~I've listened to two segments on NPR with excerpts from Bruce's new album, accompanied by an interview with him. It sounds very much like him, addressing the everyday people who are entrenched in stress. It also sounds very good.
~ Lizzy
"Devils and Dust" ~ Bruce Springsteen
"Devils and Dust" ~ Bruce Springsteen
Hi Kush ~
I've listened to two segments on NPR with excerpts from Bruce's new album, accompanied by an interview with him. It sounds very much like him, addressing the everyday people who are entrenched in stress. It also sounds very good.
~ Lizzy
~I've listened to two segments on NPR with excerpts from Bruce's new album, accompanied by an interview with him. It sounds very much like him, addressing the everyday people who are entrenched in stress. It also sounds very good.
~ Lizzy
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Teratogen
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i heard all this new material is just him and an acoustic guitar. my friend told me he saw a new music video of his and liked it very much, with him just sitting on a stool on a stage with no audience, and all the lights were on. that'd be interesting to see. i really like his older stuff, but haven't taken a listen too much to any of his newer stuff.
"Rock and roll is dead, but I am its revival. I'm prophesied by sages died, from Buddha to the Bible." --TERATOGEN
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Well, the "this morning" I refer to was actually Wednesday, April 27, but with the time differences due to GMT, it appears quite different, like I'm writing in the future, looking at the past, or maybe the reverse. Who knows? I know it doesn't make sense to read it.
Yes, that does sound appealing, Teratogen. Just Bruce, his guitar, empty stage, empty auditorium, lights on. Kind of like him sitting at his kitchen table.
Yes, that does sound appealing, Teratogen. Just Bruce, his guitar, empty stage, empty auditorium, lights on. Kind of like him sitting at his kitchen table.
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Teratogen
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hahaha. well, actually, it reminds me of the music video he did for that song, "secret garden," which was on the jerry maguire soundtrack. that song makes me cry, but in the video, besides the film footage, he's just playing guitar on a stool. also, one of my favorite songs of his (also one of the saddest i've ever heard) is "streets of philadelphia." gets me so depressed. hahaha.
"Rock and roll is dead, but I am its revival. I'm prophesied by sages died, from Buddha to the Bible." --TERATOGEN
http://www.myspace.com/teratogen (music page)
http://www.myspace.com/teratogen666 (personal page)
http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheNoHoldsBard?ref=profile (Facebook page)
http://www.myspace.com/teratogen (music page)
http://www.myspace.com/teratogen666 (personal page)
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Lizzytysh.....I still have to hear the album properly....for some reason it wont play in my car where I do most of my listening. So I'll have to get back with an informed opinion later.
But here's an interesting article on it....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7738014/site/newsweek/
But here's an interesting article on it....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7738014/site/newsweek/
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linda_lakeside
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I will post later on about the concerts I saw - am still recovering.
BTW, slurpin' gumbo is fine but not a good idea gulpin' hurricanes...I speak from painful experience. Best to take it down nice 'n easy.
....I did post about M Peyroux concert in the thread that Dem started i think in the News or was it Comments.
BTW, slurpin' gumbo is fine but not a good idea gulpin' hurricanes...I speak from painful experience. Best to take it down nice 'n easy.
....I did post about M Peyroux concert in the thread that Dem started i think in the News or was it Comments.
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linda_lakeside
- Posts: 3857
- Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2004 3:08 pm
- Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea..
Well I have a number of posts to catch up with but let me start with Mr. Springsteen.
Devils & Dust is really really terrific - it still doesnt play in my car - but I've heard it a few times now at home and at work. It is along the lines of Springsteen's folky albums Ghost of Tom Joad and Nebraska as opposed to the loud rock arena stuff best represented by the 70s trilogy - The Wild the Innocent...., Darkness at the edge of town and Born to Run. One reviewer called his folky stuff - "softer voice and louder truths" - although I disagree with that.....whatever style muscically they all have the signature Springsteen lyric style of strong narrative and brilliant characterization. D & D is musically more accessible than Ghost of Tom Joad (and less monotonous) and not as raw as Nebraska. The 70s trilogy has greater musical sweep than his folky stuff.
My favorite song so far in D & D is "Black Cowboy":
Rainey Williams' playground was the Mott Haven streets
where he ran past melted candles and flower wreaths,
names and photos of young black faces,
whose death and blood consecrated these places.
Rainey's mother said, "Rainey stay at my side,
for you are my blessing you are my pride.
It's your love here that keeps my soul alive.
I want you to come home from school and stay inside."
Rainey'd do his work and put his books away.
There was a channel showed a western movie everyday.
Lynette brought him home books on the black cowboys of the Oklahoma range
And Seminole scouts who fought the tribes of the Great Plains.
Summer come and the days grew long.
Rainey always had his mother's smile to depend on.
Along a street of stray bullets he made his way,
to the warmth of her arms at the end of each day.
Come the fall the rain flooded these homes,
here in Ezekiel's valley of dry bones,
it fell hard and dark to the ground.
It fell without a sound.
Lynette took up with a man whose business was the boulevard,
whose smile was fixed in a face that was never off guard.
In the pipes 'neath the kitchen sink his secrets he kept.
In the day, behind drawn curtains, in Lynette's bedroom he slept.
Then she got lost in the days.
The smile Rainey depended on dusted away,
the arms that held him were no more his home.
He lay at night his head pressed to her chest
listening to the ghost in her bones.
In the kitchen Rainey slipped his hand between the pipes.
From a brown bag pulled five hundred dollar bills and stuck it in his coat side,
stood in the dark at his mother's bed,
brushed her hair and kissed her eyes.
In the twilight Rainey walked to the station along streets of stone.
Through Pennsylvania and Ohio his train drifted on.
Through the small towns of Indiana the big train crept,
as he lay his head back on the seat and slept.
He awoke and the towns gave way to muddy fields of green,
corn and cotton and an endless nothin' in between.
Over the rutted hills of Oklahoma the red sun slipped and was gone.
The moon rose and stripped the earth to its bone.
Other great characters and narratives...
I walk this road, with a hammer and a fiery lantern
With this hand I've built, and with this I've burned
I wanna live in the same house, beneath the same roof
Sleep in the same bed, search for the same proof
As Leah
(from 'Leah')
Well Jesus kissed his mother's hands
Whispered, "Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared."
(from 'Jesus was an only son'.....the title recalls a Townes Van Zandt line
"Jesus was an only son,
Love his only concept")
For two days the river keeps you down
Then you rise to the light without a sound
Past the playgrounds and empty switching yards
The turtles eat the skin from your eyes, so they lay open to the stars
Your clothes give way to the current and river stone
'Till every trace of who you ever were is gone
And the things of the earth they make their claim
That the things of heaven may do the same
(from 'Matamoros Banks'....about a Mexican immigrant who drowns trying to get into US)
I fought champion Jack Thompson in a field full of mud
Rain poured through the tent to the canvas and mixed with our blood
In the twelfth I slipped my tongue over my broken jaw
I stood over him and pounded his bloody body into the floor
Well the bell rang and rang and still I kept on
'Till I felt my glove leather slip 'tween his skin and bone
(from 'The Hitter' ......about a boxer).
Amongst other songs the graphic one 'Reno' about a character's encounter with a prostitute is sung so tenderly that you forget the lyrics are so graphic. The title track is about a guard at an Iraqi checkpoint who has to make a split second decision about an approaching car.
This CD is A plus.
Devils & Dust is really really terrific - it still doesnt play in my car - but I've heard it a few times now at home and at work. It is along the lines of Springsteen's folky albums Ghost of Tom Joad and Nebraska as opposed to the loud rock arena stuff best represented by the 70s trilogy - The Wild the Innocent...., Darkness at the edge of town and Born to Run. One reviewer called his folky stuff - "softer voice and louder truths" - although I disagree with that.....whatever style muscically they all have the signature Springsteen lyric style of strong narrative and brilliant characterization. D & D is musically more accessible than Ghost of Tom Joad (and less monotonous) and not as raw as Nebraska. The 70s trilogy has greater musical sweep than his folky stuff.
My favorite song so far in D & D is "Black Cowboy":
Rainey Williams' playground was the Mott Haven streets
where he ran past melted candles and flower wreaths,
names and photos of young black faces,
whose death and blood consecrated these places.
Rainey's mother said, "Rainey stay at my side,
for you are my blessing you are my pride.
It's your love here that keeps my soul alive.
I want you to come home from school and stay inside."
Rainey'd do his work and put his books away.
There was a channel showed a western movie everyday.
Lynette brought him home books on the black cowboys of the Oklahoma range
And Seminole scouts who fought the tribes of the Great Plains.
Summer come and the days grew long.
Rainey always had his mother's smile to depend on.
Along a street of stray bullets he made his way,
to the warmth of her arms at the end of each day.
Come the fall the rain flooded these homes,
here in Ezekiel's valley of dry bones,
it fell hard and dark to the ground.
It fell without a sound.
Lynette took up with a man whose business was the boulevard,
whose smile was fixed in a face that was never off guard.
In the pipes 'neath the kitchen sink his secrets he kept.
In the day, behind drawn curtains, in Lynette's bedroom he slept.
Then she got lost in the days.
The smile Rainey depended on dusted away,
the arms that held him were no more his home.
He lay at night his head pressed to her chest
listening to the ghost in her bones.
In the kitchen Rainey slipped his hand between the pipes.
From a brown bag pulled five hundred dollar bills and stuck it in his coat side,
stood in the dark at his mother's bed,
brushed her hair and kissed her eyes.
In the twilight Rainey walked to the station along streets of stone.
Through Pennsylvania and Ohio his train drifted on.
Through the small towns of Indiana the big train crept,
as he lay his head back on the seat and slept.
He awoke and the towns gave way to muddy fields of green,
corn and cotton and an endless nothin' in between.
Over the rutted hills of Oklahoma the red sun slipped and was gone.
The moon rose and stripped the earth to its bone.
Other great characters and narratives...
I walk this road, with a hammer and a fiery lantern
With this hand I've built, and with this I've burned
I wanna live in the same house, beneath the same roof
Sleep in the same bed, search for the same proof
As Leah
(from 'Leah')
Well Jesus kissed his mother's hands
Whispered, "Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared."
(from 'Jesus was an only son'.....the title recalls a Townes Van Zandt line
"Jesus was an only son,
Love his only concept")
For two days the river keeps you down
Then you rise to the light without a sound
Past the playgrounds and empty switching yards
The turtles eat the skin from your eyes, so they lay open to the stars
Your clothes give way to the current and river stone
'Till every trace of who you ever were is gone
And the things of the earth they make their claim
That the things of heaven may do the same
(from 'Matamoros Banks'....about a Mexican immigrant who drowns trying to get into US)
I fought champion Jack Thompson in a field full of mud
Rain poured through the tent to the canvas and mixed with our blood
In the twelfth I slipped my tongue over my broken jaw
I stood over him and pounded his bloody body into the floor
Well the bell rang and rang and still I kept on
'Till I felt my glove leather slip 'tween his skin and bone
(from 'The Hitter' ......about a boxer).
Amongst other songs the graphic one 'Reno' about a character's encounter with a prostitute is sung so tenderly that you forget the lyrics are so graphic. The title track is about a guard at an Iraqi checkpoint who has to make a split second decision about an approaching car.
This CD is A plus.
Some people complain that in Ghost of Tom Joad all the melodies sound the same. But to me musically it is not so different from 'Songs from a Room'. In casual listening, they do sound the same - if you listen intently there are subtle variations. The musical homogeneity of GOTJ and Songs from a Room creates a mood or ambience that tunes the senses - of course to different things.
D&D may not be as intense as GOTJ because it is musically more accessible.
'Reno' is the most tenderly sung song on the album. I think he had to sing it that way coz' the lyrics are so graphic (some of it - there is more to it). A sitar twangs softly in the background.
Henning...if you like GOTJ and D&D, you should try out 'Nebraska'. He really cut that one in his bedroom.
D&D may not be as intense as GOTJ because it is musically more accessible.
'Reno' is the most tenderly sung song on the album. I think he had to sing it that way coz' the lyrics are so graphic (some of it - there is more to it). A sitar twangs softly in the background.
Henning...if you like GOTJ and D&D, you should try out 'Nebraska'. He really cut that one in his bedroom.
It isn't too often I buy a new CD but Devils and Dust is certainly on my list. I lovelovelove the eponymous single! Did anyone else see VH1 storytellers: Bruce Springsteen? It was Bruce, a guitar and a piano and then he discussed and explained some of his lyrics (Including D&D), absolutly worth a look and repeated on wednesday, i think. Thanks for those little tasters Kush - wonderfully written and very powerful.