Working On A Dream

Working on a Dream is Springsteen's 24th studio album. I love it. It may be my favorite Boss album since Darkness on the Edge of Town. There was a time when I could have recited the lineage of his music, chronologically, alphabetically or phonetically. I've given that sort of thing up and now just enjoy the music. (Although I suspect I could give any Boss fanatic a run for his or her money.)

I was asked the other day why I haven't "grown up" and why I am like every other white guy born in the 60s and am in love with Springsteen. I don't know and I don't care. Label me what you will; that's your problem not mine. All I know is that his music cuts as close to the bone of my soul and heart as any other music or writing that I have encountered in my life. And that's enough for me.

This album follows 2007's Magic, a record underscored by fear, disgust and shame at the direction of the US under Bush. But now, as he plays to inaugurate a new president, the weight seems to have been lifted. The most political thing about Working On A Dream is that it is not political at all.

The Boss is in love, and doesn't care who knows it.

On Queen of the Supermarket, Bruce Springsteen drives a shopping cart rather than a Cadillac, swooning over a check out girl with wry tenderness. The E Street Band fill the supermarket aisles with a lush update of Roy Orbison-style operatic rock 'n roll.

At times the sentiments come close to Tin Pan Alley cheesiness. In Kingdom of Days he rhymes "I love you", "I do", and "blue", while also drawing attention to the moon and sun. Yet Springsteen is too substantial a songwriter to fall into cliché. The dark heart of love is glimpsed in the desperate epic Life Itself, while even the simplest songs contain hard won wisdom.

On rare occasions when he strays from amour it is to celebrate hearty male friendship. The album's opener, Outlaw Pete is a sprawling folk saga, comic and touching, with a wild arrangement that hearkens back to the kind of music Springsteen made in the early 70s, before he really started to define himself.

The epic qualities of the E Street Band's sound is easily pastiched (indeed, others have built entire careers on it, from Bon Jovi to the Hold Steady) but Springsteen is moving forward by looking backwards. He has clearly been listening to '5th Dimension' era Byrds, The Beach Boys, West Coast Psychedelia and even pre-rock big band ballads. The arrangements are as likely to include swoonsome strings and choral singing as Clarence Clemons' trademark ripe sax.
This, I suspect, is Springsteen's idea of a pop album. But don't accuse the Boss of going soft. If anyone can make romance sound like manly business, Bruce can.

Rock on.

Chris