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:

135. “Better Days” (from Lucky Town)

134. “You’ll Be Coming Down” (from Magic)

133. “Working On a Dream” (from Working On a Dream)

132. “Dead Man Walkin’” (from The Essential Bruce Springsteen)

131. “My Best Was Never Good Enough” (from The Ghost of Tom Joad)

130. “Queen Of The Supermarket”

From Working On a Dream

LISTEN HERE

A lot of reviewers went a bit apoplectic when this song arrived on Working On a Dream this year, giving some WTF reactions and pointing it out as an example of Springsteen losing touch. I think they misinterpreted it and took it straight; if you can imagine Bruce singing it with a nod and a wink, then you’ve got the spirit.

Bruce was supposedly inspired by a trip to his local megamart, which apparently is an infrequent journey for him (imagine seeing Springsteen in the produce aisle!) Anyway, Bruce equated all of the products on display with a sort of garden of earthly delights, and even saw something sexual in the way a customer’s every desire, for food, that is, can be met. Those of us who’ve had to deal with a line 10 deep when all we have to buy is a loaf of bread might not feel so randy, but artists just see things differently, I guess.

And so Springsteen imagines a working-class schmo who becomes enthralled with one of the checkout girls, further intermingling the desires for food and sex. (George Costanza would understand.) He never confesses his ardor, content to catch a fleeting glimpse and a smile. Anyone who could miss the humor in a line like “A dream awaits in aisle number two” isn’t listening close enough.

It helps that Bruce packages it in dream pop accompaniment. The groove sounds like it was borrowed from the Drifters, circa 1961. And hearing the tinkling chords of Roy Bittan accompanying a shopping cart instead of a street race is quite a jolt. “Queen Of The Supermarket” is filled with amusing little quirks like that; it’s just a matter of opening both the mind and the ears to hear them.

129. “The Rising”

From The Rising

LISTEN HERE

Very few Springsteen songs have been so honored. “The Rising” nabbed a pair of Grammys in 2003 and was favored to take the illustrious Best Song trophy before getting waylaid by the Norah Jones express. In the end though, I think the song can be appreciated and admired more than loved.

The subject matter is so overwhelmingly potent that right off the bat the song almost has to be perfect to do it justice. I’d say that the lyrics come pretty damn close. Springsteen takes a subtle approach here, imagining a 9/11 firefighter’s ascent in both literal and spiritual terms. The first verse is a blow-by-blow of his climbing the stairs up into the burning building, but he veers away from this description in the second verse, relating instead how what began as an idyllic day turned into a nightmare in seconds, a telling reflection on the fragility of grace.

The final verse is when Springsteen really hits his stride, as the firefighter begins to see visions of his afterlife, religious imagery everywhere. In the last build-up to the refrain, the sky flashing in front of his eyes is a juxtaposition of wonder and sorrow. There is an uplifting feel to this final verse, and this is the point when the song really feels like it achieves the Herculean feat of honoring its topic.

Unfortunately, those lyrics are tied to a melody that is stubbornly earthbound. The muscular rock that Bruce and company chose for an arrangement also feels a bit ill-suited to the task. In that last verse you get a feel for what might have been when the instruments fall away save for a low hum behind the vocal, only to have the music ratchet up the drama into the chorus. More of this would have gone a long way. As it is, “The Rising” always feels like a bit of a struggle for all involved. Then again, a near-miss on an attempt with such a high degree of difficulty is still a notable achievement.

128. “Fire”

From Live 1975-1985

LISTEN HERE

Unable to record due to a legal battle with former manager Mike Appel, Bruce Springsteen spent a portion of the late 70’s attempting to write songs for other artists. Freed from the constraints of having to write material that might fit into whatever thematic kick he was on while still meeting his extraordinarily high standards, Bruce started writing songs that had the immediate appeal that some of the 60’s music he worshipped as a kid possessed.

“Fire” was one of those songs, originally composed with Elvis Presley in mind (and there’s a lot of The King in Bruce’s version, don’t you think?) Alas, Elvis left the earthly building before laying it down, and it ended up in the hands of The Pointer Sisters, who turned it into a #2 smash. Springsteen started playing it live, as he says on the version on Live 1975-85, “for all the girls out there.”

That version isn’t the most dynamic, and he doesn’t really ham it up like he has done at other times, which is too bad. The song itself has all the attitude and swagger in the world however, and Bruce puts that across without breaking a sweat. “Fire” is a lot of fun, but the subtle shift it and other songs of its ilk helped to bring about in The Boss’ songwriting was no joke. It would pay off big dividends when Springsteen’s own recordings started dominating the pop charts themselves.

127. “Ain’t Got You”

From Tunnel of Love

LISTEN HERE

When it was released in 1987, Tunnel of Love wasn’t yet the Divorce Album. For all the world knew, things were rosy between Bruce and Julianne Phillips. In that context, “Ain’t Got You” seems like a rollicking ode to an unrequited love, with Springsteen hollering out the lyrics while battering his acoustic guitar and chugging away on his harp.

Maybe keen observers would have noticed the prevalent mood of the rest of the album was mostly dark, and then they could have surmised that Bruce, ever the stickler for unity, maybe had more in mind for the opener. But it was really only with hindsight that the song took on weightier implications. Knowing how his marriage turned out, the “you” he lacks suddenly doesn’t refer to an unrequited love, but instead to the supposed love of his life.

The song is also notable for Springsteen’s blunt observations on fame. Don’t forget that his own notoriety was at its zenith at the time of Tunnel of Love, fresh as he was off the mega success of Born In The USA and the legendary concerts to support it. Bruce pokes a hole in any pretensions in cutting fashion, seeing right through the silliness of fame: “And folks wanna kiss me I ain’t ever seen before.” You can debate all you want if Springsteen’s marital woes are audible in “Ain’t Got You,” but his view on celebrity is crystal clear: “Well you’d think I might be thrilled but baby I don’t care.” It sounds like he’d take his chances on love over fame any day of the week.

126. “Last to Die”

From Magic

LISTEN HERE

Springsteen has often talked about wanting his songs to co-mingle the personal and political, and the effort to do just that is pretty overt on this grinder off Magic. Propelled forward by outstanding bass work by Garry Tallent, “Last To Die” captures the E Street Band pounding out some brawny rock without missing the drama of Bruce’s construction.

The title phrase comes from a John Kerry speech about Vietnam. Bruce initially uses it to describe the casualties of a loveless relationship: “We don’t measure the blood we’ve drawn anymore/We just stack the bodies outside the door.”

As the song progresses however, it becomes clear that there’s more on the narrator’s radar than his crumbling romance, as the local news jars him to the core: “A downtown window flushed with light/’Faces of the dead at 5.’” In the final refrain, Bruce is as obvious as he will ever get in his condemnation of warmongers: “ Darlin’ will tyrants and kings fall to the same fate?”

It’s a delicate tightrope on which Bruce balances these disparate elements, and at times it does seem to tip over. In the end though, the momentum of the band and the conviction of Springsteen keep things together and “Last To Die” reaches the other side just fine.

The complete list to date.

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