Bruce Springsteen
The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle
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NATN Recommended
Bruce Springsteen
The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle
Columbia, 1973
RiYL: Van Morrison, Bob Dylan |
There's a certain temptation for a Bruce novice to head straight for Born To Run or (for the indie rock hipster set) Nebraska, which are something like Bruce's Pet Sounds and Smile, the albums that draw the most critical praise and music geek attention. Both are indeed great albums, each could be considerd the best of his career. But we're talking about a man who's got at least four albums in the "great, maybe the best of his career" category. And if you want to really dig in and enjoy Bruce for everything he's got, you should really start with The Wild and the Innocent.
Here's why.
First of all, and I'm stating the obvious here, Bruce is all about words. You can listen to Nebraska or almost any other Bruce album and hear that. But there's a real evolution to Springsteen's songwriting, especially from this album, his second, released in 1973, through his next two records, 1975's Born to Run, and 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town. And there are real rewards for a listener who starts near the beginning of Springsteen's career and works forward.
By the way, you will note that we are not starting with his debut album, 1972's Greetings From Asbury Park. Why? In some ways, Greetings was the album Columbia Records wanted to put out -- something that they could classify as singer/songwriter and promote to the media as the coming of the "next Bob Dylan" -- not necessarily the album that Bruce Springsteen wanted to put out. And if we're talking about lyrics, this album is definitely not the right place to start.
Greetings is sort of like warm-up. Its best songs ("For You," "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?") have words that you'd need a decoder ring to decipher: "Hey bus driver, keep the change, bless your children,give them names, don't trust men who walk with canes, drink this and you'll grow wings on your feet."
With Wild and the Innocent, Bruce starts to tell more stories that are based in a world the listener can imagine. Even if the narrative is a bit foggy, he's starting to get a handle on how to effectively set a scene. In "Sandy," Springsteen draws a multi-colored picture of the New Jersey shoreline, filled out with ensemble cast of characters: homeless greasers and stoners, casino dancers and the silly New York girls they chase, not to mention Madam Marie, a fortune teller who gets busted by the cops "for tellin'fortunes better than they do." There are still odd turns of phrase, but even most wild images seem grounded in the world of 20-something Springsteen:
Sandy, the angels have lost their desire for us
I spoke to 'em just last night and they said they won't set themselves on fire for us anymore
Every summer when the weather gets hot they ride that road down from heaven
On their Harleys they come and they go
And you can see 'em dressed like stars in all the cheap little seashore bars parked making love with their babies out on the Kokomo
Springsteen once described "Sandy" as "a goodbye to my adoped hometown and the life I'd lived there," and it's clear he was experiencing a coming of age at the time of its writing. He re-wrote its lyrics following the album's release and performed them live. By reading the alternate lyrics, we shed some light on that coming of age. We find Bruce the songwriter in a transition, pushing closer toward the concrete, making smart edits. Note how he drops the angels to make room for real characters, girls he'd known and dated:
Sandy, that waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me
I spoke with her last night, she said she won't set herself on fire for me anymore
She worked that joint under the boardwalk, she was always the girl you saw bopping down the beach with the radio
The kids say last night she was dressed like a star in one of them cheap seaside bars and I saw her parked with her Loverboy out on the Kokomo.
Nearly every song on this album has at least one moment like this, where you get a glimpse what's to come. The whole second half is a glorious preamble to Born to Run, filled with the same sort of romantic imagery and desperate characters. What this three-song suite lacks in sophistication, it makes up for in overall ambition and heart.
It opens with "Incident On 57th Street," a mini-opera that Pete Townshend might have written if he grew up in the New York tri-state region. The music is dreamy and expansive, the story a classic Romeo and Juliet tale, with Spanish Johnny and Puerto Rican Jane falling in death-marked love. Bruce sings with gusto, like he's in a production of "West Side Story" or something, spouting lines that would eventually become trademark Boss. At one moment, Spanish Johnny tells Jane, "I want to drive you down to the other side of town where paradise ain't so crowded."
That's vintage Bruce, I tell ya.
I mean, he's itching to get in the car and take a drive. You can actually hear him thinking about leaving town. In the next song, "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)," Bruce makes a long-winded plea to his girlfriend to sneak away from her parents. He sings, "Together we're gonna go out tonight and make that highway run." It's a funny take on his own life, much like Born to Run's "Tenth Ave Freezout," but a lot more rocking. At the end of the song he promises to take Rosie to "a pretty little place in Southern California." It might as well be the "place in the sun" he describes at the end of "Born to Run."
Beyond the lyrics, you also have some pretty great music here -- songs and sounds that most non-Springsteen fans will be surprised to hear. The opening song "E Street Shuffle" is basically classic '70s white funk and "Kitty's Back" is a 7-minute, mind-melting jazz explosion. Most surprising of all is "New York City Serenade," which is the song I play first for Bruce doubters, those who think they know Springsteen and need to be brushed back. It's lyrics are not overpowering, but the music is shockingly intricate. Take a listen to David Sancious opening piano solo, a cross between a horror movie soundtrack and a Windham Hill demo tape.
Who the hell records albums like this anymore?
The answer is "no one." No one before this album and no one since. No one, of course, except Bruce himself. Granted, Wild and the Innocent ain't perfect."Wild Billy's Circus Story" is pretty bland and the album's production can incredibly strange/dated at moments. But it's an album of the moment and it captures the young, adventurous Springsteen perfectly.
Like Nebraska, this album offers listeners a rough cut look at Bruce. The presentation is fully developed, yes, but the artist isn't. Springsteen is edging out on the wire, trying new things, trying everything he can think of, and it's entertaining to listen, even after a few hundred listens. More importantly, after spending time here, one can really appreciate the string of 5-star albums that follow: Born to Run, where Bruce perfects the romantic rock of this album; Darkness on the Edge of Town, where he sheds that romanticism and takes a punk-like focus on real life; The River, where he builds upon his own street mythology and delivers a bloated double album of definitive Springsteen rock; and Nebraska, where he tears down that definition and starts literally from scratch.
Once you get there, email me, and I'll tell you about his bootlegs.
BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.