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:

75. “Adam Raised a Cain” (from Darkness on the Edge of Town)

74. “Terry’s Song” (from Magic)

73. “The Wish” (from Tracks)

72. “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)” (from The Essential Bruce Springsteen)

71. “Outlaw Pete” (from Working On a Dream)

70. “Secret Garden”

From Greatest Hits

LISTEN HERE

First things, first. Bruce is not to be blamed for the super-annoying version of this song featuring movie quotes from Jerry Maguire. I guess he could have stopped it, and that version did bring the song back into the spotlight, actually gaining it an unlikely Top 20 spot. But I prefer my Springsteen without Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger campaigning for the title of the World’s Most Whiny On-Screen Couple.

The song itself, unadorned by the nonsense, is a beauty. The mesmerizing three-note keyboard riff draws you in and keeps you there, as the E Street Band, who were back on board for the Greatest Hits project after a long hiatus, proved their deft and subtle touch on the slow songs. The accents, a little piano here, a little acoustic guitar there, are perfectly pitched throughout.

The lyrics are a bit like Bruce’s take on Billy Joel’s “She’s Always A Woman” without the icky aftertaste of misogyny attached. Springsteen’s admiration for this nameless female, who clearly is meant to stand in for all of womankind in their mysterious splendor, is palpable throughout. The “secret garden” certainly has some sexual undertones, but I think Bruce is really referring to the way that women can seem a world away even when they’re in your arms. I’m not sure all women would agree with that viewpoint, but it’s certainly an accurate representation of how most men feel.

Clarence has the definitive word though, with a hauntingly beautiful solo that gets its point across with minimal histrionics. The notes seem to shimmer in the air like a woman’s beauty, before fading just beyond our reach. I’ll take that as a moving statement on the fairer sex over “You complete me” anytime.

69. “Because the Night”

From Live 1975-85

LISTEN HERE

One of Springsteen’s best songwriter-for-hire products, the Boss’ own studio version of what was a hit for punk priestess Patti Smith stays unreleased to this day. The version on Live 1975-85 is what we have to go on. Luckily, the performance is fierce enough that we get a pretty good reading.

Apparently, when Bruce demo-ed the song, it had an overtly Latin feel to it. Roy Bittan’s soaring piano runs in the bridge and chorus appear to be the only evidence of that, as the arrangement Bruce uses, which is similar to Smith’s own, fits the band’s style well. Bittan’s opening circular lick sends the crowd into a frenzy, setting up the high drama of that killer chorus. Springsteen also sets alight the crowd with a blistering, rapid-fire guitar solo to end the song.

The differences between the lyrics in Springsteen’s and Smith’s versions are slight. Bruce projects the image of an everyday Joe who offers a passionate respite from life’s slings and arrows to his lover. He can see his own limitations (“What I’m not, I have learned”), but he knows the power their love wields. Smith does a bit more mystical musing on love; hence her take is a tad more poetic and ethereal. But the disparate versions share an intensity which speaks directly to the intensity of the performers in question. Smith and Springsteen are two of rock’s true believers, in their own unique ways, and their collaboration turned out to be counterintuitive brilliance.

68. “Point Blank”

From The River

LISTEN HERE

Starting off the third side of The River on a decidedly downbeat note, “Point Blank” is like a dark film noir which allows in no light. Only the dreams of the narrator offer a lone note of nostalgic happiness, but the cold reality of the situation overwhelms all reveries. It’s a story that stays with you long after the sad final piano notes dissipate.

Springsteen’s lyrics are so natural and plainspoken here that they almost seem improvisatory. The fact that the song actually went through many incarnations before finding its form speaks well of Bruce’s ability to hide that struggle. The final version keeps the reasons for the sad plight of the aggrieved girl vague. Drugs perhaps? Maybe prostitution, due to her financial woes? Or is it simply the deterioration of her hopes and dreams, forcing a kind of settling that is tantamount to death? (“You wake up and you’re dying, you don’t even know what from?”)

The drama of the song really takes off when Bruce recounts the aforementioned dream, as the pair shares a brief moment of bliss on a crowded dance floor. It’s a theme that repeats itself often on The River, how life constantly throws obstacles in the way of high expectations, and the consequences of failing to meet those youthful hopes (or as queried on the title track, “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true?”). Bruce never notes how or why things went wrong. One moment he’s swearing to hold on to her forever, the next he catches sight of her in the shadows as if she were an apparition. We’re not meant to be privy to how it ended up this way, which makes the song even more haunting.

Anyone who thinks that the E Street Band can only do “rock” should take another listen to this jazzy change-of-pace. Garry Tallent’s bass asks the questions and Roy Bittan’s piano provides tasteful commentary. The answers come in the form of Danny Federici’s weeping organ and Steve Van Zandt’s wailing harmony vocals. The interplay is nothing short of magical, conveying the hopelessness of “Point Blank” as well as the lyrics do. And that’s saying something.

67. “With Every Wish”

From Human Touch

LISTEN HERE

I’ve been tough on Human Touch, but let’s keep in mind that even the least of Bruce’s efforts is better than the majority of the stuff on the rock landscape. And there are a few real keepers that stand out, including “With Every Wish,” a lovely acoustic curve ball that finds the songwriter looking inward via some feigned autobiography.

We can’t go very far with this song without noting the contributions of Mark Isham, whose trumpet interludes give the song its distinctive feel. That’s the same Mark Isham who has scored a ton of films over the past few decades to great acclaim. Here he adds a cinematic touch with his beautiful reflections on Bruce’s story, embellishing the singer’s matter-of-fact vocals with wistful emotion.

It’s not likely that Bruce ever fell in a lake while cat-fishing in Jersey, nor did he ever, as far as we know, have a fling with a town beauty named Doreen (whose moniker proves useful for rhyming purposes, if nothing else). But it is notable when Bruce speaks of jealousy as the reason for their downfall, and when he warns of the pitfalls of getting everything you want. The final verse provides a telling glimpse of the artist as he saw his life at that point: The pitfalls are still there if he’s not careful, but he’s also still young enough to follow his heart first, the lessons of the past be damned.

In the end, he’s back in the mystical river, hoping it carries him to the female “with a look in her eye” who will end his search. We know how that turned out for Bruce, and it’s notable that the curse of the lake is apparently lifted at song’s end. Isham’s trumpet then goes gliding up into the trees, ending this introspective number on a note of glory.

66. “Downbound Train”

From Born In The U.S.A.

LISTEN HERE

It’s impossible to do even the smallest amount of research on the Bruce Springsteen story without running across the work of Dave Marsh. Marsh is a rock journalist who was there at the beginning and became good friends with Springsteen. His biographies are the most reliable source on Springsteen’s life, and his criticism of his work is endlessly insightful. To put it another way, here I am writing a 200-song countdown of Bruce, and Dave Marsh has forgotten more about him than I’ll ever know.

That said, I have to disagree here with Marsh, who didn’t have much nice to say about “Downbound Train.” He felt the song was sloppily written, citing, in his 1987 work Glory Days, the fact that the protagonist appears to go through three jobs as the song progresses.

Well, there’s a number of ways to respond to this. First of all, I don’t think it was all that unreasonable that a ramshackle character like this, in 1984, would have trouble keeping employment. Other Born In The U.S.A. tracks, like the title cut and “My Hometown,” dealt with the economic problems in our fair nation, so I’m not sure why this guy should have been exempt from them.

But another way to look at the song, and maybe a more accurate one, would be to not take it so literally. The whole song seems to be a fever dream, one man’s obsession overtaking his reality. Indeed, the dramatic acme of the song, when the grinding guitars die away and leave Bruce almost a cappella, is a long, involved story of the character imagining that he heard his ex-wife’s voice and then charging futilely through the woods to their former home, which he, of course, he finds empty.

I suppose we can take that scene literally, in which case the protagonist has to live within running distance of the house, even though they’re separated by a whole forest. Or, we can just say that this guy has snapped, the pressures of his financial ruin pushing him a bit too far, and that he is hallucinating his way through the song, tormented by the ever-present whistle in his ears. All he can do is to reach out to the audience hoping that misery will find company: “Don’t it feel like you’re a rider on a downbound train?” It’s this reading that is much more dark and profound, and it’s the reason that, with all due respect to Mr. Marsh, “Downbound Train” is such a moody marvel.

The complete list to date.

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