I'm lovin the conversation between you two about the transformation of 'passion' in an aging Bruce.
And "viscerally arising honesty" is a perfect phrase for many of Bruce's live performances, Steven. I really like that.
Kush wrote:His earlier writing was perhaps not "wise" (in the sense of a man of age and experience) but very very real. Like the following....I cant see him writing lines of this quality recently....now its more disguised and even artful.
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold
Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode
Explode and tear this whole town apart
Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart
Find somebody itching for something to start
Just about every song on Darkness has that searing darkness. It was the anger of a young man about the weight of his family's unresolved pain that was projected onto him; their 'lies':
Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames
Adam raised a Cain
and
End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
And you just better believe, boy,
somebody's gonna get hurt tonight
and
I'm wandering, a loser down these tracks
I'm dying, but girl I can't go back
'Cause in the darkness I hear somebody call my name
And when you realize how they tricked you this time
And it's all lies but I'm strung out on the wire
In these streets of fire
I live now, only with strangers
I talk to only strangers
I walk with angels that have no place
Streets of fire
and
You hear the voices telling you not to go,
They made their choices and they'll never know,
What it means to steal, to cheat, to lie,
What it's like to live and die.
and etc.
...all sandwiched between Badlands and Darkness the song. There is an incredible drive there, to throw off the old and find something real. I too love that old Bruce screaming for freedom. Fast forward to Bruce these days and he has dealt with most of his demons that he pursued with youth's passion. But even when the past is put to rest, the present hits you with stuff - other people's tragedies, aging, death of loved ones, deciding what's real after all, and etcetera. WoaD seems a bit mild in comparison, but it does contain a lot of wisdom, conveyed in simple terms, as is the way of wise old men. Not that Bruce is an old man. But he's not young anymore either.
Dammit.
I miss the wild poetry of the early albums. But he still delivers the old songs, even though they are not what he would
write these days. For You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCY1_msUYPQ
Princess cards she sends me with her regards
barroom eyes shine vacancy, to see her you gotta look hard
Wounded deep in battle, I stand stuffed like some soldier undaunted
To her Cheshire smile. I'll stand on file, she's all I ever wanted.
But you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts
honey, get your carpetbaggers off my back
you wouldn't even give me time to cover my tracks.
You said, "Here's your mirror and your ball and jacks".
But they're not what I came for, and I'm sure you see that too
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
and your cloud line urges me, and my electric surges free
Crawl into my ambulance, your pulse is getting weak
reveal yourself all now to me girl while you've got the strength to speak
Cause they're waiting for you at Bellevue with their oxygen masks
But I could give it all to you now if only you could ask.
And don't call for your surgeon even he says it's too late
It's not your lungs this time, it's your heart that holds your fate
Don't give me money, honey, I don't want it back
you and your pony face and your union jack
well take your local joker and teach him how to act
I swear I was never that way even when I really cracked
Didn't you think I knew that you were born with the power of a locomotive
able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?
And your Chelsea suicide with no apparent motive
you could laugh and cry in a single sound.
And your strength is devastating in the face of all these odds
Remember how I kept you waiting when it was my turn to be the god?
You were not quite half so proud when I found you broken on the beach
Remember how I poured salt on your tongue and hung just out of reach
And the band they played the homecoming theme as I caressed your cheek
That ragged, jagged melody she still clings to me like a leech.
But that medal you wore on your chest always got in the way
like a little girl with a trophy so soft to buy her way
We were both hitchhikers but you had your ear tuned to the roar
of some metal-tempered engine on an alien, distant shore
So you, left to find a better reason than the one we were living for
and it's not that nursery mouth I came back for
It's not the way you're stretched out on the floor
cause I've broken all your windows and I've rammed through all your doors
And who am I to ask you to lick my sores?
And you should know that's true...
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
and your cloud line urges me, and my electric surges free
And we still forgive him for not writing stuff like that anymore, because he did write that stuff, and, really, because we have to grow older too, whether we want to or not. Sometimes I don't mind, sometimes I do.
Back to catching up:
That is a brilliant video from Barcelona. There is a deliberate 'eastern' feel to this song which adds to its intensity, particularly live. All the expressions that pass across his face during this song are compelling, and with the sweat on his face complementing the blood and the tears in the song.
Diane....most sounds in the E Street Band and the way they play it is quite aggressive sort of in-your-face. Not all the time but a majority of the time. The guitars, sax, drums, even the late great Phantom Dan. Soozie's violin playing is more laid back and offers a contrast. Roy Bittan is the bridge and Gary Tallent the foundation.
Yep, Soozie’s violin is very sweet, adds a gentle haunting sound. I like the way you describe the band, who meld effortlessly after all these years together. I wouldn’t call the sound aggressive though, even when Steve or Nils and Max are going full tilt. Vivid is what I’d call it, maybe. I like music to be fairly intense to hold my attention. Life itself burns doesn’t it. And within that there are many subtleties, all the way down to faint whispers. Bruce and the band portray all that. In this song, some of the ‘whispers’ are in the violin, and the bells of Clarence’s tambourine, and in Patti’s vocals. And in parts of the lyrics. Or between the lines, or I don't know where. It's just 'all' there.
Found this old video of Springsteen & E street from 1985 (Paris) of Out in the Street and many more. Look at Patti go...she dont move her body so brave and so free anymore, but this is a fine memory to remember. But then she is 56 (and hardly looks it actually). She dont smile so free anymore either though...that can't hurt!
Yes Patti did used to be a bit more lively on-stage. But I think generally it's just not in her nature to be flamboyant, and that's OK, really. There's video of Tougher than the Rest on you tube which has concert footage of Bruce and Patti on the Tunnel of Love Tour, where you can see the sparks flying between the two of them. (I can't get the video but I'm pretty sure it's the one with 1,241,389 views.)
One thing that strikes me about Patti and Bruce is that the only song he has ever written obviously about her (well, before this most recent album anyhow), is the risqué Red Headed Woman,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfPZQBWa5k.
(There is another vid. somewhere on youtube in which Bruce explains in detail in the intro what this song is about, as if it were not clear enough but he does have quite a devilish side to him
.)
You might think Patti would have preferred a romantic song dedicated to her, but the fact that she allowed him to publish this song is testament to the amount of trust there must be in their relationship. And he is saying, 'no woman does it for me like Patti' which is a pretty huge compliment. I have been listening to the one album I have of hers - Rumble Doll - while I write this post. I listen to relatively few female artists so finding a good album is always a bonus. She has an edge to her voice for sure. Love's Glory is my current favourite song.
More later.
), and also a lot of visceraly arising honesty that 