Confessions of a Conservative Atheist
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While Western Stars was released to significant critical acclaim in 2019, it marked a stylistic departure for the Boss and certainly isn’t a rock album by any means. If you are looking for screaming guitars, the usual glockenspiel, and pounding drums, you will not find them here. You will, however, find a compilation of sorts… Continue reading Springsteen’s Western Stars and the most underrated album ever made
How much should we care about the plight of a man too afraid to change his life, one who knows it, and yet can’t stop bitching about it, whether they are dancing alone or jerking off? Read literally, “Dancing in the Dark,” one of Bruce Springsteen’s biggest hits and the source for perhaps his most… Continue reading “Dancing in the Dark” and the art of self-help, Springsteen style
Can a song can be a stirring patriotic anthem and a condemnation of certain aspects of the American experience at the same time, a paradox of a piece of music if you will? On the surface, “Born in the USA” isn’t a patriotic song, far from it. Originally conceived and recorded as a mournful yet… Continue reading Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” and the paradox of a song
It’s almost inconceivable that he can keep this up much longer, but it’s a near miracle that we can still marvel at it right now while we can. If you don’t believe me, you don’t need to take my word for it any longer. My lovely wife finally agrees after a rousing performance at Camden… Continue reading Springsteen’s 75th birthday, and recent epic performances of “Darlington County” and “Youngstown” in Baltimore
This is Shakespeare’s Othello in the modern age. Othello is so easily manipulated by Iago because he doubts himself and can’t possibly believe a fair noblewoman would choose him. In Springsteen’s telling, we do not know the speaker’s scars, save that he’s a “lonely pilgrim,” but it doesn’t matter. We don’t need a villain either. … Continue reading Springsteen’s brilliant “Brilliant Disguise” and the inescapable nature of doubt
Perhaps it was compiling a collection of unreleased songs in 1998 that inspired Springsteen to enter the second half of his career, rejuvenated and reinvented after what most consider a moribund 1990’s. There’s a lesson here, about life’s ups and downs, finding the future in the past, letting things go, hoping they come back, and… Continue reading Springsteen’s “Loose Ends” and the songs that got away
The seemingly omniscient narrator of the main verses is interrupted by a first-person speaker who sings something almost entirely different, setting up both a duality and a contrast that persists throughout the song until the very end, where it is either resolved with Billy as the speaker or someone else. Bruce Springsteen recorded the incredibly… Continue reading Springsteen’s “Rockaway the Days” is a lost classic, culled from a few other songs, but with a unique structure that stands on its own
Like a great sonnet of old, Bruce Springsteen uses the perspective of the speaker to establish a character that is both part of the story and separate from it. A verse about this father cut from the original song, but available in lyric form further illuminates a story of aging that is both universal and… Continue reading Springsteen’s “Glory Days” and the unreliable narrator
The Boss’ new album will be composed of entirely culturally appropriated songs, a collection of “soul music” covers, but that is inherently a good thing. Harold Bloom’s seminal The Anxiety of Influence reveals why all art, if not all ideas entirely, can be seen as the product of cultural appropriation. Bruce Springsteen is just the… Continue reading Bruce Springsteen and the artistic necessity of cultural appropriation
The entire Nebraska album was recorded by Bruce Springsteen alone in his house on a 4-track cassette. At points, you can hear the creak of the rocking chair he sat in, but these meager beginnings do not limit the songs’ collective scope, power, and impact. “Atlantic City” combines it all in one haunting track. Bruce… Continue reading Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City: The personal and the universal connect in a timeless and versatile classic
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 