We’re all looking for something better, but are unlikely to achieve it through some magical moment, some mystical epiphany, or some mythical transformation.
Ironically, Bruce Springsteen’s two albums most focused on positive outcomes and the possibility of redemption, are also his most underrated if not outright forgotten. After spending almost two decades penning songs about those who defy their poor lot in life, struggling to find something of their own in an uncaring world where defeat is the most likely outcome, Springsteen redefined the terms of the debate across Human Touch and Lucky Town, both released on March 31, 1992. As the legendary singer and songwriter approached his 43rd birthday, he was not naive enough to simply abandon all of the passionate darkness and defiance that came before. The world, in his view, was still a cruel, dark, frequently empty place and we still had to make our way through it somehow, someway, or else simply be crushed. As he put it in “Cross My Heart,” “Well, you may think the world’s black and white And you’re dirty or you’re clean, You better watch out you don’t slip Through them spaces in between,” or in “The Big Muddy,” “Well, how beautiful the river flows and the birds they sing, Yeah, but you and I, we’re messier things, Ain’t no one leavin’ this world, buddy Without their shirttail dirty or their hands a little bloody.” Somehow, however, it is against this bleak backdrop that Springsteen tells his most promising and convincing tales of redemption, as if he were following the old adage about the world being darkest just before dawn. To do so, the idea of redemption, that promise of a better life, needed to be recast, looking backwards at where we’ve been and why we haven’t made it all the way to the promised land, and forward to how we might still forge some lasting peace with ourselves and our loved ones. The dreams that were lies that don’t come true in “The River,” for example, have been replaced with much more realistic goals, and at the expense of the mistaken, lost glory in “Glory Days,” we still might seek those things that make life worth living in the first place. Perhaps no single song better exemplifies this darker promise of redemption than “Better Days,” where Springsteen simultaneously restates and repositions some of this earlier work and reconsiders what it means for the future. The speaker begins where many other Springsteen songs have tread before:
Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
To the hours and minutes tickin’ away
Yeah, just sittin’ around waitin’ for my life to begin
While it was all just slippin’ away.
In an obvious echo of “Badlands,” the speaker has spent his life waiting for a moment that “just don’t come,” but time passed whether he wanted it to or not. Now, like so many of us, he finds himself older, not necessarily wiser, and no closer to the mythical instant where everything makes sense, when you look out on the world and finally realize your perfect place in it. As he looks back at all this wasted time, he realizes there has been a tremendous cost for failing to act and make the most of what he has, a realization that does not come to us all. Waiting on something better has put at risk nothing less than his soul and his very life, both of which are either entirely “missing” or “slippin’ away.” Sadly, this seems an all too common human trait. We’re so focused on what might happen, what we want to happen, what we are sure will happen one day, that we lose sight of what’s right in front of us for the taking. In this case, what the speaker might have done with these years is left unclear, intentionally so in my opinion. Later in the song, Springsteen provides a brief, biographical reference that the man in question has been merely pretending, a “rich man in a poor man’s shirt,” but we do not have to take that literally, meaning the speaker is, in fact, one of the world’s most famous rockstars. It does, however, strongly suggest the reality that people from all walks of life experience challenges figuring out their unique place in this world, only to end up wasting what they have in the process. In other words, the need to find something meaningful we can hold onto is not confined to the poor, the rich, or the middle, nor is the failure to find it an exclusive failure of the downtrodden. Instead, it affects us all, but at least partially because we have tendency to look at redemption, or whatever word you choose, the wrong way, pursuing what we don’t have and might never have, rather than valuing what is proverbially staring us in the face:
I’m tired of waitin’ for tomorrow to come
Or that train to come roarin’ ’round the bend
I got a new suit of clothes, a pretty red rose
And a woman I can call my friend.
Almost two decades earlier, Springsteen swore “I want to die with you Wendy on the street tonight in an ever lasting kiss.” Love songs in general are frequently filled with over the top protestations about souls being set on fire at the mere sight of their significant other, but since long before Shakespeare’s day, there has been reason to question the longevity or even the sanity of these fiercely romantic relationships. As the Friar puts it in Romeo and Juliet, “These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume…Therefore love moderately; long love doth so.” This, however, has never been an easy thing for the young – and even some of the old – to understand, being new to love and romance in general, and likely having been consumed by the feeling in their teenage years, desperate to find a feeling again that simply does not exist. The best hope we can have is that as we age, we understand how our needs change, or perhaps more accurately, we develop a better understanding about what’s truly important. A man like the speaker who has a “new suit of clothes, a pretty red rose, And a woman [he] can call [his] friend” has more than most. These, rather than the desire to literally or figuratively die for your lover are meaningful, substantive, and long lasting achievements, offering the promise of better days to come, prompting the first telling of simple, straightforward chorus:
These are better days baby
Yeah there’s better days shining through
These are better days baby
Better days with a girl like you
Interestingly, the speaker’s choice of words falls far short of perfection or even passion. The days are “better” not perfect, suggesting a necessary relativism in human affairs. These “better days” shine through, making it clear that a background of darkness remains and likely always will so, but they are better “with a girl like you,” indicating how important companionship is to one’s emotional well being. The speaker – if not Springsteen himself working in a directly autobiographical mode – spends most of the remainder of the song detailing how he found himself just listening to the “hours and minutes ticking away” rather than fully living. Here, we see a portrait of the archetypical person who’s spent his time rejecting what’s good in life and pretending to be something he’s not. The speaker does not mince words when talking about his past, putting his failures about as plainly as possible with “I took a piss at fortune’s sweet kiss,” a more dramatic update to the old adage about looking a gift horse in the mouth, a feeling he describes as like “eatin’ caviar and dirt.” After obliquely referencing his financial success, “It’s a sad funny ending to find yourself pretending A rich man in a poor man’s shirt,” he describes the realization that this “woman [he] could call [his] friend” was the stroke of lightning and fortune he needed to realize what was truly important in life. The speaker identifies the woman with fortune itself, seeing her heart “like a diamond” from a “passin’ gypsy wagon.” Previously, he might have rejected the good fortune in his life or not known what to do with it, but now he understands the key part luck plays in finding someone you can truly live with, and even the darkness that had plagued him can be made anew. Rather than waiting for that moment that refused to come, he’s “carvin’ lucky charms out of these hard luck bones” in these better days.
The role of fortune in this framing is interesting in its own right. In one sense, the speaker is choosing redemption by re-evaluating what matters. He is “tired of waiting for that tomorrow to come,” and has made an intentional choice to seek better days, but as the song progresses, he cannot stop the old fickle hand of fate from sneaking in. Previously, he’d rejected his own good fortune, romantically and otherwise, perhaps believing it wasn’t fortune or luck at all, just his by right, but over time, he’s realized the luck he’s had, as evidenced by his lover arriving via a figurative “gypsy” wagon,” carving “lucky charms,” and his previous “hard luck.” Taken together, it might seem that these two interpretations are at odds with one another. Life as a tiger that you must take by the tail, but no matter how good you are, luck plays a role, whatever your choices. The secret, in this view, lay in taking advantage of the opportunities as they are presented to you, again romantically and otherwise. In another song from Lucky Town, the speaker states it this way: “When it comes to luck, we’re making our own, Tonight I got dirt on my hands, but I’m building me a new home.” “Better Days” suggests a similar approach, but not before more closely considering the things that have held the speaker back in the past. Once again, he notes that fortune has blessed him with money, claiming a “life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure, Don’t make much for tragedy.” This is a fact we all probably know consciously, referring to them as “rich people’s problems” or even “white people’s problems,” but if nothing else, the human mind is hard wired to find problems even when there aren’t any. Our ancestors didn’t survive grueling conditions for hundreds of thousands of years because they took a lackadaisical approach to problem solving. In the modern world, however, our obsession with making trouble for ourselves frequently short-circuits our ability to truly appreciate what we have in life, as it has done of the speaker and so many others who are, “livin’ in [their] own skin And can’t stand the company.” (Personally, I’ve always found that line perfectly described my own father, who for whatever reason was never really comfortable being himself.) Ultimately:
Every fool’s got a reason to feelin’ sorry for himself
And turning his heart to stone
Tonight this fool’s halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell
And I feel like I’m comin’ home
The song comes to a climax by revisiting the relativism of the chorus. The speaker has not achieved redemption and arrived at better days through some magical moment, some mystical epiphany, some mythical transformation. In his own words, he’s still a fool, and can think of no shortage of reasons for feeling sorry for himself if he allowed himself the senseless indulgence, turning his heart away from love, but contrary to how he’s lived up until this point, he’s made a conscious choice not to. Tonight, with a woman he can call his friend, he’s decided to rise above his challenges, taking him “halfway to heaven,” but similar to the way his better days are still tinged with darkness, this leaves him just a “mile outta hell.” Whether or like it or not, this is the best the speaker – or any of us – can really do. Life is fragile and disaster lurks around every hidden corner whoever and wherever we are. We aren’t guaranteed another minute – nay another second – of anything, from the breath that fills our bodies to the loved ones that fill our hearts to the material and other things that fill our time. All of it could be gone in an instant through no fault of our own. We walk a tightrope strung across a never ending maw of calamity, whether we call it hell or something else. We can, however, choose to keep our gaze on the sun and the sun and the stars, enjoying the beauty of what we have for a time.
On a side note, I am generally loath to impart autobiographical elements to any work of fiction and claim the author was undoubtedly inserting himself there, there, or there, believing we should “trust the art, not the artist” as Springsteen himself was fond of saying, but on Human Touch and Lucky Town in particular, it’s easy to believe that Springsteen was putting more of himself into the songs than he’d ever done before or has done since. Figuratively, there are a lot of his personal experiences growing up in new Jersey that color his lyrics throughout his early albums – references to life on the Shore, cruising down the highways, loving and fearing the big city across the river – but emotionally and thematically, the characters and songs stand on their own, not seeming to reflect his personal emotional state beyond the tangential heart and soul all artists put into their work. Human Touch and Lucky Town, however, were written during one of the most dramatic periods in Springsteen’s life, during which he got divorced, disbanded the legendary E Street Band, had his first child, and married Patty Scialfa, who is still by his side today. Given the frequent hints about a “rich man in a poor man’s shirt,” a “life of leisure,” “a pirate’s treasure,” and more (“Local Hero” in its entirety certainly comes to mind), it seems reasonable to assume that writing these songs was his way of working through challenges in his own life, and realizing happiness was right in front of him. We should all be so lucky, someday.
BETTER DAYS
Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
To the hours and minutes tickin’ away
Yeah, just sittin’ around waitin’ for my life to begin
While it was all just slippin’ away.
I’m tired of waitin’ for tomorrow to come
Or that train to come roarin’ ’round the bend
I got a new suit of clothes a pretty red rose
And a woman I can call my friend
These are better days baby
Yeah there’s better days shining through
These are better days baby
Better days with a girl like you
Well I took a piss at fortune’s sweet kiss
It’s like eatin’ caviar and dirt
It’s a sad funny ending to find yourself pretending
A rich man in a poor man’s shirt
Now my ass was draggin’ when from a passin’ gypsy wagon
Your heart like a diamond shone
Tonight I’m layin’ in your arms carvin’ lucky charms
Out of these hard luck bones
These are better days baby
These are better days it’s true
These are better days
There’s better days shining through
Now a life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure
Don’t make much for tragedy
But it’s a sad man my friend who’s livin’ in his own skin
And can’t stand the company
Every fool’s got a reason to feelin’ sorry for himself
And turning his heart to stone
Tonight this fool’s halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell
And I feel like I’m comin’ home
These are better days baby
There’s better days shining through
These are better days
Better days with a girl like you
These are better days baby
These are better days it’s true
These are better days
Better days are shining through
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 