Disclaimer: If you don’t remember my last disclaimer about Bruce Springsteen, click here.
In 2002, Bruce Springsteen took upon himself the burden of giving a voice to the victims, survivors, rescuers and neighbors affected by the September 11th terrorist attacks. He gave us The Rising.
In 2007, Bruce Springsteen took it upon himself to give a voice to the disenfranchised Americans who saw political decisions stripping away their nation’s promise. He gave us Magic.
In 2009, Bruce Springsteen made an album for himself. He wrote prayers, toasts, love notes to his wife and a eulogy for his friend. Unburdened, he explored pop sounds and studio techniques and allowed his creative spirit to flourish. If this is the album he thought about lying in bed at night, then it is appropriately titled Working on a Dream, mostly for its tense. The work is evident, but unfinished, leaving the dream unrealized.
This album will grow on you, no doubt, but it’s musical ambition is paired with inconsistent writing. This can’t be a surprise, however, given that this collection comes out a scant 14 months after his last offering. He hasn’t produced music this rapidly since 1972 and 1973, with his first two albums. Since then, it had been far more typical for the E Street Band to record dozens of songs, just to see potential hits left on the cutting room floor as the Boss selected out just the right mix for a perfect completed work. To me, this album sounds like the songs that didn’t make Magic. Some are excellent and stand along the best of his catalog. Others are proof-of-concept b-sides that are fun listens, but should have been the basis for better songs down the line. You can find plenty of examples of each on Tracks, his tremendous 4-disc box set of unreleased songs.
Now, I understand how negative this all sounds, so let me flip it around. I have grown to like or appreciate nearly every song on the album. I’ll take you through them.
“Outlaw Pete” opens the album with a Harry Chapin-styled tall tale about our inability to escape our pasts. That’s followed by the album’s first two singles, “My Lucky Day” and the title track. The former is the first of several odes to the love of his life, bandmate and wife Patty Scialfa. The latter is vintage-Springsteen working class optimism, a near cousin to “The Promised Land.”
Track four is the first of the disc’s missteps. “Queen of the Supermarket” will sneak up on you and stick in your head, but it is a weak premise only made interesting by its dissimilarity with his usual sound. “What Love Can Do” is an adequate song that could have been a Magic b-side.
“This Life,” like the the title track, makes me think that bassist Garry W. Tallent must have some dirt on the Boss. I’ve never heard bass lines so emphasized before in Springsteen’s production, but it does sound good. Beyond that, it’s a fairly standard love song, again telling Patty how content Bruce is with life, so long as she’s along for the ride.
“Good Eye” is an unremarkable blues song sung through a vocal effect that Bruce has fallen in love with in recent years. If you’ve heard him perform “Reason to Believe” in concert recently, you know what I’m talking about. “Tomorrow Never Knows,” however, is a sweet song about the uncertainty of the future. It has a recent-Dylan delivery over a light, bouncy production. Short and clean.
“Life Itself” is where the album really picks up. This is a song you can feel in your bones. It would find a place on any of his older albums, yet features harmonies and a clean, pared vocal that’s distinct to these sessions. It also hides a gritty little guitar solo stuffed under the beat and baseline towards the end that’s almost reminiscent of “Adam Raised a Cain.” You’ll be surprised to hear it.
The momentum builds further with “Kingdom of Days,” arguably his strongest writing on the album. It is a song of contentment. This is not the restless Springsteen of old, desperately seeking escape the confines of his life and take to the road. Rather, this Springsteen is willing to “laugh beneath the covers and count the wrinkles and the grays.” He’s growing older, but he’s ok with it. To paraphrase an older line from “Better Days,” he’s got a woman he can call his friend. What more could he need?
“Surprise, Surprise” drives me crazy. It stays in my head. It contains a beautiful prayer. Yet I can help but think of it as completely lame. This song has substance, yet he buries it behind 1960′s stylizing. The problem is, he’s so driven to prove he can write a simple pop song like the Beatles and Beach Boys did early in their careers, that he’s forgotten that both groups moved on to more substantive fare. So he’s stuck, trying to craft a sugary pop song with lyrics that deserve more than a candy coating.
Perhaps most confounding for me is that “Surprise, Surprise” is tucked between the two most powerful songs on the album. Working on a Dream ends with Springsteen’s eulogy for Danny Federici, the former E Street Band organist. Danny died during the Magic tour after a bout with melanoma. My understanding is that Danny was a mischievous sort who took to the rock ‘n roll lifestyle. Fittingly, Bruce remembers their relationship in allegory, casting the narrator and his fallen friend as carnival workers.
Danny in the studio, top left.
“The Last Carnival” opens with Federici’s son Jason on accordion, an instrument his father often played. Springsteen sings passionately, but with constraint. The narrator acknowledges that no one can take his friend’s place dancing with him on the high wire. In a brilliant metaphor, he describes the pair as trapeze artists, reaching for each others’ wrists. The song ends with the band singing as a choir, reminiscent of their performance of “My City of Ruins” on the “America: Tribute to Heroes” broadcast.
Finally, as a bonus track, Springsteen includes “The Wrestler,” which I’ve previously written about.
Working on a Dream is a good collection of songs, but it is not a great album. It references his past works and those of the artists he grew up with, but it fails to carry a consistent arch like we’ve come to expect from such a master craftsman.
“The Wrestler” contains the line, “Tell me friend can you ask for anything more?” Well Bruce, we can… but only from you.
