Massive Music List

For more than 35 years, Bruce Springsteen has set a standard of consistent excellence that few other rock and roll artists could ever hope to match. He has written so many great songs, as both a solo artist and with the E Street Band, that it would seem almost impossible to try and rank those classics one against another. And yet one fan was daring enough, or maybe foolhardy enough, to try. Following up our Beatles and Stones countdowns, JamsBio presents “No Retreat, No Surrender,” a worst-to-first countdown of every album cut in Springsteen history, plus a few choice outtakes, live classics, and soundtrack songs – that’s 200 tunes ranked and defended. Check out JamsBio.com each day as the countdown is gradually revealed, and prepare to hit the message boards to defend your favorites.

The complete list to date.

The Last Five:

190. “Souls of the Departed” (from Lucky Town)

189. “Human Touch” (from Human Touch)

188. “Roll of the Dice” (from Human Touch)

187. “Something in the Night” (from Darkness on the Edge of Town)

186. “Mary Queen of Arkansas” (from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.)

185. “Further On (Up the Road)”

From The Rising

LISTEN HERE

Springsteen’s vague tale of a man drifting through an indefinable, existential malaise doesn’t bring anything new to this mini-genre, one Bob Dylan has mined prolifically for a very long time. Dylan always knows how to throw in a few revealingly weird details to ground his songs of this nature, whereas this track never feels believably lived-in.

“Further On (Up The Road)” has an ironic hopefulness to it, with Bruce promising a future meeting with the person he’s addressing. From the sound of the ominous croak he chooses as his singing voice, it’s not really clear that the meeting is going to be all puppies and balloons.

Bruce could have taken this in a bluesier direction for a little bit more impact, instead of the pretty bland blaring rock arrangement that doesn’t allow any air to enter. The few brief flashes of color, provided by Little Steven in the form of harmony vocals and mandolin, are buried way too deep in the mix.

The Rising, standing at 15 songs, saw Bruce falling victim to the bloat that has hampered so many CD releases. Just because technology allows you to fit more songs onto a record, it doesn’t mean that you have a mandate to do so. A little more editing would have benefited the album, and “Further On (Up The Road)” seems like it should have been a prime candidate for the chopping block.

184. “Streets of Fire”

From Darkness on the Edge of Town

LISTEN HERE

There are elements of this song that are undeniably great, starting with Springsteen’s majestic vocal performance. The man hits registers here that frankly suggest that he was being disemboweled while recording his lead vocal, so that should count for something, right?

And the moment when the guitars and drums come crashing in at the chorus following the stark intro in which Bruce is accompanied only by Danny Federici’s see-sawing organ chords, well, that’s a grabber too. The Boss also rips into a guitar solo that reaches to bust down the barriers that have hemmed in the song’s protagonist.

But the schizophrenic nature of the song, bouncing back and forth between the staggering verses and the blistering refrains, dampens any momentum it seeks to achieve. The catharsis that Bruce is seeking never quite arrives.

That leaves us with a song that reflects utter desolation about as unflinchingly as any in the man’s catalog. These streets are all dead ends, full of deception and danger. Bruce was channeling all of his frustration and turmoil, the themes that dominated the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album, into this 4-minute piece. The utter lack of hope and the stifling arrangement make these “Streets” a place that no one would be to anxious to visit.

183. “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)”

From The River

LISTEN HERE

Look, I’ve got a 6-year-old, so I can relate, you know? Many is the time when I’ve been strolling through a department store at the mall only to catch something out of the corner of my eye, a shiny, undoubtedly expensive, object hurtling to the ground, at which point I’m forced to go into an Ozzie Smith, parallel-to-the-floor dive in order to make the save rather than enter into indentured servitude for the rest of my existence. I get it.

That said, I’m not sure if I’ve ever thought this situation worthy of song material. That’s one of the great things about Bruce, I guess, that he can take a mundane act of clumsiness and turn it into catchy rock and roll. But this number from The River is so lightweight it borders on a novelty song.

There is a subtle lesson about temptation buried within Bruce’s three slice-of-life vignettes in the verses, which rush by in a breathless flash. The music is heavily indebted to Chuck Berry, and the song fits with the everything-goes ethos of The River. But if there is one song of Bruce’s that Ray Stevens could cover, this might be it. You can decide for yourself whether that’s a compliment or not.

182. “The New Timer”

From The Ghost Of Tom Joad

LISTEN HERE

Clocking in at almost 6 minutes, “The New Timer” is a bit of a slog. Bruce travels the rails like a latter-day Woody Guthrie, a novice at such an itinerant life until he’s taken in by a veteran who shows him the ropes.

Had the song stuck with just this relationship, it might have found a stronger footing. There are some interesting dichotomies to be explored. The older man, named Frank, serves as a much-needed father figure to the young man that Bruce depicts, even while that younger man has proven derelict in his own fatherly duties, having left behind his own son to a life that he can only now dimly envision in the campfire light.

The song rolls along amiably and without much oomph for another several verses after Frank is senselessly killed, if only to fulfill the cycle of violence. The younger man waits in the dark with a machete at the end of the song, praying for a chance at revenge.

The Ghost Of Tom Joad was never meant to be a pick-me-up record by any means, but this song borders on a hopelessness that has no bottom. You might want to have song #183 cued up to play at the conclusion of this one as a tonic for all the despair on display.

181. “All I’m Thinkin’ About”

From Devils & Dust

LISTEN HERE

Who is that singing on this Devils & Dust track, Bruce Springsteen or Smokey Robinson? On an album where tentative experimentation seemed to be the prevalent mood, it’s somehow fitting that the Boss tests out his shaky, yet endearing falsetto on this one.

When aided by some female backing vocals in the refrains (including wife Patti, of course), Springsteen manages a soulful croon. On the verses the unfamiliar style is exposed a bit, and it’s almost a relief when the next chorus rolls around again to get things back on more solid footing.

There’s nothing much else going on here. Lyrically, it’s just a series of run-of-the-mill observations sandwiched around the title refrain. Musically, it’s a gentle acoustic shuffle which bears a passing resemblance to “Two Faces” from Tunnel Of Love. So, at the very least, the falsetto gives this song a distinguishing characteristic, and a fun one at that.

The complete list to date.

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