Those who have been reading here for any amount of time will know how I feel about Bruce Springsteen. To truly appreciate where I’m coming from in the following review, it might be worth checking out a post I wrote a few years back, explaining why I think music in this style can be earnest without necessarily descending into pure sentimentalism. For those who don’t want to read the whole thing, I’ll quote briefly:
Lines like “Together Wendy we’ll live with the sadness / I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul” suggest that, even back at the height of the “Born to Run” phenomenon, he was very aware that the redemption promised in these songs was temporary at best. You dreamed crazy dreams, you loved like crazy, you drove away into the night, you pulled out of the town full of losers because to not do so would be to succumb to the weariness. But Bruce knew that the youthful abandon would not be enough. I do not get the impression that a life of perfect happiness awaits around the corner for him and Mary. Instead, they will find pain and sadness, but in the face of that pain, the best they can hope to do is to refuse to give up.
In short, while it’s all too easy to castigate bad music for trading in formulaic gestures utterly lacking in emotional depth, I think what people fail to recognize is that this music is bad because it’s bad, not because it’s impossible to write songs that genuinely engage big concepts like pain, loss, love, and the American Dream.
Springsteen has inspired countless imitators who trade in clichés about redemption, cars, rivers, and desperation. And in my honest moments I’ll admit that I have a soft spot for even the worst of these, simply because there’s something implacable about that Born to Run sound that can sustain itself through even the most dire regurgitations. But I would never claim that this is fine art.
However, there is another strain of followers who leap whole-heartedly into the feeling of Springsteen. In so doing, they evoke a long history of American identity, stretching back through folk heroes like Woody Guthrie to authors like Steinbeck and the people who moved out to homesteads on the frontier, braving the cold and the wild all in the hopes of finding something better.
It’s a noble legacy, but also a deadly one. Grand dreams sustain us in our hardest times – it’s what makes us want to believe, need to believe in the myth of Tom Joad – but those same dreams also contribute to the bust and boom cycles that brought on the Depression in the first place. In the eyes of Nick Caraway you can see the faint twinkling of Tom Joad. And that long line of Okies trudging across America desperately searching for a job or a full meal – if you trace it back far enough, you’ll find yourself in the midst of one of Jay Gatsby’s famous parties.
That’s what Springsteen captures: the enigma, the longing, in all of its passion and full belief. And it’s what rescues the bombast of “Born to Run” or “Thunder Road.” These songs explode with a fervor that lays bare all that is buried in their subjects. Youth, wild abandon, a belief that true meaning can be found on just the other side of the hill. And a secret terror that all those dreams may have already passed you by.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that if you approach The Gaslight Anthem with a cynical ear, you’re likely to completely miss the point. On their sophomore record The ’59 Sound, they’ve tapped into the same wellspring that The Boss drew from: finding a power in rock and roll that can speak beyond particular stories and evoke some larger meaning. There are certainly echoes or even direct references all over the place, but it’s important to note that this is not a band simply trying to graft “the Springsteen sound” onto something else. It’s a natural evolution, and a perfect joining, between sounds. They also hail from Jersey but they come back to Springsteen via a trip into a more Chicago-punk sound. And most importantly, this a band who genuinely cares about the people in their songs – they are not mere props to spit out some formulaic lines about highways and the working class. These are stories that feel real, evocative, and purposeful.
Things kick off with the sound of a needle dropping on a record. It’s a classic trick, designed to evoke an era that has passed us by. And they go even a step further, when the first word that bursts forth is “Mary.” It’s so audacious that you almost can’t believe it. And yet, what distinguishes this from a million imitators is that they can back it up with a sound that simply defies all snap judgments. When you hear that chorus you feel it all that way through your body. There’s a weariness betrayed by the line “everybody leaves, and I’d expect as much from you” and yet instead of succumbing, it rides that crest of passion and pain.
If that’s not enough to convince you, all doubts should be erased about a minute into the second song, the title track. A eulogy to a dead friend, it manages to be both joyous and introspective. The singer wonders about the instant of death, and hopes that the final moment was at least accompanied by a flash of happy memories. It’s anthemic in all the best ways. Not because it tries to make itself large, but because of the way it takes an intensely personal and individual moment and lets it burst forth – inviting you into a world where you have permission to set aside the jaded, ironic distance that convinces us that it’s weak to feel pain and sorrow.
“Old White Lincoln” plays on the story of those car-fueled redemptive dreams, and dwells in a strange place between the innocence of youth and the sad memories of times that have passed. It’s not a cynical song, but you still get the sense that there’s something desperately missing here. A few stray details ring through with absolute clarity, but you can’t quite grasp the thing that connects yourself to the person who felt that way.
“High Lonesome” raises the stakes once again, offering one of a summation of the entire record, with a frank admission of “I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis.” Their hearts and influences are on their sleeves, to be sure, but that’s really what makes it all work. And that set-up is what makes the rest of the chorus so powerful: “And in my head there’s all these classic cars and outlaw cowboy bands / I always kinda sorta wished I was someone else.” It reveals a self-awareness that’s necessary to set apart the good songs from the great. The wishfulness, the way that this sound is leapt into out a pure love for the music of their youth but also out of a desperation to keep a sad and lonely world from spinning out of control. This is an album about growing up in love with rock and roll – an homage but also an attempt to find their own place within the elements that offered them meaning.
Combined, the opening four tracks are utterly beyond reproach. It could rival pretty much any other record released this decade, and frankly is as good an introduction to a record as anything The Boss himself has done since Born to Run.
The record cools off a bit in the second half, with the relatively forgettable “Miles Davis and the Cool,” a couple tracks that go for gritty but don’t quite make it (“The Patient Ferris Wheel” and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”) and two tracks that cross the line from being tastefully influenced by Springsteen (“Meet Me By the River’s Edge” and “The Backseat”). The former of those even includes the painful line: “We tattooed lines beneath our skin / No surrender, my Bobby Jean.” Yikes.
As a palliative to that, it’s worth going back to one of the first half standouts, “High Lonesome” for a much more effective incorporation of an old Bruce line:
There were Southern accents
On the radio
As I drove home
And at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
It’s a pretty good song, maybe you know the rest
Maybe you know the rest
None of those songs are bad, though – they just don’t reach the heights of the first half. And side two has a couple shining bright spots, too. First and foremost is “Here’s Lookin’ At You, Kid” which puts to shame every other band who has ever done the “11 rock songs and 1 acoustic track” thing. It provides a perfect change of pace, a little bit more introspection, and a spot of a self-deprecating sadness.
Side two also features what’s probably the best pure, good-times rock and roll track “Casanova, Baby!” It’s also the closest they get to a full-scale Born to Run style take on the power of simply getting the hell out of this town.
The ’59 Sound is not a perfect record. But it is a stunning achievement. It’s the sort of album that you can’t be shy about. You won’t appreciate it if you don’t jump in completely. Accept that it is a flawed but beautiful record, don’t read too deeply into the countless references, and just let the feeling of growing up in a world of rock and roll wash over you. You won’t regret it.