Springsteen Is Just Plain Terrible

Wrecking Ball – Bruce Springsteen
When I first heard this on youtube I gave it a half hearted “well at least it isn’t Working On A Dream“. But with the opportunity of having it in my music library and really listen to it, “Wrecking Ball”  is a dreadful song. Just the pits. I shoulda known it before, I shoulda caught it in the third line, “Through the mud and the beer, and the blood and the cheers, I’ve seen champions come and go,  So if you’ve got the guts mister, yeah if you got the balls”. Ugh. What is that? Is this cat completely tone deaf at this stage of his career? The second Springsteen calls somebody “Mister” I’m outta here. Listen bruce: playing rock is not a blue collar professional and playing one on stage doesn’t make you one so knock it off.

Honestly, the lyric to “Wrecking Ball” is diabolical. It is so bad it reads like either satire or one of those cutesy readers poems viewers send to Bill O’Reilly. You know: right/might/watch em all night/ dont let Gleen Beck fight”. O’Reilly raises an eyebrow and sends em a signed copy of barely literate Bold Fresh . Springsteen takes on the persona of Giants Stadium -a mass of mortar and steel intensely difficult to get romantic about. Next verse: “My home is here in the Meadowlands, where mosquitoes grow big as airplanes, here where the blood is spilled, the arena’s filled, and Giants play the game”.  OMG!!! You’re joking me right? Next verse: here/anger/anger/fear” Last verse: “rust/dust/clocks/parking lots/ wind… go?”  I know it doesn’t rhym, apparently he didn’t notice. And then the worst, well, I dont know what it’s doing here but he repeats it ad nauseum: “hard times come/hard times go”. May I take back my request for songs about the new depression?

The music isn’t good, it isn’t bad, it isn’t a song really. It’s a Springsteen riff, he writes em in his sleep,  and it exists for Springsteen to make a complete ass of himself. I am catching him twice in the immediate future, once atthe hall of fame gig on Thursday, and once with the E Street Band at  MSG, so before I eat my words (and I will: he is generally excellent live) let me congratulate him on giving Giant’s Stadium the song it deserves.