CD Odyssey Disc 654: Bruce Springsteen

This next record was the subject of an enjoyable drunk discussion between me and my friends Casey and Randall.

Casey started off claiming “The River” was a brilliant album, falling short only of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” for Bruce’s best. I countered that I agreed about “Darkness…” being number one, but “The River” was more middle of the pack. Randall would then point out it was a bit bloated as a double album. I would agree to this, which would get Casey going again about how it was still brilliant. I think over the course of the night we hit for this particular cycle three or four times.

The album is a bit too long, I still put it in the middle of the pack, but there is no denying this record’s brilliance. In a weird way we were all right. Every time.

Disc 654 is…. The River

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Year of Release: 1980

What’s up with the Cover? A ‘Big Head’ shot, Bruce style. Bruce looks like he’s been working the night shift down at the mill and not bothering to shave. Bruce was grunge before grunge was cool. 

How I Came To Know It:  This was just me drilling through Bruce’s collection. Because I love the album that comes before and after this one, it was a natural purchase. Casey also bought me a copy of it on vinyl, which is pretty cool.

How It Stacks Up:  We have ten Bruce Springsteen albums. “The River” is pretty good, but competition at the top is tough. I’ll put it 6^th bumping both “Born to Run” and “Greetings from Asbury Park” down a slot from where I originally ranked them.

Rating:  4 stars

It is hard to follow up a great record like “Darkness on the Edge of Town” but “The River” holds its own pretty well.  

“Darkness…” had enough great material that a whole double album of cast-offs formed another record years later (released as “The Promise” in 2010). With “The River” Bruce skipped the wait and put out as a double album right away. This is always a dangerous decision, but “The River” holds up well.

Springsteen once again goes to his standard themes of tough streets and finding love in adversity. On “Born to Run” these themes played out in rebellion, and on “Darkness…” with a quiet and desperate resignation. “The River” doesn’t offer up many easy answers, but there is a core of hope and optimism on the record much stronger than on the two records that preceded it.

This is particularly true on Side One and Two (or Disc One, depending on your format) which is faster paced, with upbeat melodies. Here we find the album’s biggest hit (and the biggest to this point in Bruce’s career) “Hungry Heart.” This is a song about the bumps and bruises we get trying to find love. At its core it is a song about being alone, but it wraps itself up in the fact that everyone’s got a hungry heart, so no one is really all that alone after all. Like the Police’s “Message in a Bottle” it leaves you feeling connected to all those sad strangers you pass on the street every day.

There’s a number of songs on the first album of “The River” that had me thinking of Buddy Holly, with their genial early sixties vibe, particularly “I Wanna Marry You” and “Sherry Darling.” Sure they are gritted up a bit for the start of the cynical eighties, but they are like a lead actress in a Hollywood romance; always beautiful even when a scene calls for her to have dirt on her face.

That said, I do prefer my Bruce dark, and I was happy when Bruce digs down deep for the first album’s final track, “The River” a song about broken dreams and the regular people trying to pick up the pieces.

Sides Three and Four (or Disc Two) picks up where the title track leaves off, and overall has a slower, more somber feel.

Bruce’s love affair with cars comes out strong and buoyant with “Cadillac Ranch,” and “Ramrod” before turning the theme tragically on its head with “Stolen Car” and “Drive All Night.” Few can weave the imagery of a car into the story of a song like Bruce, and the plethora of car songs make the whole of the second record a real joy for me.

Springsteen ties both the good and the bad car imagery together in a bow with the record’s final song “Wreck on the Highway,” a song about a man driving home and coming across a dying man in a wreck. It is a tragic loss for that man’s family, but for the witness it reaffirms in him the love he holds for his own wife when he finally gets home:

“Sometimes I sit up in the darkness

And I watch my baby as she sleeps

Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight

I just lay there awake in the middle of the night

Thinking about the wreck on the highway.”

Love can be hard to find, and harder to hold on to, so savour every moment that you can before it’s gone. It is fitting that for all its winding ways, “The River” ultimately ends with two lovers arm in arm. Bruce, you old softie, you got me again.

Best tracks:  Independence Day, Hungry Heart, Out On the Street, You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch), The River, Cadillac Ranch, Fade Away, Stolen Car, Ramrod, Drive All Night, The Price You Pay, Wreck on the Highway