Bruce Springsteen signed with Columbia Records as a solo artist. Although his name is forever tied to the E Street Band none of his (studio) albums are by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, only Bruce Springsteen. Singer and band were inducted separately into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame (even though members of the band lobbied hard that it should be together). The E Street Band are integral to Springsteen’s mojo but he has always kept a separation between Bruce Springsteen and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. 

“The River” though, is Bruce and the band’s band album. A record that tries to capture what they do on stage, in the studio. A record that tells you about years and years of one night stands in Boardwalk bars and the musicians it made of this bands members. It’s borne out of endless repetitions of “Louie Louie” and “I Fought The Law” for the drinkers and the dancers. But it also tells you about the troubles of those drinkers and dancers when the rave-ups calm down and its quieter, with only the band, the bartender and the lost and lonely left at the bar. To balance out “Sherry Darlings” exuberance there is “Stolen Car”s loss and regret, For all of “Crush On You” and “Cadillac Ranch”s bravado there are the lives that didn’t turn out as planned in “Point Blank” and "Fade Away”. 

Side 1 is an adrenaline rush of 60’s garage band euphoria. “The Ties That Bind”, “Sherry Darling”, “Jackson Cage” and particularly “Two Hearts” thunder along but are bought back down at the end by Springsteen’s first truly great song about his relationship with his father. “Independence Day” tells of a father and son relationship that knows each of their importance to each other but cannot be contained in close proximity. A father set in his ways and a son that wants more out of life but which are still the things a father wants for his son. It’s a brutally honest look at Springsteen’s connection with his Dad and one of the songs he feels is at the heart of what “The River” is about.

Side 2 gets back to that bar band we know so well. “Hungry Heart” was the albums lead single, Springsteen’s first big hit single and still a huge song in his live shows where the crowd always take the first verse before The Boss picks up the chorus. Then we’re back to that garage band feel with “Out In The Street”, “Crush On You” and "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" before the garage ballad of “I Wanna Marry You” which gives you a picture of the barroom lovers dancing in a spotlight while the band plays….and then…  

The first half of the album ends with the song “The River”. The opening harmonica wail sets the tone and I’m betting that at a live show every hair on the back of every neck on every person stands up and every one gets that shiver. He’s played “The River” on seven of the eight occasions I’ve seen him live, there’s only “Born To Run” I’ve heard all eight times so it’s clear how important the song is to Springsteen himself. It’s a song of love and hope and despair, yes at its heart it’s the story of his sister and her husband but here Springsteen also starts introducing some of the themes he’ll expand on in a few years time, we’re all proud Americans but The USA we were born into isn’t working for us. This is another Bruce Springsteen, he’s still singing about cars and girls but in a very different way to how he dealt with those subjects on “Born To Run”. I’d argue this song is where the Bruce Springsteen we’ve come to know since the mid-80’s mega stardom of “Born In The USA” begins.

The second half is a little more subdued. You still get the bar band garage rockers like live favourites “Cadillac Ranch”, “Ramrod” and “I’m A Rocker”, but there are far more of the slower, introspective songs in part two. The superb “Stolen Car”, “Fade Away” and “Wreck On The Highway” stand out. Side Four is however home to what is almost certainly my least favourite of Springsteen’s songs, “Drive All Night”. It’s an eight and a half minute dirge about what I recall as driving all night to buy your girl some shoes (I know that’s not what it’s about but that’s what it feels like). 

We went to see Springsteen in Kilkenny in Ireland in 2013 on the Wrecking Ball tour. One of the reasons for going to Ireland was that, unusually for Springsteen, there were to be support acts. One of them was Damien Dempsey which we were incredibly excited about and the other was Glen Hansard of The Frames (and maybe more famously to most “The Commitments”). Damien was great as always and Glen Hansard played for far too long and I didn’t really enjoy any of it. Toward the end of his set Springsteen announced he wanted to invite someone out to sing with him. Out trotted Mr Hansard and “Drive All Night” was the song they were to perform. This time a song on record that feels like it lasts a lifetime dragged on for what I swear were several of them, hells teeth I thought it would never end !

“The River” marks a change in Bruce Springsteen. His next album won’t feature a band at all, the one after that will shoot him into the “pop” mainstream and after that he becomes quite the changed character. Part of that is a reaction to that elevation to being a “pop” star that he really didn’t like and part of it stems from the breakdown he suffered during this whole period which he documents in his biography “Born To Run” (well worth a read BTW). We’re in the eye of the period where Springsteen is developing into one of the great songwriters of our times, and he’s still working it all out.

Stolen Car - https://youtu.be/f0RNWwXcQiU?si=dd-D8T5tl5MoOgnw

Following the arrival of Jon Landau as producer of “Born To Run” and subsequently as his manager, replacing Mike Appel, Springsteen sued Appel in July 1976 to win back ownership of his work. The court case had the knock-on effect of preventing Springsteen from recording for a year, during which time he and the E Street Band played every 2nd and 3rd rate venue and town in America. The legalities were settled in May 1977 and he was ready to record again.

During the absence from the studio Springsteen wrote up to 70 new songs and sessions began on June 1st 1977 for what would become “Darkness On The Edge Of Town”. These sessions were far from quick and far from easy. The lawsuit with Appel was settled on 28th May 1977 and Springsteen and his band started recording 4 days later. The sessions ran until March of 1978 across two studios (Atlantic and the Record Plant) with Springsteen demanding perfection from his bandmates while giving them very little idea what he actually wanted.

Of the reported 70 songs written for these sessions 32 are known to have been recorded. 10 made it to the album, three (“Independence Day”, “Sherry Darling” and “Ramrod”) were held over for his next release and many of the others were gifted to other artists: "Hearts of Stone" and "Talk to Me" to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, "Because The Night" to Patti Smith, "Fire" to Robert Gordon, "Rendezvous" to Greg Kihn, "Don't Look Back" to the Knack and "This Little Girl" to Gary U.S. Bonds. Many of the leftover songs (22 of them in fact) were finally released in one form or another in 2010 as the album “The Promise”***. 

“Badlands” kicks things off with a drum roll and a classic Roy Bittan piano intro but the opening lyrics aren’t telling us of bucolic scenes and visions of Mary, things are altogether less idyllic “Light's out tonight, Trouble in the heartland, Got a head-on collision, Smashin' in my guts, man, Caught in a crossfire, That I don't understand”. A darker scene is set for what is to follow.

“Adam Raised a Cain” is the first installment in Springsteen’s look at relationships between a father and a son, a subject he would return to again and again. “Something In The Night” begins as though we’ve broken through some clouds into the bright sunlight but the lyrics tell a different story of being alone, drinking, driving listening to the radio and always coming back to “something in the night”, a metaphor for depression (?), something Springsteen has admitted to wrestling with for years. 

Side One closes with with one of my absolute favourite of Springsteen’s songs, “Racing In The Street”. The chorus is based on Martha & The Vandellas “Dancing In The Street” (“Summer’s here and the time is right for racing in the street”) the song however is so much less upbeat than any Motown. The two main characters could easily be the boy and girl from “Thunder Road” or “Born To Run” but instead of showing a little faith or busting out of here their lives have taken another turn. He races cars while she, instead of dancing, “sits on the porch of her Daddy’s house” where “all her pretty dreams are torn”. These aren’t the hopeful dreamers anymore, these are people upon whom the world has settled its woes and started to crush them. It’s an utterly beautiful song and Roy Bittan’s closing piano offers hope that their lives will be better after they’ve been to sea “to wash these sins off our hands”. I’ve been waiting since I first saw Springsteen in 1981 to hear it live again, if that happens in Cardiff on Sunday (he has been playing it on this tour) there might be tears.

“The Promised Land” opens Side Two with a title that seems to offer something a little less ominous, and indeed it begins on a more optimistic note with our subject working hard and ready to take charge of his life. But by songs end he can see the dark clouds and the approaching storm, hoping it might “Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and broken hearted”. In a glimmer of hope though he still believes in a Promised Land.

“Factory” transforms “Born To Run”s “Mansions of glory” into ”mansions of fear” and “mansions of pain” in a song generally about working men yet specifically about his Dad and the effect factory life had on their family. “Streets of Fire” is desparate, it doesn’t like itself, it’s the sound of loneliness and giving up. Bruce’s voice and Danny Federici’s swirling Hammond organ at the start give it the sound of a funeral dirge to go with lyrics like “I live now, only with strangers, I talk to only strangers, I walk with angels that have no place”.

“Prove It All Night” was this albums lead single and has become an important song in Springsteen’s cannon. It was the 2nd song on the set list the first time I saw him, it was the 3rd song on the set list the last time I saw him 42 years later. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, how well you do in life, you gotta prove yourself over again every time, the never ending struggle is  what is being related. The album closes with its title track. Again, like “Racing In The Street”, our protaganists could well be the boy and girl from “Thunder Road” or “Born To Run” but the ensuing years have dragged them down. They’ve parted, she has moved on, he is resigned to a life alone. It’s a beautiful if tragic song with another wonderful performance by Roy Bittan.

“Darkness On The Edge Of Town” is structured very much like “Born To Run”, each side is bookended by big statement songs (“Badlands” and “Racing In The Street” on side 1, “The Promised Land” and title song on side 2) while the other songs fill in the details between. But if “Born To Run” was built from pure romantic fantasy, “Darkness On The Edge of Town” presents the flipside of harsh reality. 

The sound of “Darkness…” is markedly different to its predecessor, where “Born To Run” was made in cinematic, widescreen technicolour “Darkness…” is smaller, more claustrophobic, taughter (more taught ?), it’s all very tense, not quite black and white but definitely closer to sepia tinted. I’m not saying it sounds rushed but there is a feeling of urgency about it. Some drum parts sound unfinished, there is a hint of out of tune-ness about some guitar parts. It has an air of “we’ve done that let’s get on to the next thing” about it all. The mix is very dry and flat (well that’s what it sounds like to me).

The clue is right there in the title isn’t it ? “Darkness On The Edge of Town” is dark. If “Born To Run” was the early morning sunlight and the bright lights of the city then “Darkness…” is the dusk followed by endless night. It’s not asking you to take chances, it’s telling you how your life might be after living out those dreams, the characters are less carefree and definitely feeling the pressures of what their lives have become.

Springsteen said of this album in a 1987 interview “That whole Darkness record was about that [what happens after you realise the dream]. I wanted to come back and confront some things. What had happened after “Born to Run” ? Where were my friends ? Where were the people that mattered to me ? My frivolous little trip–okay, it was fun, but in and of itself it just didn’t hold enough to keep me very fascinated.”

Racing In The Street - https://youtu.be/cm9UuM3UXdc?si=1dgtV9Oc9aFU5T0u

*** A quick note on my feelings about “The Promise”. It seems to be regarded these days as an “official” Springsteen release rather than a compilation of unreleased material (see “Tracks”). It’s one of the very few Springsteen official releases I don’t own on vinyl (“Live In New York City”, the plugged in Unplugged album and “Only The Strong Survive” among them). I do own “The Promise” on CD and I’ve listened to it quite a lot in an attempt to discover what it is about it that sends some of The Bosses fans into absolute raptures. To me it sounds like exactly what it is which is, with very few exceptions (“Because The Night” and “Fire”), a collection of substandard demo’s and outtakes. I can’t think of anything on “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” that I would lose to be replaced by anything from “The Promise”.

I first heard this record after getting my first tax rebate, aged 18, that would put it sometime after April 1981, and asking a work colleague for a recommendation on an album to buy that was outside of what I would usually listen to. That work colleague, Rob, said  “Born To Run” without hesitation. I went to the record shop at the end of the street (Inferno  Dale End in Birmingham. I was possibly even served by Simon Efemey who I have worked with for years he being The Wonder Stuff’s long time sound engineer but at this time was the manager at Inferno), bought a copy and fell for it the very first time I played it. Me and Rob are still friends, we’ve been to see the Boss and the E Street Band together a couple of times and I’ve thanked him many times over for that suggestion.

After 2 critically, if not sales wise, well received albums “Born To Run” felt like it needed to be “the one” for Bruce Springsteen

“I wanted to make the greatest rock record that I’d ever heard, and I wanted it to sound enormous and I wanted it to grab you by your throat and insist that you take that ride, insist that you pay attention, not to just the music, but just to life, to feeling alive, to being alive.”

Recording had begun in May 1974. Columbia had given Springsteen a huge budget in order to achieve that elusive hit. Springsteen was aiming for a “wall of sound” effect but recordings got bogged down. By the Spring of 1975 manager/Producer Mike Appel had been replaced by Jon Landau (a journalist and confidante of Springsteen’s and, since this period, his manager) and engineer Jimmy Iovine. The sessions proceeded much more successfully.

“Born To Run” was released in August 1975 with a huge marketing campaign prominently featuring Landau’s quote from a live review of a show in Boston, “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen”. It worked, the album charted in the US in the second week of September 1975 peaking at #3. It broke Springsteen to the US and the world and has been certified 7x Platinum in the US (7 million sales).

The album is a loosely connected series of stories all taking place during one long summer day and night. Springsteen has said that it introduced "characters whose lives I would trace in my work...for decades”. It opens with the early morning harmonica of “Thunder Road”. You are introduced to the album’s central characters and its most important question…do you want to take a chance? Springsteen has described “Thunder Road” as an invitation, you can stay here where things will remain the same and you’re comfortable and safe or…you can jump in this car with me and we can see this world and have an adventure together.

“…Hey what else can we do now? Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair

Well the night's busting open these two lanes will take us anywhere…”

And so the adventure begins. “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” tells the story of the E Street Band (this was the first album featuring pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg) and their “full on block party” as Springsteen has described it. “Night” has one of our characters doing what he does, working all day with the boss on his back, then finding that girl, jumping in his car and losing himself in the night.

Side 1 finishes with “Backstreets”. We saw Springsteen in July last year in Italy and he played this song, the first time I’d heard it live since 1988 on The Tunnel Of Love Express tour. On the surface it’s a boy meets girl, they have a great time and then split up song. Springsteen has said it’s about

“…youth, the beach, the night, friendships, the feeling of being an outcast and kind of living far away from things in this little outpost in New Jersey. It's also about a place of personal refuge. It wasn't a specific relationship or anything that brought the song into being.”

It’s one of “Born To Run”s epic set pieces that frame each side of the album, with the other songs supplying the little details in between. If you read his biography which shares a title with this album, many of the events places and characters in songs like “Backstreets” are in there so you know he was writing from experience.

Side 2 of “Born To Run” kicks off like a freight train smashing through a brick wall. That machine gun drum intro (played by Ernest ‘Boom’ Carter, the only Springsteen recording he ever played on. How about that as a claim to fame) is quickly followed by the now famous 6 note riff and the set up “In the day we sweat it out on the streets, Of a runaway American dream”. It’s a song about moving forward, getting away, freedom. It’s got that same invitation that “Thunder Road” had, are you willing to step into the unknown to look for something (better) ? “Tramps like us, Baby we were born to run”…and you thought he was just singing about cars and girls…

“She’s The One” is a love song driven by the Bo Diddley beat. Dance music for that hot summer evening. “Meeting Across The River” is a story within a story. Two small time Jersey guys are gonna cross the river to do a little favour for someone in the Big Apple and they just gotta be cool and they’ll earn some big bucks. It sits beautifully in a gentle Jazzy setting (Trumpet by the great Michael Brecker) and is a song of hope, aspiration, desperation and not a little sadness.

It all comes to a close with “Jungleland”. Everybody is in here, all the characters, winners, losers and the mid-nighters coming together for this grandest of finales

“At record’s end, our lovers from “Thunder Road” have had their early hard-won optimism severely tested by the streets of my noir city. They’re left in fate’s hands, in a land where ambivalence reigns and tomorrow is unknown.”

Is the barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge Wendy, or Terry maybe ? Fights in alleys become ballets, the car horns out on the roads become an opera and everybody wants to do battle…with guitars. All that is then taken on a soaring flight by one of the greatest Saxophone solo’s you’ll ever hear, I gots a lump in my throat just thinking about it, The Big Man Clarence Clemons at his finest. 

“This was the album where I left behind my adolescent definitions of love and freedom; from here on in, it was going to be a lot more complicated.”

“Born To Run” is quite simply one of the greatest albums made by anyone, ever. From the music within to the cover shot of Bruce and Clarence (unbelievably a picture of a white man in close proximity with a black man still caused consternation in some parts of the USA in 1975 !), it was a big deal. It set up a sound that people think of even now as Springsteen’s, Roy Bittan’s grandiose piano intro’s, Clarence Clemons huge saxophone solo’s, Bruce singing about cars and girls (even though he’s singing about so much more than that), a sound I’ve always thought of as cinematic, if you closed your eyes you could see those streets and the giant Exxon sign and Mary, Wendy, Terry and the Magic Rat. 

Jungleland - https://youtu.be/l6IwxpL-ZDk?si=HkK8hNv8mNvTnCKN