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:

180. “The Fuse” (from The Rising)

179. “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)” (from Human Touch)

178. “Maria’s Bed” (from Devils & Dust)

177. “Man’s Job” (from Human Touch)

176. “All That Heaven Will Allow” (from Tunnel of Love)

175. “Night”

From Born to Run

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No, Born to Run is not completely filled with stone-cold, unassailable classics. Most of it is, but there are one or few drop-off points and “Night” is one of them.

That’s not to say the song doesn’t have something to offer. It’s got a nice kick to it and it gets to its point and gets out again before it wears out its welcome. Garry Tallent’s bass injects some subtle bounce into a track that’s otherwise all momentum right up until the Big Man’s final sax note. And Bruce balances the most prosaic set of lyrics on the record with just enough darkness and desperation to make it a good fit with all of the glorious, yet ambivalent, odes to nightlife elsewhere on the album.

It’s nowhere near the quality level of the warhorses all around it, but that’s not such a bad thing. One more anthem might have tipped the balance of the album, pushing it past anthemic and into indulgent. As it is, “Night” provides a needed breather from the long, ambitious masterpieces and succeeds, albeit on its own very modest terms.

174. “Crush on You”

From The River

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Anyone who’s ever listened to Steven Van Zandt’s syndicated radio show knows that the man has a serious affinity for the Rolling Stones. Maybe a little bit of that rubbed off on The Boss on this track from The River, which definitely has an early 70’s Stones vibe to it. In particular it sounds a little like “Happy” without the horns. Both songs are propelled by chimey and grimy rhythm guitars.

Bruce’s lyrics are purposely over-the-top, and he yelps them at the top of his screech as if he had a vendetta against his larynx. The song is an ode to instant attraction and the dedication to act on that attraction consequences be damned. Springsteen even admits to the possible pitfalls: “She’s probably got a lousy personality.”

But his willpower is no match for this femme fatale. In the final verse, Max Weinberg double-times his drums to mimic a quickened pulse as Bruce comes to his conclusion. The whole affair is a tad manic, but it’s a fun diversion that provides a good showcase for the endearingly corny sense of humor of its composer. Sheena of the Jungle, indeed.

173. “Reno”

From Devils & Dust

LISTEN HERE

Hey now, Bruce! What’s this all about? I turn on a Springsteen record and I get a Vivid Video instead. (Not that I’ve seen a Vivid Video project, umm, you know, I’ve heard about them, from the, umm, the Internet, yes, that’s it! No, I’m not squirming.)

Actually, the sex in “Reno” is a distraction from the main issue of the song, which is the narrator’s regret over mistakes made with his true love Maria (a very popular Bruce song name, by the way). The sex is described with such graphic precision that it nearly overwhelms the subtlety of the middle section, in which his memories provide the romance his current situation lacks.

It’s a nifty job Bruce does of switching from scene to scene, and it would have been even better had he not chosen to sing the song like Jim Varney. (“Hey Vern, got me a prostitute.”) But we’ll leave that quibble for the dialogue coach.

Best instead to concentrate on that killer closing line, when the main character, spent but unfulfilled, reveals to the cocky working girl where his heart truly lies: “It wasn’t the best I ever had/Not even close.”

172. “Tomorrow Never Knows”

From Working on a Dream

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One of the best things about the latest Springsteen offering, Working On A Dream, is the way that it dares to sound un-Springsteenlike at times. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with the signature E Street Band sound, but it doesn’t always suit something as gentle and unassuming as “Tomorrow Never Knows,” a little snapshot of a song whose only real ambition is to sound pleasant.

It achieves that thanks to Brendan O’Brien’s nice production flourishes. What starts out as a pretty straight take on Dylan mid-60’s-era folk pop (Max’s opening snare taps call to mind “I Want You” almost eerily) becomes something a bit more lush and unpredictable. The strings are countrypolitan, the horns are border-town, and the fluttering keyboard effects of Patrick Warren are pure whimsy.

All of those touches are necessary, because the song itself is pretty lightweight. The title, borrowed from the Beatles psychedelic classic, is used here in a more straightforward manner to suggest the unpredictability of the future, hence the necessity to act in the present.

It’s not exactly an original thought, but Bruce still draws charm from it. “Tomorrow Never Knows” draws its modest allure from the daring fact that you’d never know who the performer is until the moment he opens his mouth to sing.

171. “Leap Of Faith”

From Lucky Town

LISTEN HERE

Easy-going and good-hearted, “Leap Of Faith” isn’t the most ambitious recording to come down the pike, and the lyrics are a bit strained at times with their offbeat comparisons running the gamut from baseball to Biblical. The gospel sweep of the chorus is a nice touch though, and it’s far catchier than much of the rest of either one of Bruce’s dual 1992 releases.

Without much more to say about the otherwise nondescript song, let me admit that I’ve always misheard the lyrics to this Lucky Town offering. In the first verse Bruce sings, “So I grabbed you baby like a wild pitch,” referring to an errant toss by a baseball hurler. It took my reading the lyric sheet in research for this project to discover this, because I always thought that the Boss was singing “like a wild bitch.”

Had Bruce blamed the catcher and called it a “passed ball,” it would have been much clearer (although it might have taken on a bizarre connotation). Still, I’d like to hereby apologize to Bruce for assuming that he wrote a lyric that could be interpreted as either misogynistic or anti-dog. My bad.

The complete list to date.

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