an evening with the boss

so off and on throughout the ages {or at least since like high school, like} i have taken my fair share of ribbing for being a fan of the boss. currently favored by adult contemporary{super scary GIS} listeners and radio stations, save for what critics are calling the indie-rock darling of his catalogue 'nebraska', bruce is as-of-late rarely paid more than lip service. we all know he's fantastic. we all thought it was awesome in high fidelity when rob had him appear in his room as if by rock-n-roll magic. so my question, why aren't we listening to more of this guys' stuff? granted, im sure the 'the rising' isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea, but who can front on 'born to run'?

so tonight i have been sitting here for the last couple of hours, intermittently typing this, surfing the web, reading, actually purchasing an original 'nebraska' on vinyl for $7 with shipping in M- condition, but not a moment has passed when the glory filled strains of the 'born in the u.s.a.' album haven't been filling my ears. it has honestly been years since i have listened to this disc, and it's about time i got back to it.

'born' was the cross over album for the boss. seven singles from this album reached the top ten charts. pretty incredible for a guy who started out as a neo-bohemian dylan wanna be splitting his time between the shore and the village. that sounded kinda bad, i'm glad he was like that. i kinda wish he was still like that now.

it's hard to believe, but what he was wearing back then is a lot better than how he and the e street band look nowadays. {except max weinberg and his fine suits!} bruce and the boys used to look so cool.

there are truly some sonic gems on this disc. my classic favorites include 'born in the u.s.a.' - 'no surrender' - 'dancing in the dark' & 'my hometown'. then there is the one that has risen above the rest for me, 'I'm on fire'. there are ladies that read this blog, so i won't repeat the lyrics here, because they are just too damned good. but ya know.... if you were the type of person to go looking for them, i bet you could find them ----> * {although i think they are much better with the music}

upon a fresh listen however, there is a new and vibrant track that is standing head and shoulders above the rest. 'downbound train'. if you have this record, cd, 8-track, CD-ROMs, whatever, put it in and listen to it. first verse;

i had a job, i had a girl
i had something going, mister,
in this world
i got laid off down at the lumber yard
our love went bad, times got hard
now i work down at the car wash
where all it ever does is rain
don't you feel like you're a rider
on a downbound train

the song only gets better from here. i always feel like a cad when i write out lyrics to share. i might as well scrawl out a string of treble clef notation to try and make a point. springsteen songs, like those of a few others, often add up to more than the sum of their parts.

'downbound train' has philip glass elements, as does 'i'm on fire', that are particularly interesting to think about in that context. muted, strungout, single note synth solos that float through and permeate the tracks with a dreamscape quality. these are elements i might have appreciated 15 years ago listening to this album over and over again with my mom, but these are things i did not understand. i knew 'born in the u.s.a' was not a 'patriotic' song in the sense that most people thought it was. i can remember laughing as politicians tried to hijack the song as a frenzy building polito-anthem. the thing about it though, is that there is hardly a moment in this song where we find contempt from the narrator towards the country itself, merely his circumstances and treatment in it. it doesn't get more patriotic than that if you really think about it. this is what mattered to me listening to it then, and it still does today, but i can dig deeper now, and it's exciting.

there are times as an artist that i don't think that i can create in the same way that bruce captured on nebraska, ghost of tom joad, darkness on the edge of town and so on. not that there is a lack of personal anguish or knowledge to inform the process, but a reluctance to shun emotional junk for concept. then a thought struck me just now while i was outside for a smoke, and it came from a place i wouldn't have gone to look for anything; the song 'this little light of mine'.

it's not alright for me to just keep my life to myself. i've got to share it, the hard stuff, the happy, the sad. excluding emotion and relatable human experience for a purely aesthetic art form isn't what i want. springsteen has managed to combine craft, emotionally accessible subject matter, elements of truth, and solid musicianship to create some amazing albums that by far allow him to transcend 'adult contemporary'. in the same way i feel obligated to let God shine though my work. when it's accessible to others, is when it can be the most effective.

"Until I realized that rock music was my connection to the rest of the human race, I felt like I was dying, for some reason, and I didn't know why."

-the boss