For die-hard fans of Bruce Springsteen the release of a new album is a rare and much anticipated event. Some three years since his last studio album (Working on a Dream), Wrecking Ball is set for release on March 5. The mood this time could not be more different. Working on a Dream captured the hope for the future with the new Obama administration (and Springsteen performed it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the inauguration), but Wrecking Ball is altogether darker and angrier; an anguished howl against the fragmentation and inequities of society following the worldwide financial meltdown. Springsteen speaks of “the distance between American reality and the American dream”, but this social conscience has much wider resonance.
It is astonishingly rare these days to find a writer providing relevant social commentary in music. The legacy of folk music and protest songs is evident throughout the album and Springsteen’s immersion in the work of Woody Guthrie has left a ghostly signature, particularly on Shackled and Drawn, and Jack of All Trades. The homage to Stephen Foster’s ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’ embedded in the title track of Wrecking Ball and resurfacing in Rocky Ground is also a nice touch.
It is astonishingly rare these days to find a writer providing relevant social commentary in music. The legacy of folk music and protest songs is evident throughout the album and Springsteen’s immersion in the work of Woody Guthrie has left a ghostly signature, particularly on Shackled and Drawn, and Jack of All Trades. The homage to Stephen Foster’s ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’ embedded in the title track of Wrecking Ball and resurfacing in Rocky Ground is also a nice touch.
This is not a bleak collection that harks back to the ilk of Darkness on the Edge of Town (reprised so brilliantly on The Promise in 2010). Rather it rages with a defiance – take your best shot, let me see what you’ve got – and a refusal to give up.
Much has been written about the likely misinterpretation of We take care of our own for a flag waving patriotic anthem. This was the same fate that infamously befell Born in the USA more than 25 years ago. Springsteen is unfazed about such matters, telling a press conference in Paris last week that anyone who thinks this is about celebrating national glory is missing the message and “not quite thinking hard enough.” But this, like many of the songs, demands that people pay attention and listen to the lyrics; don’t be taken in by some of the upbeat and apparently rousing chorus lines, or the lilting waltz melodies, these belie a tough and gritty narrative.
Despite the hard and angry roar of the album, the music is often remarkably light and uplifting and ambitious. The Irish folk influence of tin whistles and drums that characterised The Seeger Sessions recordings feature here once more, but there are also new and innovative techniques: a robust horn section, the extraordinary electric guitar of guest Tom Morello, and a looping electronic drumbeat. At 62 Springsteen is not afraid to push the boundaries and try new things. He has spoken about these years being ‘the victory laps’ with nothing left to prove. For some that would be a cue for complacency and trading on past glories, but Springsteen still has causes to fight and injustices to condemn.
Springsteen is an enigma. An intelligent but largely self-educated observer and commentator; he is the eponymous ‘rich man in a poor man’s shirt’ who – despite his huge success and significant personal wealth - remains in touch not only with his origins but with the concerns of ordinary working people. He has spoken often of growing up in a Catholic household where his father was broken by his working life and where his mother just got on with the daily demands of keeping the family together and food on the table.
Religious imagery steeps this album with its references to confession, judgement day and blood on our hands. The gospel choir style of Rocky Ground is stunningly punctuated with the unexpected input from a background female rapper, and the strangled cry from Springsteen of ‘I’m a soldier!’ Sometimes the messages are too complex and layered to be immediately obvious but the resulting blend is less about the apocalypse than about hope and redemption (‘you pray that hard times, hard times come no more’). It is a perfect segue from Rocky Ground to Land of Hope and Dreams. This has long been a rare gem of the live shows, and the reworking for the album suits the mood. Saints and sinners, losers and winners, whores and gamblers; lost souls and broken hearted, we’re all there. And we’re not alone; among the ‘sweet souls departed’ on this train is the late Big Man Clarence Clemons, and his haunting saxophone. The long time member of the E-Street Band whose death last summer Springsteen described as “losing something elemental.” His presence on the album is a fitting tribute to all the years of standing shoulder to shoulder with Bruce. The void that Clemons has left is still obvious and the nature of the band and its line-up have changed forever, but “the currents of life affect even the dream of popular music; there’s no escape.”
Springsteen has never talked about the band stopping; stating instead that they will keep going “until they open up the ground for us and we march on down the hole.” Even that may not be the end; We are Alive proclaims the closing track, giving voice to the dead of past conflicts and battles and offering hope of resurrection, or at least of spiritual rebirth and renewed solidarity.
