If Bruce Springsteen is from Freehold, NJ and has never left, as he claims on the grand finale of Elvis Costello’s two year adventure into TV “Spectacle”, why does he sound like an Oakie? Is he faking it? One of many questions neither raised nor answered on the specatular spectacle of Costello fawning over the Boss for two straight hours.
EC and BS sit center stage, knees almost touching, BS with an acoustic guitar on his knees, EC the picture of obsequous interest, and in the less than intimate setting EC gets a few kernels of real insights off the Boss.
It is a musical conversation through Bruce’s career. Memories of trying to get gigs in New Jersey when not in a cover band leads to an examination of why he worked all the harder on his lyric.
Born To Run was the breakthrough which Bruce calls Elvis out for dubbing it “over romantic” thirty years ago. This is followed by one of the two truly fascinating moments, Bruce’s discussion of Darkness On The Edge Of Town. It took three years to follow up (because he was suing to get out of a management deal though that’s not mentioned). But that was from 1975 to 1978 and Springsteen was listening to a lot of English pop and punk. He calls Elvis’ first three albums a “hurricane” -not a bad estimation, and that, along with the Buzzcocks and the string of US singles leading to the US release of the UK Clash’ first album because “it hand’t been released in the States yet” (A little disingenuous: coulda gone to Bleeker Bob’s and bought an import copy for ten bucks, proves even Bruce wants to show off when it comes to rock) .
After that it got a little tedious though Bruce did mention he initially wrote “Hungry Heart” for the Ramones but Jon Landau, his manager said “uh huh, you’re never giving that one away”, so he had to keep it. Remindsme of a story Dave Edmunds used to tell of going backstage at a Bruce concert and Bruce taking him to the side and saying “I wrote a song for you” and playing it in the dressing room. The song was the epic “From Small Things (Big Things One DayCome” which found its way onto D.E.7
The other thing I found beyond interesting to the point of fascinating and just as fascinating as when Nev, Helen and Mike forwarded their playlists to me last year, is when Bruce discussed what his children listened to. The girl loved Top Forty, the oldest boy listens to alternative rock and namechecks Bright Eyes and the youngest when he was thirteen, Bruce was walking by his sons bedroom and heard Dylan’s “Chimes Of Freedom” wafting out. “It’s epic, dad” the boy said and his father replied, “You’re right, it is epic”. Earlier in the interview Bruce had mentioned how listening to early Bob Dylan had changed his life and gave it a new direction. A truly moving moment and bravo to Costello for making the man comfortable enough to share it.
The musical segments are a bit of a drag though the godawful “Radio Nowhere” which Springsteen has tormented audiences with for the past coupla years, segues into an awesome “Radio Radio”. The real highlight was written by neither the Boss nor the glasses but by Mrs. Boss.Patti Scialfa. Patti’s “Black Ladder” from her 2007’s Play It As It Lays. The album passed me by at the time but this wonderful song of sexual love is given a deservedly moving treatment tby EC with Bruce and Nils Lofgren backing him up on acoustic guitars.
I immediately went onto Itunes and bought the song. I guess making music is just rock journalism by other means.