“Working On A Dream” was recorded right after the tour to support “Magic” and Springsteen said of it “I hope ‘Working on a Dream’ has caught the energy of the band fresh off the road from some of the most exciting shows we've ever done”. I didn’t see any of the “Magic” tour so can’t comment on the shows but the album itself I don’t find at all exciting. 

Having said that the opening song is f*cking incredible. “Outlaw Pete” is so good it was turned into a book…OK it was a graphic novel primarily aimed at children but my hardback copy of it is a treasure. Inspired by his Mom reading him tales of “Brave Cowboy Bill” as a child it tells of, well, Outlaw Pete, a hereditary bad boy who at the age of 6 months had spent 3 months in jail and robbed his first bank in a nappy and bare feet ! He eventually settles down with a Navajo girl but is hunted down by a bounty hunter. It really tells you that if you spend you time worrying about your past then that will eat up any hope you have of a future. Have a listen below if you want to know the rest, it’s epic. 

Past that and penultimate/final song “The Last Carnival” (it is really the last song of the album but on most copies you also get Bonus Track “The Wrestler”, theme tune from the film of the same name starring Mickey Rourke who asked Bruce to write a song for it. Trivia for the fans of that Stourbridge sound…the remainder of the soundtrack for “The Wrestler” was composed by one Clint Mansell) “Working On A Dream” is real slim pickings.

The two “Life” songs, “This Life” and “Life Itself”, just like much of “Magic” are OK and you already know I expect more than that. “Good Eye” is a thumping bluesy (I hesitate to call it the Blues) thing featuring distorted Bullet mic vocals and a looped harmonica wail. Most unusually for the verbose Springsteen it only has 6 lines of lyrics to fill up its 3 minutes. “Tomorrow Never Knows” is a gentle country-ish shuffle that sounds startlingly like Jason Isbell ! “Kingdom Of Days” may as well be “Your Own Worst Enemy” from the previous album.

Then there is “Queen Of the Supermarket” which is, in all good conscience, best forgotten about. The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper said of it “It just might be the worst song Springsteen has ever released on a studio album” and I’m inclined to agree (yes, even in the face of “57 Channels And Nothing On”, this is worse). How it made the album and (rumoured) outtake, if it was actually from these sessions, “Frankie Fell In Love” didn’t shall remain one of life’s great mysteries (“Frankie…” later turned up on “High Hopes” thankfully). Bruce overstretches his vocal capabilities and the song consequently sounds bloody awful.

Between this and previous album “Magic” there’s most of a decent-ish (but not great) album to be found. Many of the songs from this album and “Magic” haven’t been performed live for 10 years or more, only 2 or 3 in the past 5 years, none at all on his current world tour and three songs from this album have NEVER been played live. We’ll simply mark these two albums down as Bruce’s “wilderness period”.

Outlaw Pete - https://youtu.be/QRA6lWzCpCQ?si=YbW76En5maBzV3YE

Here we are now in 2007. Since 1995 Bruce Springsteen had released 3 albums of new music (“…Tom Joad”, “The Rising” and “Devils & Dust”). We are about to enter a busy period with 4 new albums in the next 8 years. Sadly, the first 2 of those 4 are, to my ears, 2 of Springsteen’s weakest records, were you to ask me to rank all of his 20 studio albums the bottom 3 would certainly be “Human Touch” plus these next 2. Both of them feature 3, maybe 4, songs of a standard we’ve become used to  and thereafter seem to be padded out with the sort of things that in the past would have been shelved for the next iteration of “Tracks”. 

“Magic” was Springsteen’s first album with the E Street Band since “The Rising” in 2002 (betwixt had been the afore mentioned “Devils & Dust” and “We Shall Overcome…”). When you read about it’s making a couple of things stick out to me. All the songs were written at the end of 2006 but Springsteen allowed producer Brendan O’Brien (who also produced “The Rising” and “Devils & Dust”) to pick which songs should go on the album. Secondly, the E Street Band never played together as a unit on this record. Some of them now had other commitments, primarily Max Weinberg who was the drummer in the house band on the talk show “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” from Monday to Friday. So while everything else was worked on during the week, Springsteen, Weinberg, bassist Garry W Tallent and pianist Roy Bittan would convene at weekends to record basic backing tracks which the rest of the band would add to during the week. It may be that this is why I always think the album has a disjointed feel to it. When you have a band as good as that you really want them all in the room together, that’s when the magic happens.

It starts with “Radio Nowhere” a nice enough rocker but the opening riff is is so closely related to “Shame” by Eat (who I’m in absolutely no doubt Springsteen had absolutely no knowledge of but…) it’s always felt a bit off to me just because of that. “You’ll Be Coming Down” is one of the better songs on here but it still feels like an OK “Sprinsgteen by numbers” number, a good singalong live I’d imagine, not that I’ve ever heard it live. “Livin’ In The Future” starts well with a good ol’ blast of Sax from Clarence but it degenerates into something that sounds like it would have been a discarded outtake around the time of “The River”.

Side One closes out with 2 of the better songs on “Magic”, “Gypsy Biker” and “Girls In Their Summer Clothes”. “Gypsy Biker” is suberb, an angry song, a song about loss with a moody setting and a wailing harmonica throughout giving the whole song an uncomfortable, ghostly feel. Conversely “Girls In Their Summer Clothes”, one that my wife absolutely adores, is a bang-perfect summer pop tune, on a sunny day it makes for another good old singalong. Even so you still get the feeling the singer isn’t a part of the scene, he’s looking in from the outside (“The girls in their summer clothes pass me by”) he’s not part of that crowd, just an observer.

Over on Side Two “I'll Work For Your Love” starts with a classic Professor Roy Bittan piano intro but doesn’t really go anywhere after that. The title song would have sat easily on “…Tom Joad” or “Devils & Dust”, it’s a quiet, eerie song with a lyric that draws an outline of the likes of Trump and Boris Johnson years before they were suffered upon us (“Trust none of what you hear, And less of what you see, This is what will be”), conmen, liars. “Last To Die” is kinda formless and rushed. There’s the germ of a great song somewhere inside “Long Walk Home” but it never really breaks the surface.

The final two songs are where it’s at. “Devils Arcade” is a pointer to the future. Here is the embryonic sound of “Western Stars” fully 12 years before we heard that album, that big orchestrated sound that made up “Western Stars” was trialled right here. It’s a song of loss, heroism, and defiance, and unusually for Springsteen is seemingly sung from a female perspective, it’s a beauty. 

Lastly, after a long silence, is “Terry’s Song”. It was added to the track listing so late that on some initial CD copies it’s not on there. It’s a tribute from Springsteen to his long-time personal assistant Frank “Terry” Magovern. The two had met in 1972 when Bruce played the bar that Terry was managing and they clicked immediately. “Terry’s Song” was written and performed at his memorial service within 3 days of his passing. A heartfelt eulogy from one friend to another “The Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Egypt are unique, I suppose, But when they built you, brother, they broke the mould”.

“Magic” is OK. The trouble for me is I expect better than OK from Bruce Springsteen. It’s a problem of mine more than anyone else’s. I’m sure the themes of the album and the songs themselves are things the writer is proud of, it just doesn’t move me so much. Some guys you just have to stick with even through the less than stellar times.

Devils Arcade - https://youtu.be/zOuj5NjAJRI?si=NOKnFbEIsjqKn_Lr

Recorded at the Point in Dublin over November 17, 18 & 19, 2006 this a live album with the Seeger Sessions Band taking in 10 of the 13 songs from that album (omitted are my personal favourite “John Henry” (harumph), “Shenadoah” and thankfully “Froggie Went A Courtin’”) plus 13 other Springsteen songs and covers.

The original songs chosen are quite interesting, many not songs I would usually expect to hear at an E Street Band show. “Atlantic City”, “Further On (Up The Road)”, “If I Should Fall Behind”, “Highway Patrolman”, “Long Time Comin’”, “Open All Night”,  “Growin' Up”, “American Land” and “Blinded By The Light”. 

The remaining songs are old folk and traditional songs given a Sessions Band makeover. “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live” was written and recorded by Blind Alfred Reed in 1929. This version, apparently, owes more to Ry Cooder’s 1970 take than it does to ol’ Blind Alfred. Everyone knows “When The Saints Go Marching In”, right ? It’s a song that grew out of various hymns and spirituals and is forever connected to New Orleans style Jazz but here is slowed right down to an acoustic ballad and sung by various members of the band. “This Little Light Of Mine” is a traditional Gospel song that has a strong connection to the Civil Rights Movement and is one I’ve seen performed live with the E Street Band in Kilkenny in 2013. 

Lastly I need to make mention “Love Of The Common People” (yes the very same song that once was 80’d up by Paul Young) written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins (who also wrote “Son Of A Preacher Man”) and first recorded by the Four Preps. Sadly Bruce attempts the song in a laughable cod-reggae style and, much as I’ve never wanted to hear Bob Marley tackle Rock ’n Roll, I’ve never in my wildest imaginations wanted to hear the Boss play Reggae…and never wish to again !

“Live In Dublin” is an enthusiastic performance in front of an enthusiastic crowd. A great document of a tour I didn’t get to see.

Long Time Coming - https://youtu.be/_eehLPcXxBQ?si=j-kcZEchaOpSkWTO