Sparks fly on E Street

[Galactus]

I'd have to pick Darkness over Nebraska. Darkness brings oh so much the rock.

[Kensterberg]

I've got shit I've gotta do now ... I'll try to post something more later on ...

everything dies, baby that's a fact
maybe everything that dies some day comes back ...

[JACkory]

Very sentimental for me, indeed. This is the album that turned me into a fan. It's the first I'd ever heard from him (not counting hearing "Born to Run" a few times previously on the radio). I got it from the Columbia House record club and I had not ordered it. It was just one of those Selections of the Month that you'd get if you didn't return the card within a certain amount of time. I missed the deadline and Bruce found his way to my mailbox. I didn't even think I'd like it...I thought Bruce was one of those middle-of-the-road crooners (although looking back I don't know how I could have got that impression, having heard and liked the song "Born to Run"). As was the case with so many of these unsolicited Selection of the Month albums, my curiosity got the best of me and next thing you know I'm reading the lyrics on the inner sleeve, no way to send it back for credit now, with the shrink wrap gone.
I don't remember much about that first time I put the needle into the groove. I heard "Badlands" and thought, hey this isn't bad. Kinda dispelled any thoughts I had that Springsteen's style might be akin to Billy Joel's. "Adam Raised a Cain" was quite a bit different than the opening cut, and to be honest, I haven't really liked that song until fairly recently (nowadays I REALLY like it, especially Bruce's searing guitar solos). So at this point I had not quite been converted.
Then...then...4 words..."Something in the Night". That rumbling build up, like a storm on the horizon, heading toward you. Then Bruce begins wailing, "Oh, Alright...Whoa, Alright" with more soul and passion than I think I'd ever heard before. The storm crashes as he lets out one more yelp and the lyrics begin to paint a grim picture...You're born with nothing and better off that way...soon as you've got something they send someone to try and take it away...Nothing is forgotten or forgiven...and finally the last verse where the rebel's dream comes crashing down around them. And then, with even more intensity, Bruce tears into another series of howls, like a grieving mourner at a funeral.
The deal is sealed at that point. I was a certified fan, anxiously anticipating the songs that came after that one.
"Candy's Room" was a bit of a letdown. It's another one that has taken me a long time to appreciate. I assure you that I have developed that appreciation at this point. I think it was because it was such a radical change from the more subdued "something in the Night", the uptempo speed of the thing, the shift from anticipation and failure to a song quite vividly depicting sexual lust.
One thing I've noticed about Darkness On The Edge Of Town is that it is much less character-driven" than the previous albums. Most (if not all) of the songs here are sung in the first person. This change has served Springsteen well, IMO. To be sure, he still does his share of character songs, but I think the majority of his post-Darkness output has seen him singing, maybe AS a character, but in the first.
All I really want to say about "Racing in the Streets", besides the fact that it's another heartbreaker like "Something in the Night", is that Roy Bittan plays some of the finest piano lines in his career. This is a quite a commendation, seeing as how he is a very talented man and has played many a perfect piano line throughout Bruce's career. But the stuff he's doing in the last minute and a half of "Racing in the Streets" is so tasteful, so perfect I can't really praise it enough. It definitely makes you want to turn the album over and hear what else is in store.
Clarence gets a chance to shine for the first time here on "The Promised Land". His solo is short and sweet, nothing like the sprawling take in "Jungleland", but every bit as powerful. There aren't too many bands out there with sax players, but Clarence is integral to the E Street sound.
Always like the line The dogs on main street howl cause they understand that I could take this moment into my hand...great song.
Another really great song that most folks don't seem to talk about much, "Factory" effortlessly conjures the dreariness, the resignation, the necessity of "the working life". He goes through the working day, between the horns of the factory whistle. And for all that, when the day is done, Somebody's gonna get hurt tonight. It's a sad song, made even sadder by the knowing that it's the true life story of thousands of men and women who toil in places they'd just as soon rather not be because they have to make ends meet.
"Streets of Fire", for some reason, doesn't connect with me most of the rest of the album. It's a really good song, and Springsteen delivers a very good vocal performance, especially towards the end (beginning with the line Don't look in my face...I can't even understand what he's saying directly after that, but it almost raises the level of the song to no small degree. Still...
I'm sorry but "Prove It All Night" has never been one of favorite Springsteen songs. However I do give it more credit these days after hearing the version on the Live In New York City version, where Miami Steve helps elevates it to a new level. Another nice solo from the Big Man and an excellent guitar solo from the Boss, one of the most under-rated lead guitarists in the world.
Another thing...the production on Darkness is much more spare and spacious than it was on Born To Run. I suspect that's what the material demanded, as this is a bit more stark than that one was (not that it wasn't stark, just not quite so much as this one).
The final cut, "Darkness on the Edge of Town" kind of sums up the whole thing. Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost. They all wind up here, on that hill, paying the cost for wanting things that can only be found in the darkness on the edge of town. No use looking for them anywhere else. That's where you eventually wind up, for better or worse.

5 Stars
Favorite Tracks: "Something in the Night", "Racing in the Streets", "Factory", "Darkness on the Edge of Town"
Least Favorite Track: "Streets of Fire"

[JACkory]

You'll forgive me, I hope, for the grammatical errors in that last post. I get so frustrated when I proofread them and find so many. My spell-check gets worked out a lot more than it used to. I guess I'm getting old.

Anyhoo, I thought I'd chime in on the Nebraska vs. Darkness On The Edge Of Town debate.
Man, that is a hard choice. A REALLY hard one.
As you have seen in my last bit of fluff, Darkness holds quite a bit of sentimental value for me. But I really like that Nebraska was recorded, as demos, on a four-track recorder in Bruce's living room. I think it is so cool that he presented them to his record company, as demos, and they all agreed that the material would be best served in it's original form. Instead of giving it to the band and working out arrangements they just released the four-track recordings in an album. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before. This must have been a very fecund time in his development as a songwriter, because these songs are all gems, from "Nebraska" to "Reason to Believe". No filler whatsoever.
As a desert island disc I would probably choose Darkness, because I wouldn't want to be in a situation where I could never hear "Something in the Night" again. But if I'm just being asked to pick one over the other, I'd probably go with Nebraska.

[Galactus]

You guys are really doing a fantastic job with the albums reviews, instead of trying to compete I think I'm going to do a non album track series. The boss has a lot of great songs that for one reason or another got left off an album or took on a different life in a rearranged version. I'll be hitting a lot of songs from Tracks but live odds and ends, B-sides and bootlegs are all fair game. The first, coming later this afternoon, is my favorite sort of non-album track. The live 70's arrangement of Incident On 57th St. Specifically the version from the Main Point in '75.

[JACkory]

Oh, there's no competition here...if there was I'm afraid I'd lose to Ken's exceptional writing style.
I say write about whatever you want. If it's B-sides, unreleased tracks, bootlegs, whatever, that's cool. It needs to be done, and I'm sure you can do it. But don't limit yourself if you find that you want to write up an album sometime. Just do what you want to do. All things Springsteen, right?

I can't wait for Ken's Darkness piece. Is he gonna rip me a new one for my relatively low opinion of "Streets of Fire"? Will he chastise me for not giving enough props to "Prove It All Night"?
Ahh, patience...patience is required. I must have patience!

[Galactus]

Between you and Ken I just don't feel I have much to add to the individual albums. Don't worry I'll throw in my two cents...I have no idea how you don't like Streets Of Fire much btw, that's crazy talk.

[JACkory]

Well, I had to pick at least one "Least Favorite Track"...truth be told, I love every minute of Darkness. But one of 'em had to take a fall. It was between "Streets" and "Prove It All Night"...I think it was the Big Man's solo that saved the latter.

[Paul]

So I'm listening to pandora.com right now, and on my Wilco station it's playing "The Ties That Bind" from the River - it's a fuckin' good song.

That is all.

[Kensterberg]

Darkness on the Edge of Town.

I got this on vinyl in summer of '81. Major league baseball was on strike, my family had just moved from a small town in Iowa to friggin' tiny town on the Iowa-South Dakota border, I was sixteen, frustrated, and had become a Springsteen fan the previous fall/winter when "Hungry Heart" tore up top 40 radio and my mom got me The River for Christmas. I saved my pennies that summer, and splurged on a trip to Musicland, coming home with both Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. I remember the first time I cued up Darkness ... it was the middle of the afternoon and the rest of the family was out doing something. I cranked up our old hi-fi, dropped the needle on side one, track one, and was absolutely blown away. Though I had a total of only three of his recordings, at this point Bruce Springsteen was solidly entrenched as my favorite artist then working (this was before I'd discovered the Clash). I make no pretense to being any more objective about Darkness than about Born to Run, so anyone expecting scathing criticism ... oh hell, no one's expecting me to be that critical of Bruce. And even if I were so inclined, there's darn little to go after on this record.

*****

A lot of shit had gone down between the release of Born to Run in 1975 and the time when its follow-up finally reached stores in 1978, both for Bruce and in the world of music. Springsteen spent a good chunk of this time in legal conflict with his manager and record label, playing countless shows in order to keep himself more or less solvent, and writing, writing, writing. While the characters and situations in Born to Run were definitely desperate, it was a romanticized view of street life, where the glories of youth certainly at least equaled the draw-backs. By 1978, Springsteen's writing had taken a much darker slant, and now his characters were increasingly trapped by their situations, and no amount of running would ever take them away.

If Darkness is decidedly more downbeat than its predecessors, it is no less defiant. In the opening cut, Badlands, Springsteen first cries out that "poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, king's ain't satisfied untill they rule everything" and then rejects the defeatism which often accompanies such discoveries, first proclaiming that "I wanna go out tonight, I want to find out what I got" and then "I want to find one face that ain't looking through, and spit it in the face of these badlands." A brief solo from the Big Man arrives like a ray of sunshine in the midst of a storm, but it is only a glimpse of the possibility of salvation, a possibility which seems a long way off, even as the narrator affirms that "it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."

Roy Bittan's piano, Max Weinberg's pounding drums, and the guitars of both Springsteen and Miami Steve Van Zandt quickly establish a brutally rocking landscape in "Badlands," and the second track, "Adam Raised a Caine," is even more stark and brutal. Springsteen lets loose with a ferocious guitar assault on this number, while screaming out his hurt, rage, and frustration. On this record, Bruce begins to write about fathers and sons, a theme which will provide some of his most poignant and powerful moments over the next decade of his career. "Adam Raised a Caine," on which the prodigal son returns only to find that "you inherit the sins, you inherit the flames" is one side of this coin, and "Factory" on side two provides the other, as a boy watches his daddy going off to work day after day, slowly realizing that the job which puts food on the table is also slowly killing the man raising him. Musically, "Factory" is also the flip side of the roaring "Adam," where Bittan's bar-room piano gently pushes along a stately melody which somewhat echoes "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar. This also marks the first time that Bruce began to explore rock grooves that edge towards country meloncholy, but there is no more appropriate medium for lines like "men walk through these gates with death in their eyes ... you'd just better believe it, somebody's gonna get hit tonight, 'cause it's the working life."

And so it goes throughout this record, ordinary men and women find themselves in impossible situations, but never lose their resolve to keep fighting, even if the odds are stacked against them and the stakes are high. Nowhere is this better summarized than in the elegant, stately, stunning ballad, "Racing in the Streets." Once again, Bruce has crafted a tale of two young lovers and a car, but this time the curtain doesn't come down with the resolution that "I'm pulling out of here to win." Rather, despite being able to "shut 'em up and shut 'em down" both on the track and in the streets, the man is unable to keep his baby happy, unable to provide that pathway to the promised land. "She sits out in the porch of her daddy's house, and stares out with the eyes of one who hates for just being born," Bruce sings, although he still vows at the end that "tonight my baby and me, we're gonna ride to the sea and wash these sins off our hands," following which Bittan's piano, Danny Federici's organ, and Max Weinberg's perfect time-keeping combine to create a sort of rock and roll fugue, which if it doesn't quite deliver absolution, certainly grants an appropriate meditation for these fallen angels.

Side two opens with the promise that while "dogs on mainstreet howl, 'cause they understand," the singer still believes that there is a promised land. Again, the music, and particularly Clarence's magnificent sax solo, provide all the glimpse of salvation we need, and if Bruce's characters are once again less romantically stylized than their counterparts on earlier records, it only makes this story more universal and perhaps even more potent. This also represents a trend in Bruce's songwriting: "The Promised Land" is set "on a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert" and most of the rest of the tracks could play out anywhere in the country. There is no Magic Rat, no Spanish Johnny or Puerto Rican Jane on this record. This is a record about America at large, and while there are plenty of regional references, they only add details, and don't irrevocably tie any of the record to any one place. For the first time, Springsteen is writing for more than a regional audience, and he rises to the occassion.

"Streets of Fire" and "Prove It All Night" are another set of twins, the former being a slow-burn that climaxes explosively with Springsteen's howling "don't loo-oook at my face ... leave me stranded ... in these streets of fire," the latter a romping, almost playful number which promises at least the short term release of physical and romantic love. In both, however, the characters are not going to defeat the demons which have chased them into the night, into the darkness, for more than a little while at best.

Which brings us to the magnificent title track, one of the finest and most durable numbers in the Springsteen songbook. "Darkness on the Edge of Town" is the climax to all these tales, the place where all these characters ultimately must go, looking for answers that can only be found there, if at all. The verses are pure poetry, reaching their peak with the final stanza:

Some folks they're born into a good life,
and other folks they get it any way, any how.
I lost my money and I lost my wife, them things don't seem to matter much to me now.
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop.
I'll be on that hill with everything I got.
Where lives are on the line, where dreams are found and lost.
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.

Springsteen sings the song like his life depends on it, with cries out to the band during the instrumental breaks, summoning up all the energy in his soul to describe this desperate moment. It is an absolute classic moment, and it is all the more amazing that he's bettered it in numerous live performances. "Darkness on the Edge of Town" shares almost nothing with "Thunder Road" or "Born to Run," but like them it marks Springsteen as one of the greatest songwriters in rock.

Darkness on the Edge of Town is a stark, bulldozer of a record, the sound of Springsteen confronting the demons which had tormented him during its recording, as well as a head-on response to the sharper sounds emerging from the punk scenes in NYC and the UK, and the beginning of his pearing into the American soul. This last theme would be followed to its natural conclusions over Springsteen's next several releases, but Darkness remains a vital destination, a troubled path very much worth journeying, again and again and again, until that road finally makes it to the sea, and we can find the young lovers, and maybe a little redemption for ourselves as well.

Oh yeah, this is a five star album.
Favorite Tracks: "Badlands," "Adam Raised a Caine," "Racing in the Streets," "Darkness on the Edge of Town."
Least Favorite Tracks: um ... it's a tie between "Streets of Fire" and "Something in the Night," though I love both dearly.
Songs I love but didn't mention in the review: "Candy's Room," "Something in the Night"

[JACkory]

Damn, Holzman, why do you have to write so good? I am humbled in the presence of a master. If Rolling Stone had any credibility left at all I'd do my best to get you a writing gig there...not that I have any connections with Rolling Stone, but since they have no credibility anymore it's sort of a moot pount, eh?
Next up, The River.

[Galactus]

The Saint, The Incident & The Main Point Shuffle
The Main Point, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania- Feb 05 1975

Disc 1: (75:32)

1. Incident On 57th Street (10:40)
2. Mountain Of Love (3:22)
3. Born To Run (4:47)
4. The E Street Shuffle (12:58)
5. Wings For Wheels (6:55) - aka "Thunder Road"
6. I Want You (6:29)
7. Spirit In The Night (6:22)
8. She's The One (6:32)
9. Growin' Up (3:26)
10. It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City (3:58)
11. Jungleland (10:03)

Disc 2: (75:26)

1. Kitty's Back (11:44)
2. New York City Serenade (19:56)
3. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (12:35)
4. 4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) (6:46)
5. A Love So Fine (9:05)
6. For You (8:25)
7. Back In The U.S.A. (6:55)

I was going to just do Incident from this show but decided the whole show really deserves attention. It was a radio broadcast and if any show I've heard should get offcial release it's this one. The show opens with an intro by local DJ ED Sharky, he tells us after this show Bruce and the boys will head to europe and take over the world from there. Ed probably had no idea how right he was and that I can guarantee he was presiding over the greatest show in the world that night. A quiet piano begins, a beautiful violin accompanies and a slightly horse Bruce sings Spanish drove...
With that Bruce, Roy and Suki open the show with a ten minute ballad. It's an emotional ten minutes, Bruce pours himself into the characters often times not rising much above a whisper. I just imagine the audience, jaws agape wrapped in the tale of Spanish Johnny and Puerto Rican Jane. The as if the gods were conspiring to make the moment even more magical a police car, sirens whaling, drives by the club in perfect time to the violin outro. The club is so quite the mics pick it up as if it were part of the set, punctuating Johnny's ill fated last shot at a big score.

"That song was quite, this one's real loud" annouces Bruce before completely shifting gears into Moutain Of Love, a Johnny Rivers boogie that is indeed loud and joyous. Max's machine gun snare wastes no time heading straight in to Born To Run.

After a short burst, things slow down again for The E Shuffle, a funkier version of the same arrangement played at Hammersmith. The story of how Bruce and The Big Man meet never gets old and as the tale gets longer and more embellished Bruce give us a snicker before Sparks fly on E. Street...

Wings For Wheels is an early version of Thunder Road, notes tell us this is probably the first time the song has ever been played in front of an audience. True history, thought the true spark of the song was there yet and it sounds a bit sketchy and slightly out of place from the other songs that E Street Band play as though they've known them all their lives, though this incarnation had been together less then a year. Followed by Dylan's I Want You, another track that aside from the new Dylan doing the Old Dylan is a minor drag on the set. Spirit In The Night through Kitty's Back is as fiery and furious as then then new band would sound in the next thirty years. Imagine the best versions of those songs you've heard and these at least equal that.

On to the rarely played New York City Serenade, this time a funky bass line drives the song rather then the more acoustic album version. It builds and falls and builds again until it erupts in the finale of Bruce and the Big Man soaring with everything they've got. Followed by an exhausting Rosalita. Sandy leads into A Love So Fine a soul rave up that forces one to question after all this where the band gets the energy when finally the band takes a break, Bruce sticks around for a solo piano take on For You. The band returns for one last blast in form of Chuck Berry's Back In The USA. As a listener I can only imagine actually being there in what by the sounds wasn't a packed house, but the band gave it their all and more anyway. The has has quite justifiably been consistently voted one of the best "brucelegs" you can lay your grubby little hands on. Beaten out only by 1978's show from the Agora. A marathon show, a classic in it's own right. That show will be reviewed in my next installment.

[JACkory]

Excellent.
I have had zero luck with YSI or really any downloading software besides LimeWire (which I rarely use these days)...Is there a website where I can download this stuff? I'm kinda leary about downloading from blogs...I've gotten a lot unwanted stuff (ie. trojan horses, etc) just about every time I've tried DL'ing from a blog.
But after reading that review I am dying to hear it.
Any suggestions?

[Kensterberg]

That was a great write-up, DED. I listened to that show after reading it, and it is awfully good. I don't like it quite as much as you do, but goddamn it is awfully incredible. A few thoughts on a couple of tracks ...

"Wings for Wheels" is obviously a work in progress -- Bruce sounds like he's literally making up the words on the spot in the last half -- but it demonstrates just how fundementally sound (and catchy) the bones of "Thunder Road" are. The riff that turns into "the oh come take my hand, riding out tonight to case the promised land" on the final song here serves as something of a chorus, and it's the kind of hook that most writers would've repeated over and over (and over) again. Bruce obviously thought about giving the story a more conventional verse-chorus-verse structure, and discarded it in favor the minimalist powerhouse we now know and love. Historically, this is priceless, and gives me an even greater appreciation for one of my favorite songs.

"Jungleland" makes a nice contrast on here with the material from the first two albums, and showcases just what kinds of strides Bruce was making as a lyricist. While "Jungleland" has often been labled as "bloated" or "overblown," it is actually a much more concise (and powerful) reworking of the ideas (all of them) that were floating around on the second side of The E Street Shuffle. Melodically, it's miles ahead of "Incident" and "NYC Serenade" and the lyric is paired down dramatically from those numbers, and points the way to where Bruce wound up with his starkest stories in Nebraska. It's also amazing to me just how fully developed "Jungleland" was at this point. While "Wings for Wheels" was still a loooooong way from "Thunder Road," and "She's the One" which was musically complete but lyrically unfinished (combining what would become the final, powerful verse of "Backstreets"), "Jungleland" is essentially the finished product, a song that was as ready for release as "Born to Run" (which had already been leaked as a bootleg to Philly radio stations by that point).

Speaking of "She's the One" ... this just might be my favorite version of this song. The verse that wound up in "Backstreets" makes this into a potent and poignant rocker in which the woman in question becomes both the sizzling object of lust and Terri, the confident and ultimate betrayer in the latter song. Given that "Backstreets" became such a fixture of Bruce's live shows (and frankly it is a better song), I can understand why Bruce made the changes he did, but this is a case where "Backstreets'" gain was definitely at the expense of "She's the One." In any event, the version on here positively smokes.

And speaking of smoking ... anyone who only knew "It's Hard to be a Saint in the City" from the neutered reading on Bruce's debut had to be stunned by the workout it's given here. The song positively sizzles. Picking between this and the versions on the Hammersmith show or Live: 1975-85 is sort of like choosing your favorite kid.

Finally, like DED said, the performance's of "Kitty's Back," "Spirit in the Night" etc. are all in the running for definitive status, though every individual fan will have personal favorites. There isn't a single track on here that falls flat, IMO.

Even the cover of Dylan's "I Want You" effectively tackles the considerable challenge of adding something to His Bobness' original recording. There are essentially two obvious ways to sing this song: the sardonic and cynical style which Bob definitively set down on Blonde on Blonde, or the sickeningly sincere reading which Sophie B. Hawkins tried out in the early nineties. Bruce effectively charts a middle course, wherein he spits out the casual put-downs of the verses before letting out an achingly sincere, "I want you so bad" in each chorus. Bruce plays the song as a street-smart tough kid with a smart mouth who doesn't want to admit just how smitten he is with the girl in question, but who also can't keep up his cynical facade for too long at a time. Bruce marvelously conjures up every emotion implicit in Dylan's lyrics and melody without ever aping the original, and yet it is still recognizably the same song (despite dispensing with the original's keyboard and guitar hooks!).

OK, this was supposed to just be a few thoughts on a couple of songs ... sheesh, I definitely have diarrhea of the mouth, erm, keyboard, when it comes to analyzing Bruce's work. So I'll shut up now ... at least until after JAC posts his review of The River, and then you can expect a lengthy treatise on why it's every bit as good as both Darkness and Born to Run.

[Galactus]

Why you gotta make me look bad, ken?