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Bruce's Vivid Dream

Posted by pblackwell | 02/05/09

In the course of his new record called "Working On A Dream", Bruce Springsteen has managed to confound fans and critics alike - some of whom love it, some of whom loathe it. They even love and loathe in the same breath.
So like any genuine Bruce fan, I gave the CD a few listens before offering an opinion - and the thing didn't sound like anything masterful at first, with its stytlistic mood changes from pure bliss to sadness.
Yet it grew on me, for as with so many of Bruce's other records, the songs' lyrics rang true, the choruses were instant sing-alongs and a deep wisdom ultimately comes out of the whole project by the time it's done.
No American musician I know has taken the kind of journey Bruce has undergone in the last seven years alone. From the post-9/11 reassurance of "The Rising" to journeys into darkness ("Devils and Dust") and roots music ("The Seeger Sessions"), to the righteous anger of "Magic", he spent the Bush years constantly reinventing his prose, with and without his E Street mates.
Which leads to "Working On a Dream", perhaps a summation of this entire journey, though most of the songs celebrate love and contentment - something that many find to be banal, but it might be just we need as a companion into the Obama years.
The long Western tale "Outlaw Pete" doesn't fit in with the pure sun of "My Lucky Day" and the title track that follow. Yet they're all grand in sound and scale, as if Bruce is finding his old "Born to Run" ambition with optimism only gained through a life well lived.
Many have knocked "Queen of the Supermarket", but in the end the song's protagonist and his innocent crush (though why the F-bomb at the end?) win you over and cause a smile. They wrote a lot of songs like this in rock's early days.
With "This Life" Bruce goes all-out Spector on us, then in the next swoop heads to an acoustic lull with "Tomorrow Never Knows". But the best parts come in the last four tracks.
In "Kingdom of Days", Bruce actually celebrates his old age, the small things like the sun and the moon, even the wrinkles and grays, in an achingly beautiful song. Then he goes right to "Surprise Surprise", a great song with a timeless chorus.
Beneath all this happiness, of course, is a sense that it will all end soon. Thus "The Last Carnival", a plain-spoken ode to late E Street keyboardist Danny Federici, and the beautiful theme song from "The Wrestler" that closes the record.
What irony that, in "The Wrestler" Bruce sings about a man that's a one-trick pony - something he's never been as a musician. On his way to being, arguably, rock's last true ambadassor, Bruce Springsteen has always been bold enough to change directions, whether his followers want to go there or not...

CATEGORY: Music

TAGS: Bruce Springsteen, new album, thoughts

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