My review of the new Bruce Springsteen album will be up at the website of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review late tomorrow or early Tuesday.
In the mean time, here's Bruce and company doing their explicitly anti-war thing on the Today Show Friday.
What a fucking tragedy it is that he actually had to write it....
Thanks for that, I guess.
ReplyDeleteThe song and the performance were spot on. But I got really creeped out watching the crowd whoop it up to those lyrics.
I know.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of the liner notes to the first Byrds album, where Billy James remarks on how it's really weird watching the Byrds at Ciros because the kids were dancing the frug to a song about a Welsh mining disaster.
The song and the performance were spot on. But I got really creeped out watching the crowd whoop it up to those lyrics.
ReplyDeleteAs they often do to "Born in the USA" ... but hey, they get to be on teevee! Much more important than listening and thinking, I guess.
i wonder if Bruce's songs and lyrics don't get taken as seriously as Dylan's because he uses the "rock" format as opposed to the "folk" format. Is he just not perceived as angry enough?
I don't know -- he took a lot of shit for the song about Diallou.
ReplyDeleteActually, his best political song is his angriest. "Roulette." Which is sort of about Three Mile Island....
Glad to see I'm not the only one that was disturbed by the crowds' behavior juxtaposed with the lyrics.
ReplyDeleteAmerica, Fuck Ya.
Actually, his best political song is his angriest. "Roulette." Which is sort of about Three Mile Island....
ReplyDeleteHate to admit I don't know that one.
I just wonder if some people shortchange him because don't get past the rock music, and so they're not listening to what he's saying.
The last time I saw him, he did a solo acoustic "Born in the USA" and all the emotions in that song .. rage, fear, grief, pain ... were right out there. It was incredibly intense.
Roulette
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrH5LafBSfk
We left the toys out in the yard
I took my wife and kids and left my home unguarded
We packed what we could into the car
No one here knows how it started
But suddenly everything was just so out of control
Now I want some answers, mister, I need to know
I hear all the talk but I don't know what you're sayin'
But I think I got a good idea of the game that you're playin'
Roulette, that's the name now
Roulette, that's the game now
Roulette, I don't believe what they're sayin'
Roulette, and everybody's playin'
I grew up here on this street where nothin' moves, just a strange breeze
In a town full of worthless memories there's a shadow in my backyard
I've got a house full of things that I can't touch
Well all those things they won't do me much good now
I was a fireman out at Riker's, I did my job
Mister, I've been cheated, I feel like I've been robbed
I'm the big expendable, my life's just canceled, null and void
But what are you gonna do about your new boy
Roulette, you're playin' with my life
Roulette, with my kids and my wife
Roulette, every day the stakes get bigger
Roulette, a different finger on the trigger
Down by the river that talks the night speaks in searchlights
And shortwave radio squawk, the police patrol the streets
But I've left behind the man I used to be, everything he believed in and all that belonged to me
I tried to find my way out to somewhere where I thought it'd be safe
They stopped me at the roadblock they put up on the interstate
They put me in detention but I broke loose and then I ran
They said they want to ask me a few questions but I think they had other plans
Now I don't know who to trust and I don't know what I can believe
They say they want to help me but with the stuff they keep on sayin'
I think those guys just wanna keep on playin'
Roulette, with my life
Roulette, with my kids and my wife
Roulette, the bullet's in the chamber
Roulette, who's the unlucky stranger
Roulette, surprise, you're dead
Roulette, the gun's to your head
Roulette, the bullet's spinning in the chamber
Roulette, pull the trigger, feel the click
No further danger
I agree that it was terribly unnerving to watch the happy and the brainless "rockin' out to the Boss".
ReplyDeleteI once had a brilliant German college instructor who I asked if it didn't drive him crazy that most of the class clearly wasn't paying attention and only wanted to glean enough from his World and German history lectures to pass the exams.
He replied that myself and a few other folks he cited were engaged and actively participated in the lectures and dialogs that would followed.
He said that our presence was enough for him to be satisfied that he was doing the job he was aiming to accomplish...expanding minds.
I suppose Bruce and the boys perhaps feel similarly.
Hi song about my hometown, Youngstown is about as good as anything Woody Guthrie ever did.
ReplyDeleteWell, while I hear your points, I hope that the boss appreciates every person who rocks out to his music no matter what they are thinking about while they do so.
ReplyDeleteI see his point about not wanting politicos to co-opt "BITUSA," but there is some truth that great rock does not get too far above the gonads and ovaries.
Trey