BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, N.J. (1973)
1) Blinded By The Light; 2)
Growin' Up; 3) Mary Queen Of Arkansas; 4) Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?;
5) Lost In The Flood; 6) The Angel; 7) For You; 8) Spirit In The Night; 9) It's
Hard To Be A Saint In The City.
No sooner had Bruce Springsteen and his band recorded
ten songs that were to constitute his aspiring debut album than Clive Davis,
the president of Columbia Records, began to complain that there were no
potential hit singles on the record. Subsequently, the release was postponed,
three songs were deleted, and two new songs, including the rousing opener
ʽBlinded By The Lightʼ, were written by the Boss and placed in strategic
locations. Both Davis and Bruce miscalculated — neither of the singles managed
to chart, though, ironically, four years later, when Springsteen's fame had
already reached nationwide limits, Manfred Mann's Earth Band managed to correct
that mistake and turn ʽBlinded By The Lightʼ into a smash success.
This seems like a small enough detail, but it
is an important one when you begin to consider all the Dylan/Springsteen
comparisons, especially in the early period. While Dylan did have hit singles,
I am not aware of anybody ever forcing a «hit single» on him — and yes, it is
very easy to pin the difference on chronology, where record labels, including
that very same Columbia Records to which Dylan was brought by the very same
John Hammond who recruited Springsteen a decade later, would give the artists
more freedom in the Sixties than they did in the Seventies, and where the
Seventies forced artists for harsher compromises than the Sixties. Very easy,
but not very correct: unlike Dylan, who has always followed his muse and nobody
else's, «The Boss» has always kept his ratings high by regularly giving the
people what they want. If there's one
motto with which we could describe his lengthy career, it would be something
like «One for myself — two for y'all». Not that there's anything wrong with
that, right?
In fact, you could probably make a case that
out of the two — Mr. ʽIt-ain't-me-babeʼ Dylan, quietly sitting in a corner and
mumbling gibberish under his nose, and Mr. ʽThunder-roadʼ Springsteen, boxing
the shit out of his sweat-drenched Telecaster under stadium lights to the sheer
delight of the roaring thousands — it is Mr. Springsteen who is being the more
humble and less pretentious, making himself one with the earnest folks whose
spiritual needs he is covering, rather than putting up an invisible, but
impenetrable force field between the two. But then this logic would rather
quickly lead us to recognizing the saintly nature of Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi,
the Backstreet Boys, and ultimately even Taylor Swift, and that is not the road
down which I would have the strength — and humility — to travel.
Anyway, Greetings
From Asbury Park, N.J., even though it has rarely, if ever, penetrated anybody's
Top 5 for Springsteen, and even though it happened to slip through the cracks
of the public consciousness back at the time, already finds the Springsteen
formula well established. The hinges yet have to be oiled, and the front still
lacks a glossy paint coating, but the sound is that of a guy who knows very well what it is he is doing and
what his main talents are and how they should be applied (well, after all, he
had almost eight years to figure it out, having first begun to play in regular
bands like The Castiles in the mid-Sixties).
What puts Greetings
apart from the majority of singer-songwriter stuff circa 1973 are not the
lyrics (who still own a lot to Dylan, Robbie Robertson, and Van Morrison) and
certainly not the melodies (who also own a lot to Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Van
Morrison, and all the legions of anonymous people in the pre-rock era folk
music tradition to whom these three
guys own their melodies). It is the overall approach to arranging and recording
these lyrics and melodies — an approach that would arguably induce me to the somewhat
sensationalist claim that it was Bruce Springsteen and nobody else who actually
invented «folk-rock», or, rather, «folk-rock'n'roll», or, if you don't like
that either, «hard-folk-rock». If we
think of «folk-rock» in terms of, say, the Byrds, as we often do, it is clear
that even at their heaviest, the Byrds did not have even half of the maniacal
stomping energy that the Boss stores in his musical batteries. If you listen to
some of Bruce's earlier material, like stuff he recorded with Steel Mill in the
early Seventies, you will see that they were essentially a gruff, brawny hard
rock band along the lines of Bloodrock or Grand Funk Railroad — and even as he
moved to more sensitive, thoughtful territory, the idea of Rocking The House
Down never left his mind for a second.
But you don't really need a maddeningly loud, terrifyingly
distorted heavy rock guitar to rock the house down. You can easily do it with
an acoustic instrument, and a piano, and a saxophone, and a regular rhythm
section — and record something like ʽGrowin' Upʼ, a song that, technically, has
nothing to do with hard rock, but ultimately rocks as hard as any hard rock
there is, because it's the spirit that counts, not the amplification. You
wanted yourself some James Taylor and some Eagles, but they had too little
crunch for your rocking heart? You were almost ready for Budgie, Steppenwolf,
and even Sabbath, but they repelled you with the dumbness of their sound? You
would be happy to endorse yourself some «progressive rock», but couldn't stand
the unnecessary complexity and meandering of the twenty-minute long suites? Well,
then, your problems are at an end now — and, by the way, greetings to you from
Asbury Park, N.J.!
One reason why I have always complained about
Bruce's approach was that I found it «populist», but I would like to rephrase
this, so as to avoid getting stoned by the majority — it is not so much
«populist» as it is (or, if it is «populist», it is so due to its being) «mystery-free».
Whether or not The Boss calculates his formula with cold, detached, psychologically
insightful precision, it is a formula that is very easily laid out,
scrutinized, and understood, upon which it finds itself prone to inducing
boredom or even annoyance. Frantically strummed guitars; aggressively punched
drums; pianos and saxes going at full power nearly all the time, with every
member of the band equally important to the final sound; lyrics that carefully
alternate between metaphor-laiden poetry (for the intellectual critics) and
«streetwise clichés» (for the average Joe), never forgetting the powerful
singalong hook explosion in the chorus; and a good understanding of the magic power
of diminuendos and crescendos.
Doubtless, even a perfectly understood formula,
when it is taken to the utmost limit, can still impress and seduce (see AC/DC's
ʽHells Bellsʼ for a great example). But here begin the local problems: Greetings does not yet take that
formula to its limits. If you take the typical «big» songs here, like ʽFor Youʼ
or ʽBlinded By The Lightʼ or ʽIt's Hard To Be A Saint In The Cityʼ, you will
see that the overdubs still leave a lot to be desired (there's just too few of
them), that the guitar sound is still underdeveloped (largely due to Steven Van
Zandt, Bruce's sparring partner, not yet being a regular member of his E Street
Band), and that The Boss has not yet begun to fully exploit the earth-shaking
capacities of his vocal cords — apart from just a few chest-tearing moments on
ʽLost In The Floodʼ, which mainly serve as a teaser for things to come, he
sounds here like a shy younger brother of Van the Man, and ever so often, even comes
across as a pitiable whiner rather
than a fearless commoner-preacher of rock'n'roll.
Indeed, the two «solo songs» that are included
here without full band support — ʽMary, Queen Of Arkansasʼ and ʽThe Angelʼ —
are arguably among the weakest spots in his entire catalog. Meandering,
folksy-derivative, and overlong, they end up being irritating rather than
soulful; and even if the basic vibe of ʽMaryʼ, come to think of it, is no different
from the basic vibe of ʽBorn To Runʼ and ʽThunder Roadʼ ("I know a place
where we can go Mary / Where I can get a good job and start all over
again" — "sure Bruce, but you have to grow yourself some facial hair
and get a second guitarist before you can really
convince me"), the presentation is lamentable, and you really have to have
some religious love for the man, I think, to appreciate this stuff. It is not
surprising that when it came to deciding which songs would have to be pushed
off the album in favor of the freshly written and recorded «potential hit
singles» — the «band songs» or the «solo songs» — it was three of the latter
that they decided to sacrifice. Maybe Bruce was just being generous to his
pals, but clearly, at this point he was not yet ready to go «solo».
ʽBlinded By The Lightʼ I find to be too obvious
a rip-off of some song from Astral Weeks
or its periphery, but the record does have at least two really fine offerings.
ʽSpirit In The Nightʼ, where Clarence Clemmons finally gets his first chance to
shine on his own (the main instrumental
hook is his sax riff), the chorus features cool call-and-response vocals
between Bruce and his men, and the grizzly «life-on-the-streets» atmosphere is
well reflected in the nonchalantly, but menacingly shuffling music. And then
there is ʽLost In The Floodʼ, the first and far from the least of the man's
«tragic masterpieces» — nothing all that great in the way of melody, but a
fairly great theatrical delivery from The Boss as he carefully builds the
tension over each long verse to lead us to the climax. I must state here and
now that I always prefer the
pessimistic Springsteen to the optimistic Springsteen (not that it is always
easy to tell the difference), and so, naturally, the most pessimistic song on
his debut album is also the best song on it.
When it comes to the final rating, after some
deliberation, I think I would rather stay on the fence. No thumbs up will be
coming for a record on which Bruce Springsteen is simply being Bruce
Springsteen, because I cannot count that as a rewardable virtue; and there are
too few seductive «extras» on Greetings
to push the spirits any higher. Yet, on the other hand, this here is a new, workable, reasonable formula
for 1973, and neither the «populism» of the approach, nor the immediately
noticeable influences, nor the two forgettable «solo» tracks should count as
arguments for hating or dismissing the album. And a first effort is always a
first effort, after all, there being something in common between so many of
them. "Last night I said these words to my girl — I came for you, but you
did not need my urgency — I know you never even try girl — I came for you, but
your life was one long emergency". See? Always something in common.
Oh dear, here we go... Brings me back to those times when I read BS's reviews on "Only Solitaire", discovering that the relation between Bruce - the idol and George Starostin - the music critic is one of the most painful, complicated and convulted of all the relations ever known to a mankind.
ReplyDeleteThis here album is quite charming and harmless although he really should have dumped that "Mary Queen of Arkansas" down in the toilet where she belongs. "It's hard to be a saint in the city" is the best track for me - an overall nice groove with an interesting melody and idealistic lyrics.
"Manfred Mann's Earth Band managed to correct that mistake"
ReplyDeleteEven more ironically - imo the two best songs Bruce S ever wrote and the two songs the Earth Band ever recorded are exactly Spirits in the Night and Blinded by the Light. After several decades of pop/rock the "what if" game becomes attractive. One of my first is "what if Bruce S had replaced his E Street Band with the Earth Band, had become the main song writer but left the arrangements to Manfred M and co?
"Frantically strummed guitars; aggressively punched drums; pianos and saxes going at full power nearly all the time,"
Yeah, that'w what the fans seem to think. But a silly headbanger like me always found Bruce seriously lacking in these respects.
the two best songs the Earth Band ever recorded.
DeleteIf you ever have a few hours to kill and enjoy people arguing for paragraphs at a time, read this http://starling.rinet.ru/music/brucec.htm#intro . I'm not joking when I say nothing made people hate George (with the possible exception of his Zeppelin reviews) than his review as Bruce as an artist, and his review of Born to Run.
ReplyDeleteI love Springsteen personally, but I'm interested to see what GS thinks this time around.
There's no doubting the relentless sincerity that surrounds the Boss's music (who came up with that name anyway?). And the E Streeters were a show all on their own, even with everything on full blast 90% of the time. They could be surprisingly supple.
ReplyDelete"Mystery-free?" Yeah, I'll buy that. The thing about BS that always turned me off was the posing: One minute he's a white soul brotha, next he's a nerdy intellectual wannabe, then a teeth-grinding, sweat-bleeding working man, then a cool Goodfella, etc etc etc... Maybe VM (another of Bruce's costumes) was guilty of the same thing, but at least you could buy his "mad poet" persona and write it off as part of his artistic madness. Bruce? He's just not that f***ed up. I once heard a story about how he was thrown out of college because he was "too bizarre." Bizarre? That's a word I've never associated with Springsteen. Crazy, Overbearing, Over-everything, annoying...that's more like it.
VM? How I hate these initial abbrev's^^. You don't mean Van Morrison, do you? That would be bizarre :)
DeleteFor the record... I like every Manfred Mann's Earth Band cover of Springsteen... There is at least I believe one livey well orchestrated Springsteen cover per album from them for a long stretch. Anyway, yeah I like them better than the originals from Springsteen himself but to balance it all out I dislike most of Manfred Mann's original songs so um there is that.
ReplyDeleteOh and just in case anyone is wondering what Manfred Mann albums these tunes are on...
ReplyDeleteBruce Springsteen - For You (Chance)
Bruce Springsteen - Blinded By The Light (The Roaring Silence)
Bruce Springsteen - Spirit In The Night (Nightingales And Bombers)
Only today I listened to For You for the first time and it confirms what I wrote above: Bruce S and Manfred M would have been a very interesting team. There are very few originals I like indeed: Countdown, Time is Right and to a lesser extent Fat Nelly are at the moment the only ones I can think of.
Delete