#412
by George Hillman
Bruce Springsteen
The River
Genre: Bruce Springsteen
Allen’s Rating: 5 out of 5
George’s Rating: 5 out of 5
THE RIVER
Bruce Springsteen has always been my touchstone. As I have grown/evolved/died and been reborn The Boss has always been there for me. Not so much his later music but when life became odious Born to Run or Greetings From Asbury Park New Jersey was always in the first aid kit. Greetings seemed like he desperately vomited everything he had on the vinyl and Born to Run was as if Bob Dylan met Phil Specter’s “Wall of Sound”. The River was way down the list and mostly forgotten but as I listened for the first time in decades I realized this album was more important than I remembered. It was what happened between his beginning and what came later in the 80s, a transition. It was a reaction both good and bad to the disillusion he felt over the years long court battle to gain control over his career which produced Darkness on the Edge of Town. It was also a precursor to what was coming which was Nebraska and a move towards folk music. This was two albums in one because it also was a preview of Born in the USA. With all the great rock albums he made it’s interesting to note that he’s won two Grammies for best folk album and never won for rock.
Practically every song on this double album could be a novel length review, but aint that Springsteen who could always say more with less, “Down in the part of town where if you hit a red light you don’t stop.”
The album starts with The Ties That Bind which is the equivalent of the 1986 Red Sox leading off Spike Owen which they often did. We then ramble through the street party that is Sherry Darling and rock into Jackson Cage and Two Hearts, then comes the first check. We get our first hint at where Bruce would be headed later in the decade. Independence Day is a song about father son strife. Not a new topic for Bruce but this one cuts like a knife. “They aint gonna’ do to me what I watched them do to you” This line expresses love in the purest most heart breaking way. It reminds me of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”. Bruce sings as if his life was changing, and it is.
Hungry Heart was the hit, tame enough to be played on the radio. Nuf Sed.
Later in the decade Bruce’s charachters, which always drove his songs, became beaten down but on The River, despite running head long into adulthood and all the beat down that encompasses, they still had their strut, “When I’m out on the street I walk the way I want to walk.” Then we went down to The River. Like Dylans’ Maggie Farm this was Springsteens’ announcement that he was going in a different direction. ``
The first time I heard Point Blank was on WAAL in Binghamton NY. A very dark song for a top 40 station to put in their rotation. The story within a story of the singer seeing his ex on the street is very frightening. It made my girlfriend and I debate whether he actually shot her.
Cadillac Ranch was an upbeat rocker until a hearse passed by me one day and I saw the nameplate on the back and realized it wasn’t some rich ass hole taking his girl away, it was a hearse. In Springsteen canon the automobile was a vehicle of escape, redemption, now Bruce was saying there was no escape. “James Dean in that Mercury ’49, Junior Johnson Running through the hills of Caroline, even Burt Reynolds in that black Trans Am all gonna’ meet down at the Cadillac Ranch” which is a burial ground for classic Caddies outside of Amarillo Texas. Stolen Car doesn’t deceive with up tempo rock, it presents itself for what it is. This may be Springsteens’ best song ever. “All those letters” he wrote feel like the apocalypse as he fades into the darkness that is the rest of his life.
The album ends with Wreck on the Highway reminding us of Jim Morrisons’ dead Indians spread across the road in Dawns Highway. This song segues right into Nebraska which opens with Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate on their killing spree.
This album seems like a mind fighting with itself. Unlike Sandinista by The Clash, another double album that is a two in one [one good, one that sucked] both sides of this mind are great.
https://open.spotify.com/album/6YNIEeDWqC09YIWzhoSVLg?si=FwxWqjSPR5aitDBYIDZC3w
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