Hello Sunshine
The lyrics and melody call back many references. I hear Glen Campbell (take your pick, I'll go with "Gentle on My Mind"), I hear Danny O'Keefe ("Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues"), I hear Harry Nilsson ("Everybody's Talkin'").
"Hello Sunshine" is the first song off Bruce's album Western Stars, due out in mid-June. A couple years ago, Bruce told "Variety" magazine that the "album is influenced by Southern California pop music of the ’70s: Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, those kinds of records." So it's not especially surprising to hear those elements coming through in the first released track.
Ron Aniello, who produced "Western Stars," told "Rolling Stone" magazine in 2013 that he would "compare [the songs] to Aaron Copland" and that the record "has an open-landscape feel." I'm feeling the open-landscape, supported by a lyrics video extending the motif with a vintage vehicle driving down open roads in the West. The Copland reference, maybe that'll be more pronounced on other tracks. The music, at least the chord progressions, remind me a bit more of "The Ghost of Tom Joad," though with more of a pulse. That's a good thing, to me.
But as the gentle arrangement to "Hello Sunshine" swells, with Matt Chamberlain on drums, Marc Muller on Steel Guitar, and a string section conducted by Rob Mathes, I come back to the lyrics. The song title suggests something simple; after all, Springsteen also wrote a little ditty called "Hurry Up Sundown" that ended up as an outtake to the 2014 album High Hopes (later released on an EP). But "Hurry Up Sundown" has no gravitas; its lyrics are light and trite, being more or less a retread of far better songs such as "Out in the Street."
"Hello Sunshine" may call for light, but the singer's not getting there any time soon. "Miles to go is miles away," he sings, a line that might as well be Robert Frost on a snowy evening. I end up with an image of a weary man struggling to fight off the blues and loneliness, but still moving nonetheless: "Hello sunshine, won't you stay."
The "Western Stars" project dates back eight years or more. Bruce shelved the project after he came up with a song called "Easy Money," leading to the more topical -- and harder rocking -- album Wrecking Ball. While I don't know what's in store for the rest of this album, this song seems a queue that it will be a more personal, contemplative reflection on the lonely open roads Bruce has traveled, and that he travels still.
Comments