BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen
Co-Produced by Brendan O'Brien
Released January 14, 2014
While I have harbored a long standing admiration and appreciation for the music, art, artistry and songwriting of Bruce Springsteen, I have not actually listened to his music terribly much.
Yes, the very first Bruce Springsteen album I ever owned was "Born To Run" (released August 25, 1975), given to me as a Christmas present sometime during my formative years. Furthermore, I own several other Springsteen albums as well, including "The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle" (released September 11, 1973) and "Nebraska" (released September 30, 1982) as personal favorites. I also possess a copy of Songs, Bruce Springsteen's commemorative book of lyrics, commentaries and panorama of archived photographs from 1998. Even so, and regardless of my unshakable fascination with the man, which only builds anytime I happen to witness live footage of him in action or regard his powerfully insightful and compassionate political essays and statements, I think that my lack of deep musical interest may rest in the pure Americana of the music. While Springsteen's music always packs a wallop and is indeed passionately poetic, it does seem to go against my personal tastes which lean heavily towards sounds, music and artists that are and/or sound more European. That said, Bruce Springsteen has remained a massive fixture, whose musical shadow looms titanically large, even from the my personal peripheries.
And yet, I found myself once again making an unexpected purchase.
Maybe I was inspired by the sentiments and emotions stirred by the recent Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday or maybe it was through something even more inexplicable, but I am now in possession of a copy of Bruce Springsteen's 18th album, "High Hopes," a collection of previously unreleased tracks, new studio version of songs previously released in live versions, and three cover songs. In addition to featuring seven collaborations with Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, "High Hopes" also features some of the final recordings by the deceased and dearly departed E Street Band members, organ, accordion and glockenspiel player Danny Federici and saxophonist Clarence "The Big Man" Clemons. While this may make the album seem to be nothing more than a hodge podge collection of odds and sods, you would be sorely mistaken as Bruce Springsteen's "High Hopes" is a musical experience so clear eyed and focused with laser like precision that for several selections throughout the album, the full voluminous power of the music often and surprisingly nearly brought me to tears. At the beginning of 2014, "High Hopes," with its collection of stories, character portraits and political commentaries and observations, congeals so richly that the album feels as if we are hearing Bruce Springsteen's State Of The Union address. In a new music year so young, "High Hopes" is a high watermark, especially for an artist who has absolutely nothing left to prove.
"High Hopes" opens with the title track, itself a percussion and horn fueled re-recording of a non-Springsteen original from the rare "Blood Brothers-EP" (released in 1996) and its inclusion for this project was inspired by Tom Morello who performed this track with Springsteen's E Street Band on tour. Despite being written nearly 20 years ago, the song is feverishly up to the minute. Brilliantly setting the scene for the entire album, "High Hopes" perfectly encapsulating the speed of life we all face in the 21st century ("Monday mornin' runs to Sunday night," Springsteen exclaims. "Screamin' slow me down before the new year dies."), the depletion and divisive nature that is currently eroding the middle class ("Before the meek inherit they'll learn to hate themselves"), and the urgent pleas from everyday people for a piece of mind and a secure place at the societal table ("I wanna buy some time and maybe live my life/I wanna have a wife, I wanna have some kids/I wanna look in their eyes and know/they stand a chance"). Yet, through all of the trials, the repeated chants of "I got high hopes" illustrates that to face one more day, to keep moving forwards, sometimes those very hopes are all one has.
The album surges forwards into the underworld with a tense mood piece, the immediately involving and darkly enveloping "Harry's Place," a tale of neighborhood gangsters and thieves, which does not sound terribly far removed from Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets" (1973) or the wise guys of David Chase's "The Sopranos."
On the album's third selection, Springsteen delivers his first powerhouse of the album, a new studio recording of "American Skin (41 Shots)," originally written as a memorial in 2000 for Amadou Diallo, the unarmed 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea who was murdered by four plain-clothed police officers with a combined total of 41 gunshots, somehow mistaking his wallet for a firearm.
Now in 2014, and after the brutal murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, who was later acquitted, "American Skin (41 Shots)", is a precise and brutally painful description of what it means to be Black, most specifically a Black man in American. It is here where Springsteen's skills as a writer, storyteller and even journalist are paramount, as he presents his material great empathy, which never arrives as condescending or filled with any sense of "white guilt."
As he narrates the morning ritual of Lianna getting hr son ready for school, Springsteen's lyrics soon express this character's voice. "She says, 'On these streets Charles, you've got to understand the rules/If an officer stops you, promise me you'll always be polite/That you'll never, ever run away/promise Momma you'll keep your hands in sight." And then, we reach the masterful song's chorus, "Is it a gun, Is it a knife, Is it a wallet, this is your life/It's no secret...my friend/You can get killed just for living in your American skin." This is matter-of-fact songwriting presented without hyperbole. Just the cold, hard, ugly facts that no matter the strides towards racial equality, no matter the presence of a Black man in the White House, being born with a certain color of skin just may bring an end to your life. I knew this song when it was first performed and gained attention but for now, as it encapsulates all Black men, like his classic "Streets Of Philadelphia" spoke for any souls affected by AIDS, Springsteen again finds not just the voice but the soul of his subjects, hopefully bringing a newfound sense of understanding for those who previously did not and empathy for those who know only too well. With the call and response singing, Morello's atmospheric guitar work merged with the tough beauty of Springsteen's voice and songwriting, "American Skin (41 Shots)" is a song that truly cuts to the bone.
Only three songs in to "High Hopes" and the fullness of the work was starting to reveal itself to me, a feeling which was confirmed over the remaining 10 selections. It would seem that "High Hopes" is quite possibly arranged and designed to serve as a companion piece or even as a more electrified extension from Springsteen's "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" (released April 25, 2006) as the tracks that make up "High Hopes" are essentially folk songs performed with prime rock and roll energy and fury. While we have turbulent first person narratives of workers pushed to the limits (a cover of The Saints' "Just Like Fire Would" and the haunting "Down In The Hole"), Springsteen also offers superlative comfort, inspiration and uplift to keep pushing forwards no matter what obstacles are being hurled at us. It is an album where Springsteen pays joint tribute to the fallen of Vietnam as well as deceased bandmate Danny Federici ("The Wall"), declares that love still remains even when all seems dark (the playful "Frankie Fell In Love") and the once spectral acoustic track "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" is transformed into a sonic behemoth, complete with Tom Morello's guitar fireworks.
What reached me the deepest throughout "High Hopes" was Springsteen's mission of attaining spiritual deliverance during an era which is filled with increasing spiritual decay. "This Is Your Sword" and the album's closing track, a stunning, gripping cover of Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream," provide the album with its rich and cumulative emotional core as they are the two selections that implore us, through lyrics that sometimes arrive as a mantra, to keep having those high hopes, even when the world appears to be reaching its end. And through all of our endeavors and tribulations, Springsteen beautifully advises us with the following lyrics:
"This is your sword, this is your shield
This is the power of love revealed
Carry it with you wherever you go
And give all the love that you have in your soul"
With "High Hopes," that very sense of Americana that maybe has kept some of Bruce Springsteen's music at somewhat of a distance with me is precisely what drew me into this new collection. Springsteen is presenting to us an America that completely represent that world in which we live and breathe right at this point in time of our collective history. And again, I am amazed with how he has taken all of this music of the past and re-contextualized it all so that it is firmly of the present.
"High Hopes" is yet one more musical document that entirely shows all of us just why Bruce Springsteen is called "The Boss" and remains the sole holder of such a prestigious title. For he is indeed the very Boss all of us would hope to have. One who would inspire, not ask of us anything that he was unwilling to perform himself and not only lead us into battle, but would take the bullets for us and with us.
"High Hopes" finds Bruce Springsteen standing with arms strongly outstretched, mightily perched from the pulpit. Yet, this is not an album of proselytizing or of him preaching to the choir. "High Hopes" is imploring everyone, absolutely everyone, to join in with the choir as we all sing and march onwards and...ahem...hopefully upwards together.
No comments:
Post a Comment