Essential: Bruce Springsteen – Darkness On The Edge Of Town
Courtesy of Carsten Petersen – a repulsive, yet brilliant obsessive with despair
Before starting, let me tell you, that this is not an obvious choice for me. I used to listen to The Boss quite a lot back in 2003 due to a Best Of compilation. However, when buying individual albums of his, nothing stuck with me rather than the stuff I already knew: “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, “Nebraska”, “Tunnel of Love”. None of them turned me into a fan, so after a while, I gave up on Bruce and moved on to progressive rock music…yep, you heard right…
However, thanks to good old Youtube, I gave another album a spin and well, it was Darkness on the Edge of Town. I already knew the graceful title track which already back then was a favorite and well, things took off from there.
Darkness on the Edge of Town is the successor to a true monster of a hit album. The 1974 album, Born to Run, had The Boss actually become The Boss, if you know what I mean. With that one, he broke into the mainstream, and I mean mainstream! If you wanna look for more successful albums, you probably need to seek out Thriller or Sergeant Pepper´s. The album was Bruce Springsteen as people would come to know and love him. Hymnal, with the message of hope for the working class, it also featured an almost orchestral, booming production, making the message sound even bigger and giving Phil Spector a run for his money.
So, everything´s ok for the man? Well, contrary to what you would think, the years of Born to Run became rough to chew on for Springsteen. Due to difficulties with his manager, the next years ended up being dominated by ugly law suits that prohibited him from working in the studio. The Boss hardly received any money from the success of Born to Run and ended up being almost broke. So all in all, what would be a happy end in any movie actually ended up being the starting point of four ugly years showing all the traps that you can fall in when being part of the music industry. Pink Floyd didn’t call it “The Machine” for nothing…
After four years, in 1978, finally, it was time for Bruce to record a new album which at that point of time had the working title of Badlands. After the glory of Born to Run, this album would show how stories of hope could end up in pure despair and bitterness. The people who were born to run, have run to a place they can’t get out of anymore. Unemployment, sickness, loneliness, hate, despair, you name it. Just like Bruce’s story after Born to Run, the ‘Happy End’ never happened and things just turned bad. But as a result it came the best album of his whole damn career. Dark, bitter, yet with a strong, hopeful touch and more important: Great, great, great melodies performed masterfully.
The music, keeping up with the message, is a lot more reduced, bleak and minimalistic than on Born to Run, mostly dominated by guitar, bass and drums with touches of organ and piano. Finally, just to keep me mentioning it for the next 500 times: You will never find an album which will show Bruce at such a high vocal power. No kidding, his singing is fuckin´ AWESOME on this damn record! Believe me, he would never show of his chops better and in a more heart-bleeding way than on this wonderful piece of plastic.
The album begins on a deceptive note, with the cerebral, “Badlands”. A piano riff, heavily inspired by the Animals´ “Don’t let me be Misunderstood”, opens the song with a wonderful majestic feeling that was so predominant on the previous record. Then Bruce starts with a deep sorrowful voice before unleashing all the glory in the chorus. Despite being a lot more reduced than most of Born to Run, you feel at home with the album at this point. Slightly dark, yet in a way, celebrating the chances of the working class. So all is fine for now….
But, before you know, all hopes are crushed in the second song called “Adam Raised a Cain”, an angry, biting, spitting, roaring scream – a song for everything that has gone bad in humans’ lives. The song is basically about a father son relationship that is simply dominated by the fathers failure in life and the sons fear to follow in his footsteps. ‘Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain, now he walks the empty walls, looking for something to blame.’ Yep, welcome to the new world, boys! Bruce is roaring like a madman and giving a guitar workout, that is absolutely shattering, smashing his later rock hits to little pieces. Apparently, to explain how the song should sound next to “Badlands”, Springsteen told his sound mixer to imagine a scene under blue sky on green grass with two lovers having a picnic when the scene suddenly cuts to a dead body [Thanks Wikipedia.]
After the opening, the album takes several twists and turns. “Something in the night” and “Candy’s Room” show Bruce on his more romantic side. The latter one impressing us one more time with a great piano melody and rip-roaring guitar solo. The “hit single” of the album was “Prove it All Night”, showing that Bruce hasn’t lost his touch for hit singles (of course, this would get only bigger with “Born in the USA”, but oh well…) But let’s save our breath for the real crackers, those earth-shattering numbers that really make the album. “Racing in the Streets” basically sums up the album. The album is pure piano, bleak and dark, with Bruce telling the story of a young guy wanting to go out and eh..race in the streets and…..his lonely, sad wife. Yeah, right, after telling us a pretty typical Bruce story of a real born to run guy, The Boss shatters you with the story of young, yet broken girl with ‘the eyes of someone who hates for just being born’. Now, who doesn’t need their spirits being lifted right now? And along comes “The Promised Land.” Great harmonica line and once again a shattering chorus with great vocal. ‘And IIIIII believe in the Promised land’. Does he really? Or is there maybe some doubt hidden in the message? Oh well, whatever, what a great, hymnal song this is…
The high points though are at the end of the record. It ends on two absolute masterpieces which for me are the epitomy of everything Bruce has ever done. “Streets of Fire” is just….wow. A deep and sorrowful organ line underpins the song, just setting the right mood of pure sadness, gloom, and yet, some slight hope. Bruce starts with an equally quiet and sorrowful delivery making this song feel like a real funeral around you. Everything is over, you wait for the end, all hope is lost…Then suddenly, the whole band comes crashing in, turning this into the purest, heaviest and most spiritual hymn, I have ever heard. And then Bruce starts his REAL singing and…man, it can’t explained, never before or after would Bruce sing like THAT! just listen to it, his delivery threatens the very life of every bloody singer ever, just unbelievable…
Then, out of thin air, ANOTHER great guitar solo. You just won’t find another Springsteen album with a such a great guitar workout, let me tell you. And then Bruce goes into the final kick and finishes the last chorus of with perfect, shattering scream that just seems to violently spit out all the bloody aggression and anger that has been build up during the whole album. Maybe Bruce´s greatest song ever! Or does that honor fall to the title track? That chorus is just out of this world. The piano melody is really undeniably graceful, it is a proud, bittersweet melody showcasing that whole battle between hope and despair with just a few notes, it is simply perfect! The protagonist of this song has lost his wife, job, money, everything, but he ‘will be on that hill, cause I can’t stop!’, whatever that might mean, but it is probably the usual message of Bruce, that despite all obstacles not everything is lost and it is possible to somehow keep your head high and move on, even if with heavy stones attached to your feet. Nothing showcases it better, than the melodic wonder of the track, “Darkness on the Edge of Town. ‘Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it…they carry it with them every step that they take.’
Whew….that was long and probably, it ain’t gonna make as a whole through the cutting process, so however overlong you might think it is, keep in mind, it has been much worse…It just doesn’t happen often that one album of an artist I enjoy but not admire all the way through, brings out such an earth shattering album. Bruce managed it and it couldn’t have worked out better. If you are looking for the real Boss…here he is.
