Springsteen Delivers a Wrecking Ball

Thanks to a friend, I was able to indulge myself all day in the new release from Bruce Springsteen, "Wrecking Ball." It was a day well spent as this long time fan has again found a body of work from Springsteen that had me from the words, "I've been knocking…"

Springsteen's last release was called "Working on a Dream" and it showed the ebullient feelings that the election of Barack Obama had on some people in the United States. Obama's platform of hope and change had Americans, including Springsteen, thinking that the eight long years of war and economic crisis would be coming to an end. Songs like "My Lucky Day" and "Working on a Dream" were the centerpieces of an album filled with uplifting lyrics of hope for a better life and contentment in love and family.

Four years later and the dreams have turned to nightmares as the nation's hope has turned to, if not despair, then trepidation of things getting worse. The distance between the haves and have nots increases almost weekly, and the conflict of social mores continues discussing topics like health care, Social Security, Medicare and a woman's right to choose that were thought laid to rest over twenty years ago.

Springsteen uses the songs on "Wrecking Ball" to describe his view of the American political and social landscape and the pictures he paints are not pretty.

Wrecking Ball is a three act play where Springsteen first describes his landscape in "We Take Care of Our Own" using the same word play as he did in "Born in the USA." Springteen turns the "positive" Conservative phrase into a mocking accusation that, in actuality, we don't. America has changed from the American people helping their neighbor to a kind of Shock Doctrine.

After setting his stage with the harsh setting of life for the average American, what was once known as the blue collar middle class of Springsteen's generation's fathers, his first act is the tales of how those people cope with the "new reality."

"Easy Money", "Shackled and Drawn", "Jack of All Trades", "Death to My Hometown" all spell out how different people deal with the problems of today's America.

The center piece of the album is also here in Act I which is "Jack of All Trades". Here is the defiant individual, the independent everyman who, by being the Jack of All Trades, will keep his head above water.

This is the classic theme of the American hero. The Cowboy, John McClain and Dirty Harry, the lone hero who will survive by using his own wits and not depending on any job or sucking up to any boss to see his way through to tomorrow. If I have any quibble with Bruce it is the unnecessary line, "If I had a gun…" It not only doesn't fit the song's story, it opens up Springsteen to unneeded criticism.

Springsteen draws from another era, when the nostalgic look at "My Hometown" from Tunnel of Love becomes a railing at the bastards who brought "Death to My Hometown." This could easily be played at any pub on St. Patrick's Day.

"This Depression" ends the first act with the need for the despondent job seeker or worker of two jobs who still has trouble making ends meet in a future that seems like "One step up and two steps back." He confesses to his woman that in "this depression," both the economic kind and his mental strain, he needs her heart, the strength of her love, to help him continue on. He'd quit, if not for her. The odds seem insurmountable.

Act II is the resilience of Springsteen's protagonists. "Wrecking Ball" which seemed a slapdash song thrown together for the final dates at the Meadowlands, now becomes the symbol of the common man in America. After suffering the slings and arrows of an economy and political system that seems not to reward anyone but the rich, Springsteen still believes that the good of America's people will win out. And as his protagonists grow stronger and regain their footing, the Old Lady starts to look pretty good. His ode to their "Baby" who's got it and wants her to give it to him. After all, the promise of Rock 'n' Roll also means that it is there to sexualize you.

Which sets up Act III. If the power of Rock can get the sexual juices flowing, than a peace on earth and a life ever after is found in the promise of the Gospel.

Springsteen turns to the spirituals, that have carried suffering people for centuries, to help find an answer to their toils. I may disagree that the retooling of "Land of Hope and Dreams" was necessary, because the live version found on the "Live from NYC" album was majestic. But here it certainly fits within the theme of Wrecking Ball.

While his peers are coasting on the laurels of their bygone successes, Bruce Springsteen has delivered a tour de force. His reflection on the American landscape of the second decade of the 21st Century is a condemnation of the unfairness he sees in the systematic destroying of the middle class. At the same time, he offers hope that, by sticking to the fundamental values of love and faith, we can get better.

While he might have been mis-led in "Working on a Dream," he still believes in the better tomorrow. But only if, as he says in "We Are Alive," Americans "…stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart."