from 30 years ago. And there’s no doubt that the process has given new life to Springsteen as a songwriter. Still the pulsing heart of the sound of Working on A Dream comes from the live rhythm tracks laid down quickly by the E Street Band. Not since The River has the band sounded this tight and loose at the same time, falling easily into the pocket and providing the kind of living, breathing feel that gives the overdubbed flourishes an oragnic foundation upon which to rise.

It was 30 years ago–when the Boss fired his original management team and began stripping down the romantic, street opera sound of his early records– that Springsteen made the decision to shoulder the burden of working class American bard as deliberately as anyone since Walt Whitman in 1855. The sense of responsibility to give public voice to certain kinds of shared concerns gave rise to many of Springsteen’s finest works–Darkness on the Edge of Town, much of The River, Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad, the best parts of Born in the USA. These were records that worked because as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation Springsteen was always able to articulate the small, emblematic story; to find the simple dramatic narrative moment; to summon the perfect detail or concoct the exact character that allowed part to stand for the whole (the shotgun wedding of The River, the pawned engagement ring of Spare Parts, the meth lab explosion in Sinaloa Cowboys). But in recent years Springsteen’s dilberate public works haven’t come as easily. Songs like 57 Shots, Land of Hope and Dreams and even The Rising sounded like the work of a guy who was trying too hard to live up to his self-appointed responsibility. Working on a Dream isn’t a repudiation of those works or that approach, but it’s kind of like Another Side of Bruce Springsteen–a record that sounds much closer to the heart, that sounds like it was much easier to make, and that is certainly much more enjoyable to listen to.

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February 6th, 2009
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Viewing 14 Comments

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    I can say for Bruce Springsteeen that his dream is very genuine.
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    This has inspired me to get out some of the old CDs. Thanks for the post.
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    It's great to see him living his dream. He's still very much alive and kicking.
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    After reading your post.., I remember a song entitled "The way we were" Great post..
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    His Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A were great.
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    It's great to see him living his dream. He's still very much alive and kicking.
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    I can see that Bruce Springsteen is really healthy.. I mean, in is age?? 59 yrs old??
    He really take care his health.. I wish he wear sunglasses when he was singing.. to be cool =p
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    Every people have a dream and i too have a dream
    I love children ^^



    Stop Dreaming Start Action
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    59 years old! 59 years old?! He is better looking, more fit & has more energy then guys half his age.
    i thought he was boss when I was a kid & I still think he’s boss now. He’s Super Boss!Springsteen’s chart success probably has more to do with the fact that middle aged men.

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    He promises, what he delivers!!
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    Sean, I don't mean to condescend, just reacting to a widespread response a lot of people have to Springsteen's unabashed romantacism.and the corny stuff in the Super Bowl set. I'm a romantic I guess (my favorite Springsteen album is "The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle," second fav would be "Born to Run"), so I dig it, and this is Springsteen's most romantic album in years. It think its long past time to make it cool to be romantic. What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

    I didn't like "Devils & Dust " either; I agree w/ your comparison of "Radio Nowhere" to "57 Channels;" and I didn't like "The Rising" either which sounded mostly forced, and in places very much rehashed ("Mary's Place").

    "Tom Joad" took me a while. Didn't like it on its release then years later came back and fell in love w/ it--I think it's chockablock w/ well crafted story songs about contemporary America in a folkie tradition so that's almost perfectly designed to ring all my bells. It ain't "Nebraska," but it's a fine piece of work.

    I liked "Magic" quite a bit--loved "Summer Clothes," "Your Own Worst Enemy," and especially "Gypsy Biker," which I think is classic Springsteen ("Long Walk Home" sounded good but also seemed like the kind of quickie Springsteen song the Boss could knock out in his sleep). On this new record I particularly love "What Love Can Do," which offers a pretty heavy sentiment about love--not sacchrine or banal pop song love but the real power of love--familial and not just romantic; "Queen of the Supermarket"--which is just the kind of crafted pop number built around a single trope that I like; "Kingdom of Days," w/ which, as a 45 year old guy married for almost 20 years, I identify; "Surprise," which is a light, quick song, but honest and touching, different, fresh; "Life Itself;" and "This Life." I also dig "Outlaw Pete" which is nothing but a modern version of the kind of western gunslinger ballads Marty Robbins made famous but weird, overly grandiose, quirkie, all characteristics which make me like it more. It's certainly a better western movie than Baz Luhrmann's "Australia;" and at 8-minutes it's a lot shorter.

    I'm a Springsteen fan of more than 30 years, and on a more intellectual level an admirer of his songcraft. I'll check out anything he does, but haven't loved a lot of the stuff he's done over the last 10 years. I do, however, really like this new one. It just feels good and even the slight songs like the title track are earwormy for me.
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    " But unless you’re the hipper than thou type who needs your rock angst-ridden or not at all, you may find, as I do, that this is Springsteen’s most listenable album of original tunes in many years. "

    Ah, the old angst-ridden, hipper than thou types. If you don't like Springsteen's incessant recycling, you must be one of those hipsters. Sounds pretty condescending to me.
    Twenty-two years ago I really took to Tunnel Of Love (it was tough, tender, funny, modulated somewhere between Nebraska and Born in the USA, and on "One Step Up" heartbreaking) but I cannot fathom what he's been doing since. Tom Joad is dullsville to me. The Rising, an admirable failure with a few worthwhile stabs at 9/11, but too much of his usual corn/nostalgia thrown in as well. Devils and Dust was slow, arid and not very compelling. Magic had "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" and "Long Walk Home" but "Radio Nowhere" was as clueless as "57 Channels." As for the new one, I've heard it twice and it sound pretty tepid to me. "Outlaw Pete" is what, exactly? And the title cut is not slight, it's transparent, invisible, not there. ("CCR chug?" Now I know why I no longer read Jon Pareles") Really, I don't get any of this. Even in his early days when I didn't fall exactly in line behind a record I still understood his appeal, found him funny (say "Darlington County") or overwrought ("Jungleland") or devastating ("Atlantic City") the music was there. Over the past two dacades much of what I've heard sounds listless, tired, reworked. (You mention "Sinaloa Cowboys," which is a great idea but a dreary execution.)






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    I think Though he brought it back for Obama (I think he looked awkward on the campaign trail) that bigger Bruce and wide-ranging social commentary has devolved into personal stuff again, and it's good. He's always better showing, rather than telling, on the social stuff. Plus, mortality beckons... voucher code | promotion codes are more important than ever to people trying to save money on their shopping online.Such as New Look Voucher Codes | Asda Voucher Codes | Tesco Voucher Codes | Adobe Coupon Codes | Expedia Coupons|Newegg coupon codes|Musicians Friend Coupon Codes and Kohls Coupon Codes A minute or two online can save you big money.
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    Another Side of Bruce Springsteen - I like that.

    I think this record (which is tied to the writing period of Magic, you're right) was "freed up" by Bruce's work on the Seeger Sessions disk and tours - not that it's that kind of music, but with the boisterous, just-for-fun, tub-scrapin' music of the Seeger stuff, Springsteen shrugged off some of that "responsibility" as you call it - the self-appointed musical poet of 9/11 etc...

    Though he brought it back for Obama (I think he looked awkward on the campaign trail) that bigger Bruce and wide-ranging social commentary has devolved into personal stuff again, and it's good. He's always better showing, rather than telling, on the social stuff. Plus, mortality beckons...

    Supermarket is a wonderful song - goofy, the remembrance of a near 60ish songwriter of his younger days, a song about suburbia, a widely-shared experience (I stocked many a shelf in my day, occasionally distracted by the winsome glances of the graceful checkers), and a sense of irony. Those who argue that it's his "worst song ever" just don't listen. I wish I'd written it.
 

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