Wrecking Ball

Earlier this evening, a long-awaited message finally showed in my inbox: Bruce Springsteen's new album, Wrecking Ball, had finally leaked. It didn't take long for my inbox and facebook to overflow.

Press reports had hinted that this was Bruce's "angriest" album to date, but coverage of some of the lyrics -- with Guthriesque references to bankers and robber barons and fat cats -- had left me concerned that the anger might come off as an over-the-top pose.

I needn't have worried. One listen -- well, I guess it's 4 now, but the evening isn't over yet -- probably isn't sufficient to declare this a masterpiece. But it's damn good, and current. Musically and lyrically, the record is alive. Its people have been kicked in the gut and left to wither away, but they stand. Even the fallen stand to testify.

Bruce's previous album, Working On a Dream, was largely a personal album dealing with issues such as the realities of mortality. Songs such as "Kingdom of Days" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" have grown on me immensely in the 3 years since that album's release.

"Wrecking Ball" has a wider scope. Its opening track, "We Take Care of Our Own," is a slap against complacency and failure to act; the rest of the album quickly falls in line. "Easy Money" has a sardonic depiction of would-be two-bit criminals stuffed within a jaunty jig-like tune that reminds a bit of "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live"; "Shackled and Drawn" has a groove not heard on a Springsteen song since... since I don't know when; "Jack of All Trades" wraps a waltz tempo around a desperate man announcing, "I'll mow your lawn."

Ron Aniello produced this record, the E Street Band is largely absent, and Tom Morello provides several searing guitar solos; the soundscape is noticeably different than any recent Springsteen record -- calling more to mind "The Seeger Sessions" crossed now with originals, rock and roll, gospel, rap, and whatever influences Bruce chose to use. The sound is of liberation, of struggle. After Darkness on the Edge Of Town was released, Pete Townshend said, "When Bruce Springsteen sings on his new album, that's not 'fun', that's fucking triumph, man." That's true once more: "Sing it hard and sing it well," he declares in "Death to My Hometown." And it's not just Bruce's singing; it's the entire package. Whistles, choruses, and trumpets blare; it all leads to this: "I want everyone to stand up and be counted tonight."

If there's a pop song in the bunch, it's probably "You've Got It," which reminds me of "All or Nothing at All," just with danger (and a horn section) attached. "Rocky Ground" is structurally a re-make of "One Step Up" to my ears... musically. One was personal, and one is communal: There's a new day coming.

The album concludes with the living spirits of the dead: First, "Land of Hope and Dreams," which literally brings to life the ghost of Clarence Clemons's saxophone. And then, "We Are Alive," which tells the stories of those fallen in their tracks, and ends with a sound that will surely remind listeners of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and contains the memorable (to me) proclamation, "a dead man's moon throws seven rings," and, more forcefully, the declaration, "our souls will rise, to carry a fire and light the spark to fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart."

The reactions in my facebook and inbox feeds have been generally off-the-charts, so far. This scares me a bit: If an "angry" album is universally well-received, then is it really too safe? If fat-cat Republicans and complacent Democrats all love it, then have they really been challenged? Somehow, I think Bruce is going to address that, straight up. And probably not without cost.

In a few weeks, I'll be spending my 50th birthday with Bruce Springsteen on the stage.

I can't wait.

Let your mind rest easy, sleep well my friend.