Springsteen

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

113. The Bruce Countdown reaches the 1/3 mark with song #290, "One Way Street" -- a DARKNESS leftover (yesterday was song #289 if you're making bets on tomorrow's selection). Reviewer was right --this sounds like he should have gave it to Southside Johnny, as its very similar to "Love on the Wrong Side of Town."

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

114. "Good Eye" from WORKING ON A DREAM. Bruce sings the Rich Man In A Poor Man's Shirt Blues while singing through a distortion mic.

Never recall having heard this one before. Ranked No. 239

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

115. "We Are Alive" from WRECKING BALL. A Southwestern banjo tune about how dead people live, only not like zombies. Doesn't sound much like the E Street Band behind him. Ranked #201

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

116. "Paradise" from THE RISING. I can't think of the song this song is ripping off but there's a robbery or coincidence somewhere ("Sounds of Silence"??). Anyway, Bruce wanders among the dead.

I feel like the countdown is in a bit of a rut-- 6 in a row in the bottom third including this at 291

[metirish]

Definitely Aounds of Silence for me too

Man, some dark subject matter and lyrics

I gave always wanted to participate in this thread , but I have a hard time posting YouTube videos

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Bruce's wife has blood cancer, documentary film reveals

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

117. Today Bruce contributes "Girls in their Summer Clothes" from MAGIC. I recall picking up a lot of "best Springsteen track in two decades" buzz off this one when it was new. It's a lush pop song, apes Brian Wilson as the review indicates. Ranked 151.

[Edgy MD]

I love this ‘un and was totally down with the “BSTi2D” label, but my analog wasn’t Wilson/Beach Boys but Morrissey/Smiths.

In fact, since so much of the Smithsonian catalog is equal parts appealing and offputting, I tend to think of “GiTSC” as my second-favorite Smiths song. His voice is lush and fluid like a sawing cello, much like Melancholissey’s on “Every Day Is Like Sunday.”

One-fifty-one? It’s probably in my top twenty, and possibly top ten. Any latter-day BS track that I don’t want to bother with, I’m willing to give a tumble to because of “GiTSC.”

[Frayed Knot]

Higher on my theoretical list as well, and certainly the best latter day Bruce 'single'.
Rock radio had all but given up on playing anything new by this point but a radio friendly tune by an established icon like B.S. was one of
the few able to crack the wall and get permission to be played by the station bean counters.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

118. When BITUSA was new and I was pretty much disappointed with the with the whole thing and resentful of people who hadn't ever known about Bruce now wearing red-white-and-blue concert Ts and dancing on stage with him, I remember trying to get pumped up that there was one high-energy rocker on the album in "No Surrender" but even that failed to move me as much as I wanted it to. I kinda liked it, jangly and driving is a winning combo in my book, but I don't know if I ever had that kind of friendship.

Today I associate "No Surrender" with Ms. Met who made it her signature in ALL CAPS. It's also the lesser of the two big classic rock songs that got turned into idiotic statements of purpose by dumb people and dumber politicians. "I Won't Back Down" is the bigger culprit though.

Ranked #37

[whippoorwill]

Lolol as soon as I saw today was No Surrender I thought of Ms Met too.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

119. Well now if "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" wasn't Brian Wilson-y enough for you, Bruce is like OK, assholes, here's "This Life" from WORKING ON A DREAM. I dunno, this is just the direction Bruce was going at this time. At least he sneaks a sax solo at the end. Ranked 318, up there with most of that album.

[Edgy MD]

Remember the Putamayo label? They were the world music label that sold samplers in display dumps positioned near the counter at all your favorite progressive retail outlets from 1990-2009-ish. Sometimes they even had listening stations, so you could sample some Andean flute before you buy.

There may be something redeeming about Working on a Dream, but the cover art always turned me off, and I tend to think that it has prejudiced me (and maybe Countdown Guy, I don't know) against any track from that album.

Now, I'm thinking that it looks like a Western/Norteño sampler from Putamayo.

I don't know if it qualifies as bad cover art or just so non-Springsteeny that I just throw up my psychic defenses when I see it. Even a latter-day Springy album with a mystical name like Magic features a grim black-and-white portrait with monotone tints, the way God wanted. I don't know what to do with that Working on a Dream cover, but I can't give objective listens to the tracks without putting the cover out of sight. And not even then.

I guess it's kind of true of everything from the "Dancing in the Dark" video forward. The grab at superstardom felt like such a breach of trust that it has subsequently always been a challenge to know one's own damn mind about the what the guy is doing. That may be true of the people close to him too, and to Springsteen himself, quite possibly.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Bruce's album covers pretty much all suck even with the exceptions of those that not only don't suck but are icons of greatness like BTR. But DREAM is the worst of them

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

120. Charlie's finally out of the joint... or is he? And what he might do to go back? Find out with "Straight Time" from TOM JOAD, ranked 195.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

121. A strong candidate for the Bruce Histrionic Vocal Top 20, it's RIVER outtake "Mary Lou." Fun power pop song Bruce sings as though it's "Streets of Fire." Ranked 267.

I ain't playing outtakes, girl, from some late late show! No!!

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

122. Bruce always thinking about the workin' man at the end of his workin' day, even when doing falsetto power-pop. "Hurry Up Sundown" comes from AMERICAN BEAUTY, the 2014 "Record Store Day" EP. Ranked #299

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

123. The much-superior flipside to "Dancin' in the Dark" is Bruce's lusty ode to the vadge, "Pink Cadillac." This was included in the famous NEBRASKA cassette then recorded with the band, and is suspected to be reason they made the Honda Pilot and Subaru Ascent. Ranked #97

[Edgy MD]

I wonder how Clarence took it when told to just wait a few minutes, play that two-note phrase from "Peter Gunn," then wait a few minutes and play it again.

The original almost sounds a capella, but if you slide the master volume up, you just make out a bass-string pluck on the guitar. Lyrically, the metaphor is notably less veiled.




I think the release was originally labeled as a double-A-sider, but "DitD" got the video, so it was clearly first among equals.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

124. Bruce wrote "Cover Me" intending to gift it to Donna Summer as a rock song you could dance to; instead its a dance song that rocks. Probably the one I can stand to listen to the most from BITUSA. Video uses the slow-motion technique on a performance video fade-out. Captures 1984 fashions too. Ranked #82.

[Frayed Knot]

Good to hear that one. It's been a while.

[whippoorwill]

One of his growl-y bests!

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

125. Young Bruce pens a majestic song about wolfman fairies, "Lost in the Flood." I don't think I get the first verse all shot through with Catholic imagery, but "Still breathing when I walked away" is pretty powerful stuff. Ranked 98

Fun fact: Long time Bruce consigliere Steve Van Zandt's only contribution to the entire GREETINGS album was participating in the sound effect that starts this song. He wouldn't rejoin the band for another two years.

[Edgy MD]

And I said, "Hey kid, you think that's oil?
Man, that ain't oil, that's blood"

I'm not sure he ever topped this song poetically. Musically, it's got a lot of sections, trying to shoehorn all that versifying in, so I understand not putting it far forward, but still, it gets a higher ranking from me as the song everybody's older brother quoted as full of heaviness and truth.

At least part of that is his later commitment to brevity and stylistic minimalism. When he inducted Jackson Browne into the RnRHoF, he recalled playing on bills with JB, and all the guys going to the back and all the girls coming to the front when Jackson went on, being jealous, and telling himself that he has to write songs with fewer words.

I'm not sure what that says about his attitude toward women, but I sure would love to know what his career might have turned out like if he kept mining from this vein.

[Frayed Knot]

One of my 'underground' Bruce faves.
It's at least in part based on racially tinged riots in or around Asbury Park.

And while I don't tend to think of Jackson Browne as a lyrical minimalist (maybe compared to Bruce he was) but I think
it was more his looks that caused the females to move closer when he was on stage. The throw-away pop culture book
that was popular around that time, 'Real Men Don't East Quiche', cited Bruce & Jackson at opposite ends of the spectrum.
'Real Men' did listen to Springsteen, according to the authors, but decidedly did Not listen to J.B.