Not everything I write is fantastic.\u00c2\u00a0 But every once in a while inspiration hits, and I run to the computer and type furiously, as the music plays, trying to capture my thoughts before the mood evaporates.\u00c2\u00a0 It can hit anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 At Felice’s mother’s house eating hors d’oeuvres watching Prince kill on the Super Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 I let out a cry…is there a LAPTOP IN THE HOUSE?\u00c2\u00a0 In the shower, contemplating the greatness of "The Eminem Show", drying myself off with alacrity, throwing on my robe, fearful that taking time to pull on my pants might cause the feeling to fade.\u00c2\u00a0 In Felice’s house, the night after seeing Peter Frampton at the Wiltern, suddenly remembering as I walked the hall how much I loved "All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)".<\/p>\n
Pulling up to the curb not long before two this afternoon, I heard Brendan O’Brien talking about his favorite Springsteen album on Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t know it was him.\u00c2\u00a0 I usually appreciate the soft rock emanating from channel 10 more than the seemingly endless one act stunts.\u00c2\u00a0 But flipping the dial I heard someone say how "Darkness on the Edge Of Town" was their favorite Bruce album.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed to hear where this person was going.\u00c2\u00a0 Turned out he was going to testify about "Candy’s Room".\u00c2\u00a0 And then he played it.\u00c2\u00a0 And I sat in my car to hear it.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure what my favorite Springsteen album is.\u00c2\u00a0 I used to say "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle", it was such a surprise after the debut.\u00c2\u00a0 He was no longer a Dylan clone, he was a fully-realized rocker, singing about Sandy and the record company giving him a huge advance.\u00c2\u00a0 There was an honesty and an exuberance that was infectious.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what drove me to the Bottom Line hours before he took the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to be close.<\/p>\n
Then came the ubiquity of "Born To Run".\u00c2\u00a0 Truly great, but somehow less personal than "The Wild, the Innocent".\u00c2\u00a0 It was a statement.\u00c2\u00a0 One figured bombast would follow it, more playing to the very last row, but the strangely personal "Darkness on the Edge Of Town" appeared after a three year hiatus caused in part by a fractious lawsuit.<\/p>\n
"Darkness" didn’t overpower.\u00c2\u00a0 The single, "Prove It All Night", ran out of the gate with energy, but it was the quieter numbers that penetrated.\u00c2\u00a0 The songs that ended each side, the title track and "Racing In The Street".\u00c2\u00a0 The latter ringing false as words on paper, but the story of hope and loneliness, the way the song was performed and sung, making you identify.\u00c2\u00a0 With hope, with grief, the need to continue to persevere.\u00c2\u00a0 No star in America does this better than Bruce.\u00c2\u00a0 The apotheosis being "Downbound Train" from "Born In The U.S.A."\u00c2\u00a0 But the killer, the classic, the unexpected gem, was "Candy’s Room".\u00c2\u00a0 Not even three minutes long, it was a peek into the psyche of someone who’d taken knocks but still believed in himself.\u00c2\u00a0 The quiet intro, featuring Max Weinberg’s drums.\u00c2\u00a0 The angelic piano of Roy Bittan.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the whispering of Bruce.\u00c2\u00a0 The first time through, you weren’t prepared, for the EXPLOSION, almost forty five seconds in.\u00c2\u00a0 Firing on all cylinders, the song goes from intimacy to bluster.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, suddenly, almost a minute in, the track takes a left turn, a guitar solo bends the song and the listener.\u00c2\u00a0 And when Bruce comes back in, he’s POSSESSED!\u00c2\u00a0 He sings the key lines:<\/p>\n
But they don’t see On my first date with my ex-wife, I took her downstairs in the fading light to the living room of the Sanctuary house.\u00c2\u00a0 Where I fired up "Candy’s Room" on Rod Smallwood’s cassette.\u00c2\u00a0 We stood there in silence.\u00c2\u00a0 Later that evening, I found myself with my fingers in her cake.\u00c2\u00a0 She returned to her boyfriend after breakfast and by the next day she was mine.<\/p>\n But not forever.<\/p>\n Brendan went on how complex the record was, wondered what inspired Bruce to write it.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know, but you can feel the inspiration, it’s baked right into the record.<\/p>\n Inspiration is not baked into "Magic".<\/p>\n "Magic" has a curious distance between the listener and the man.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Bruce Springsteen used to give us his all, we felt he was a brother, now he seems to be holding something back.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a private area we’re not privy to.<\/p>\n Maybe he doesn’t want to go back into the darkness.\u00c2\u00a0 To the days when all he had was rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 When he ultimately dove into a marriage that didn’t work, when he had more questions than answers.\u00c2\u00a0 Now he’s got children.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’ll give you a bigger reward than any audience.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll teach you in a way performance won’t.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll give you something to live for.<\/p>\n And that’s who Bruce Springsteen is dedicated to.\u00c2\u00a0 His spouse and his children.\u00c2\u00a0 His family, not us.\u00c2\u00a0 We want him to give more.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s afraid, he can’t.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t want to go back to that space.<\/p>\n Or maybe he doesn’t know how to.<\/p>\n His fans want harmony.\u00c2\u00a0 They want him to perform with his old cohorts, the E Street Band.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t like when he cast them aside.\u00c2\u00a0 They rejected "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town".<\/p>\n But "Lucky Town" is important.\u00c2\u00a0 It was written in a rush after the recording of "Human Touch".\u00c2\u00a0 Bruce was now lubricated, he was now inspired.\u00c2\u00a0 He was READY!\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve been in the same place.\u00c2\u00a0 The only problem is that I’ve spent all my energy on the workmanlike words that preceded this flash.\u00c2\u00a0 The process may have loosened me up, but it also drained me of my edge.\u00c2\u00a0 I was no longer coming out of the shadows, exploding into the arena, I was already here.\u00c2\u00a0 Giving it my all, but the battery was not full.<\/p>\n "Magic" is not a bad album.\u00c2\u00a0 It just lacks a certain spark, that je ne sais quoi.\u00c2\u00a0 The inspiration.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t sound like Bruce wrote the songs long after midnight, when he couldn’t fall asleep, when he had to get the words and music down.\u00c2\u00a0 When he was on a 24\/7 jag, when he didn’t have to get up in the morning to take his kids to school.<\/p>\n And he’s got the adoration of masses.\u00c2\u00a0 They respect him for what he once did.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s in a box.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t want to fail.\u00c2\u00a0 So he makes an album with all the elements, but none of the magic.<\/p>\n Bruce’s vocals are too stylized, he sounds almost like a caricature of himself.\u00c2\u00a0 Clarence’s sax is almost superfluous.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a bit of incendiary lead guitar, but the album is too paint by numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Bruce wrote the songs for the record, then studio time was booked.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no risk.\u00c2\u00a0 No chance for something unexpected to show up and shine through.<\/p>\n The two best numbers are "Devil’s Arcade" and "Gypsy Biker".\u00c2\u00a0 The rest exist in a no-man’s land between them and "The Rising", an album almost laughable in its lack of honest emotion (don’t criticize me, just listen to "Mary’s Place").<\/p>\n It’s hard to maintain that edge, to take chances and succeed.\u00c2\u00a0 Neil Young has intentionally destroyed his career a number of times, just to keep his audience honest.\u00c2\u00a0 If you think he’s the "Harvest" man, he’ll show you he’s someone else.\u00c2\u00a0 Even better, we’ve got Dylan.\u00c2\u00a0 If you expected the sound of "Modern Times", you’re lying.\u00c2\u00a0 And one of the reasons "Blood On The Tracks" is so great is it was recut with amateurs, rounded up for the occasion, quickly.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen to the now-available originals.\u00c2\u00a0 They sound like the Dylan you already know.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t have the same jauntiness, the same presence.<\/p>\n But Neil Young and Bob Dylan are different from Bruce Springsteen.\u00c2\u00a0 They maintain a gulf between themselves and their audience intentionally, they don’t let you get too close.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Bruce’s magic has been your ability to feel so close, to feel like you’re inside, that you’re on the same page.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s enough to give an artist the heebie-jeebies.<\/p>\n The sound of the album is not bad, but it’s wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like Springsteen should, it’s not the unexpected raw intimacy of "Nebraska", nor the in-your-face sunniness of "Born In\u00c2\u00a0 The U.S.A."<\/p>\n Maybe Bruce just can’t do it anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, if he does, his audience won’t recognize it, needing him to be who they want, who he’s always been, the working class rocker from New Jersey.<\/p>\n And I’m not saying that Bruce should cast off his roots.\u00c2\u00a0 But maybe he should go to Alaska and sleep in a motel for a month.\u00c2\u00a0 Find one of his kids’ friends to jam with on the guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 Anything to make him think and take chances.<\/p>\n You can’t give the people what they want.\u00c2\u00a0 The people don’t know what they want.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, fans have purchased "Magic", but the vast majority of America has ignored it, since it’s just another Springsteen album.\u00c2\u00a0 The story in the press is the same.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no left turn.<\/p>\n Maybe some songs about faithfulness, or faith.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe rumination on getting old, fear of no longer having it.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe a questioning of\u00c2\u00a0 past choices.\u00c2\u00a0 A reevaluation of his youth.<\/p>\n But it’s not really about ideas.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about Bruce cruising the landscape in a convertible, top down, wind blowing his hair back, and hearing one of his favorite tracks, maybe Martha & the Vandellas, possibly the Searchers.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting in touch with who he used to be, the kid who loved rock and roll, who thought music could save not only his life, but others’.\u00c2\u00a0 And when the lightning bolt hits, cramming his thoughts down on paper, on a hard disk recorder, not editing, but pouring it all out.<\/p>\n "Magic" does grow on you the more you listen to it.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t love "Long Walk Home" at first, but now I kind of dig it.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s no "Candy’s Room", no "Downbound Train", nothing you hear and see yourself in, nothing that makes you forget your obligations, your everyday life, that forces you to surrender to the god of rock and roll.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not everything I write is fantastic.\u00c2\u00a0 But every once in a while inspiration hits, and I run to the computer and type furiously, as the music plays, trying to capture my thoughts before the mood evaporates.\u00c2\u00a0 It can hit anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 At Felice’s mother’s house eating hors d’oeuvres watching Prince kill on the Super Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 I 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That what she wants is me
Oh and I want her so
I’ll never let her go, no no no
She knows that I’d give
All that I got to give
All that I want all that I live
To make Candy mine
Tonight<\/em><\/p>\n