Apparently the dire first track, “Outlaw Pete” on debatably his worst album Working On A Dream, is going to be made a children’s by one Mr. Bruce Springsteen, as one Mr. Randy Newman once dubbed him.
It is impossible to overstate how complete awful this song, it hits levels of lousiness hitherto unknown to bruce fans. The Entire album is a disaster but “Outlaw Pete” is so bad, a sort of lazy Western daydream… I am listening to it now and just want to stop.
From contactmusic.com: “The Boss has teamed up with writer and cartoonist Frank Caruso to transform the track into a kids book that will be released in November 14. Caruso says, “When Bruce wrote Outlaw Pete he didn’t just write a great song, he created a great character. The first time I heard the song this book played out in my head. Like Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Dorothy Gale and, for me, even Popeye, Outlaw Pete cuts deep into the folklore of our country and weaves its way into the fabric of great American literary characters.”
The rocker adds, “Outlaw Pete is essentially the story of a man trying to outlive and outrun his sins.”
The mind boggles. Huck Finn???? Huck Finn. Huck Finn?????? Are you joking me? There isn’t a chance in hell that anything here comes within a million miles of Huck Finn? I mean, really, Huckleberry Finn is the greatest American novel of all time,I haven’t “Outlaw Pete” yet but there isn’t a chance on God’s Green earth that this comes within a billion light years of it.
Who are these egotistical monsters? Why didn’t Bruce tell Caruso to shut his stupid face? Mark Twain is the great satirist of the 19th century, but bruce will sit with him pretty with little Outlaw Pete.
Did I mention the song sucked?
