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:

70. “Secret Garden” (from Greatest Hits)

69. “Because the Night” (from Live 1975-85)

68. “Point Blank” (from The River)

67. “With Every Wish” (from Human Touch)

66. “Downbound Train” (from Born In The U.S.A.)

65. “The Hitter”

From Devils & Dust

LISTEN HERE

Anyone who thinks that Springsteen’s songwriting skills have softened somehow as the years have passed should check out this stunner from Devils & Dust, which was released in 2005. It’s as unflinching a character sketch as Bruce has ever provided, a look at a hard man that still manages to elicit, if not sympathy for him, than at least some understanding.

Knowing what a Scorcese fan Bruce is, it’s no surprise that the titular character bears a passing resemblance to the Raging Bull himself, Jake LaMotta. The setting here is a little more antiquated, as evidenced by a title fight being held outdoors in a field and the barbaric lack of rules to these bouts. But the archetype is the same, a man for whom violence is his only means of communication, even when he’s not in the ring (“I knew the fight was my home and blood was my trade”).

The difference is that Springsteen’s anti-hero continues to battle on in unsanctioned bouts long after he took the fix and a dive. Bruce also tries to explain how his character got to this point, via the framing device of his stopping in on his unsuspecting mother. He makes it clear he expects nothing from her, just as it has been his whole life. When his mother flinches at his presence, he visits his own sins upon her: “Ma, if my voice now you don’t recognize/Then just open the door and look into your dark eyes.”

The monotone acoustic melody is rendered unexpectedly moving when it occasionally shifts, as Bruce slips into a beatific falsetto that yields a brief grace note for this damned soul. It’s a brief one however: In the final verse, “The Hitter” is right back in the ring, cutting down another opponent with a violent strike. But it’s Springsteen who delivers the true knockout with this powerful narrative.

64. “Radio Nowhere”

From Magic

LISTEN HERE

Blasting out of the speakers with a purpose and power that the band hadn’t showed in nearly a quarter-decade, this song was the perfect choice to introduce Magic, the album on which the E Street Band once again found their swagger. If they needed to piggyback a tad on an old one-hit wonder to do it, well, it was worth it.

The similarities between “Radio Nowhere” and a certain Tommy Tutone smash are undeniable and yet superficial. Bruce’s churning guitar riff is grittier, and the lyrics undoubtedly have more depth. And the chunky new wave of Tutone is no match for the brawny assault of the E Streeters, who play as if they’ve been bottled up for a hundred years and have energy to burn.

Springsteen’s famous concert call to arms, “Is there anybody alive out there?” is utilized here to suggest a landscape that has been anesthetized by computers and technology. You can take this as Bruce either bemoaning the sad state of society or the sad state of rock and roll. His valiant search for some music to set him free leads him to some self-revelation about what he’s truly after: “I want a thousand guitars/I want pounding drums/I want a million different voices speaking in tongues.”

As he did when he came busting out of the gate with Born To Run, Bruce finds his salvation in the power of music, a full-circle embrace of those ideals. I could do without the production being compressed within an inch of his life, but it does pack quite a wallop. If Bruce couldn’t find the music to soothe his soul in 2007, then, with “Radio Nowhere”, he could just make it himself.

63. “One Step Up”

From Tunnel of Love

LISTEN HERE

“One Step Up” is a study of delusion. A woman deludes herself into thinking that her man will change. A man deludes himself into believing that a one-night affair can somehow eradicate his marital woes. Even the title of the song deludes: It leaves out the kicker of the line, “two steps back.”

The song is as woeful as anything else on Tunnel of Love, which is saying something because the album gets pretty bleak. But the emotions are all the more devastating because they feel authentic. All of the peripheries surrounding the protagonist are crumbling, from his house and car falling apart to old-fashioned romantic symbols like weddings and cooing birds failing to deliver solace. But the real problem is within himself, and when he admits to his own lack of commitment to his union at the end (“Mmm she ain’t looking too married/And me well honey I’m pretending”), it’s a startlingly frank revelation that many people read way too much into once Springsteen’s own marriage dissolved.

The music, handled by Bruce exclusively (with the exception of Patti Scialfa on the ethereal backing vocals), is decidedly downbeat, with just a touch of Nashville in both the melody and Springsteen’s emerging twang. All told, it recedes into the background, save for a few mournful guitar licks from The Boss, and that’s probably just as it should be with this subject matter.

As is often the case in Springsteen songs, a dream in “One Step Up” represents the manifestation of the characters’ better selves, the way that things ought to be. Here the two characters, in the man’s dream, are locked in an eternal dance far from the petty disagreements of their actual lives. The song ends before that dream is resolved, making it just one more delusion for the road.

62. “Linda Will You Let Me Be The One”

From Tracks

LISTEN HERE

You can tell that this coulda-been-a-contender outtake came from the Born To Run sessions. While the street gangs and romantic young boys are still the focus of the narrative, the lyrics are tighter. And the music is no longer a jazzy, freeform ramble; it’s sharp and to the point, booming out of the speakers with greater power and precision.

I suppose it didn’t make the cut because it was a little too slavish an homage to classic Phil Spector. Springsteen was redefining his own sound at the time, and a song like this might have been considered inimical to that cause. But, boy, does it go down smooth, thanks to Max Weinberg and Garry Tallent anchoring the “Be My Baby”-flavored groove, and to Roy Bittan’s piano chords, which chime like the bells of the church that provides the hero, “a kid named Eddie,” with sanctuary.

The song comes on like just another gangland epic, but the romance really takes center stage. Or lack of romance, as the case may be, because Eddie spends the duration of the song attempting to reclaim the magical moment he once shared with the title heroine. This leads him to all kinds of heart-on-his-sleeve acts of desperation, including my personal favorite, carving her name in the seats of her dad’s car. Well-played, Eddie.

Eddie’s romantic myopia comes at the expense of his gang leadership, which just makes it all the more romantic, doesn’t it? The way the chorus just sticks to that one line proves how single-minded this kid is, even if he never does get the answer he hopes to hear. Then again, if he had, it might have broken the melancholy spell of this lost classic.

61. “Happy”

From Tracks

LISTEN HERE

At first, it seems odd that a song called “Happy” sounds, at times, like one of the most miserably sad offerings of the Boss’ career. That only adds to the depth of emotion on display here, as Bruce clings on to this chance at love with every ounce of his being.

Recorded in 1992 by just Bruce, Roy Bittan, and session drummer Shawn Pelton, who adds some dramatic timpani to the chorus, “Happy” sounds like it could have been worthy edition to either Human Touch or Lucky Town, but I guess it’s foolish to question Bruce’s editing process when the albums he comes up with are usually so airtight.

Springsteen seems to be waxing autobiographical here, as the tale of a man who drifts into a funk, finding no solace in material possessions, before reemerging a happy man thanks to true love. It wouldn’t be a Bruce love song without some concession to the darker forces inside us which are always prevalent and ready to claim us should our vigilance slip, but the resilience of love eventually wins the day here, thanks to a strong set of lyrics that occasionally sound almost Shakespearean: “Lost and running ‘neath a million dead stars/Tonight let’s shed our skins and slip these bars.” It’s lovely sentiment like this that makes “Happy”, which was finally releases on Tracks, such a keeper.

The complete list to date.

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