Album Preview: Bruce Springsteen - Working On A Dream
Boy, oh boy, this is really huge, isn't it?
With all due respect to my BC partner-in-crime, Josh Hathaway, this is usually where I go all fanboy.
Friends avoid me. Strangers walk the other direction when they cross my path. When I'm in waiting mode for a new Bruce Springsteen record and tour — especially one with the E Street Band — I just get kinda' all goofy that way.
At least, that's true most of the time.
But for some reason, the full impact that we are two weeks and counting from the new album by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band just hasn't completely registered yet. I'm not sure why, but Working On A Dream doesn't feel like the same genuine event that 2007's Magic was to me.
Maybe it's because the wait for Magic seemed to take forever, and this record seems to be coming so quick. The wait between 2002's The Rising and Magic seemed like just about the longest five years I can ever remember. Some of that wait was filled by the release of Devils & Dust and The Seeger Sessions, as well as with the 30th Anniversary edition of Born To Run with its very cool vintage live DVD footage.
But with each of these projects, hope for a new album and one last tour with the E Street Band seemed to be a window that was rapidly closing. Springsteen himself seemed to be in no particular hurry to re-open it either, despite all of the rumors about Clarence Clemons' health, and Max Weinberg getting ready to take over as bandleader of the Tonight Show.
Working On A Dream, on the other hand, seems to have just popped up out of nowhere. This new record just really feels like one of those "oh, by the way, we've got this new album coming out" sort of things. It reminds me a lot of the way Zooropa just kind of came out during the middle of U2's tour behind Achtung Baby. Yes, it really is a new album, with brand new songs — it just doesn't feel like one.
Let's start with the title track. There are lots of great rock and roll songs about dreams. Aerosmith has "Dream On," Roy Orbison has "In Dreams;" hell, I'll even admit that Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver" is something of a guilty pleasure. Springsteen himself covered Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" during the Devils & Dust tour.
Article comments
1 - BillSaysThis
Dude, now you've got me excited about this record!
2 - Ellie
My heart is in my throat. Yes, I think Bruce feels the hot breath of mortality on the back of his neck. Praise be if it results in such generosity. I will always be there. He doesn't know how to be anything but sublime. Blessed be, Bruce Springsteen and all your merry friends, blessed be. I'll be there with everything I got.
3 - Mark Saleski
...is mulling nightly mini-sets
with my luck, i'll go on Tunnel Of Love night.
4 - Glen Boyd
I'm thinking Tunnel doesn't get covered. Its just not considered a classic Springsteen album the same way that Born To Run, Darkness, River, and BITUSA are. But I'll tell ya what Mark...if you saw that record done live, I'd bet you get a new appreciation for it.
In the meantime, I'm hoping I get The River...for reasons which anyone who knows me should be obvious..
-Glen
5 - Mark Saleski
f you saw that record done live, I'd bet you get a new appreciation for it.
i've listened to various live versions of it...and hated every single one.
i do hope you get to see The River though..that'd be cool.
6 - Glen Boyd
Now what would be really cool is if he did all of the Nebraska album live with full band arrangements...
-Glen
7 - Mark Saleski
i, of course, would go for Darkness.... oh man, it give me shivers just thinkin' about it.
8 - Glen Boyd
Have you ever heard the Tunnel show from Stockholm? It was a radio broadcast so the quality is excellent and its pretty easy to find on the Net. The versions of Tunnel, Adam Raised A Cain, and Boom Boom that open the show, all with the miami Horns are drop dead amazing. You should look into that show if you've never heard it...
-Glen
9 - Mark Saleski
in my quest to see what i'd missed out on, i obtained a copy of the stockholm show many year ago. it has some cool stuff on it, but the Tunnel songs just leave me flat. sorry, there's no hope for me on that particular record, the songs just don't resonate in any way (except negatively)
10 - Glen Boyd
Those opening three songs just kill me. Bruce screams his lungs out on Adam and Boom Boom. And Tunnel sounds great when fleshed out by the horn section. I'd actually rank right behind Winterland 78 and Nassau 80 as some of the best live Springsteen stuff out there. Different strokes I guess though...
-Glen
11 - Mark Saleski
Different strokes I guess though...
yep, and i've never really figured this one out as it's the only Bruce record that i get a completely negative reaction to.
12 - Glen Boyd
Human Touch and Lucky Town were like that for me when I first heard them. And I still think the best songs from each would've made a much better single record. But both have grown me in the years since.
-Glen
13 - Glen Boyd
It also took me awhile to warm up to Seeger Sessions.
-Glen
14 - Mark Saleski
weirdly, the only one that took me a while was The River. i was pretty young then and wanted very loud guitar instead of the spector/wall of sound kind of thing.
years later (not too many) my reaction was closer to "what the hell was i thinking?!!"
as for Tunnel, it will always remain a mystery. not only has it not grown on me, i actually get annoyed while listening to it.