We Drove Down South With Just Spit and a Song: Live with the E Street Band 75 – 85 (1986)

Tonight!

(1986)

Bryan: Let's just jump right into it. I’m here once again with Bryant, He Who Walks Behind the Blogs.

Bryant: E Streeter! We have your woman, E Streeter! (Boy, if only…!)

Bryan: I remember a bus ride to school where the DJs had a contest over who was bigger, Elvis or Springsteen. This was probably October or November 1986, so right before this Live set came out. I told my parents, and they were quick to say the question was silly - Bruce was popular but Elvis was Elvis. They didn't grok the religious iconography of Bruce and the boys, the way Stephen King and so many critics and zeitgeist-watchers did. I’d say “and the way I did too” except I only grokked it in the way 12 year old boys grok anything: very sincerely, but lacking any of the context/ timeline to qualify the assertion beyond that sincerity. Still, it seems funny looking back on it – the question would likely elicit a shrug nowadays, possibly even a harangue. But it is mild anecdotal evidence of how truly huge Bruce was in 1986, as well as the anticipation in DJ-land for this live set.

Bryant: And, see, I missed out on all of that. I was familiar with the hits, of course, and liked them well enough -- I just never turned into an actual fan until I was in college.  What a shame! I can absolutely imagine how the anticipation for that box set must have been cataclysmic.

In the Elvis-versus-Bruce competition, I think Elvis casts a longer shadow over the culture, but Bruce's work is more interesting. Very different artists and very different eras, though; I love 'em both. As for popularity ... gotta be Elvis, right? But Springsteen is certainly on the list of his serious challengers.

Bryan: Perhaps not the real world distance between a monarch and a “boss,” per se, but yeah, Elvis all the way on that one. Try telling 13 year old Bryan that, though! "Your time is through, old man - Springsteen forever!!" I took that really seriously, like, wow, I'm in on something that's bigger than Elvis. The 80s had all these sequels to 60s stuff and I always felt like my / our generation was improving on the 60s one. Especially with stuff I was into, like the Trek movies and Marvel comics, etc. (I even felt that way about the 80s Twilight Zone at the time, but that was because I hadn't seen any of the original TZ.) I feel differently about both my/ our generation and the 60s, now, of course, but my junior high self felt like I was part of a movement – the movement - with this album.

Bryant: That makes a lot of sense to me. It's satisfying to feel like you're a part of something big like that. And you know, in a way, Bruce WAS as big as Elvis. I don't know that the magnitude of that popularity lasted for more than a couple of years, but so what? Merely attaining that peak is quite an achievement; and it's not like he fell off the mountain or anything, he climbed back down more or less of his own accord. As for seeing the generations you mention differently, at this point I feel like ALL generations are pieces of shit. And also kind of great. I guess what I mean is that every generation has a lot of buttholes in it, but also some elements that are worth making myths about. It's mostly nothing more than a myth, though, or at least that's how it feels to me right now.

Before we begin the scoring, I may as well admit to you that I tend to hold a heavy bias for studio versions. I won't say I never prefer a live version -- but I will say that it's rare.  This is not to suggest that I dislike live versions or hold them in contempt or something like that; it's just to offer a bit of context for the fact that I am almost certain to be lower than the studio versions on virtually all of these tracks.

Bryan: Normally I'm with you on preferring the studio to live versions. But for most everything on here that wasn't on Born in the USA, this was my first exposure and so I’ve got that first-time association thing going on. The studio versions never sounded “right” to me, even though of course, it should’ve been the other way around. (I have this same problem with every Grateful Dead song that isn’t on Without a Net.)

So yeah, I got this for Christmas of ’86 - 3 cassettes suspended in foam packaging with the cover you lifted off like a gift box. I remember playing computer games on my old Apple IIc with a friend all that winter listening to it. 

Bryant: The allure of box sets was something else, wasn't it? I had a few great ones. That big Led Zeppelin one that came out was the one that probably fired me up the most, but the first big Elvis box set was also one that I loved. My favorite, though, was a four-disc box of Star Wars music; of all the box sets I had back then, it's the only one that survived the trip into the future with me. But I loved them all, and it was the packaging that had a big part of that; turned a love of the music into a sort of fetishization of it. I guess there must be ways of doing that with MP3s, but without a tactile thing to be able to have and hold, I just don't see how it can possibly scratch the same itch.

Bryan: I bet that’s a big part of the death of album sales. It’s so much easier to store music digitally, but sheesh – the satisfaction of downloading a new album is just not the same total-package-enjoyment, even when the songs are great. As per always, though, convenience and cost-effectiveness kills Main St. in favor of the online mega-giant.

And on that depressing note:

DISC ONE

"Thunder Road"

Bryant: 4.45/5 I'm finally breaking out the non-quarter-based points here on account of the fact that while I can't quite bring myself to say this is AS great as the studio version, I can absolutely bring myself to say that it's within a hair's breadth of it. It's simultaneously very different and exactly the same as the studio version, which is a magic trick. I still give the studio version the priority, though, because without it as context then this version misses something in implication. Although one could argue that that works in both directions, too, I think.

Bryan: 4/5 I just discovered that this song is not based on the old Robert Mitchum movie. I guess Bruce was inspired by the poster for the film but never actually saw the picture. Never too late to correct a mistaken assumption, world.

"Adam Raised a Cain"

Bryant: 3.5/5  The vocals -- lead AND backing -- on the chorus are slightly problematic, but otherwise, this is great.

Bryan: 4.25/5 Here’s the first of songs that when I heard the studio version was just like “What is this?” (A question I can no longer ask without adding “A CENTER FOR ANTS?” in my head.) I’ve grown to like the studio version quite a bit, but back in the day, it was the Live 75-85 version or nothing.

"Spirit in the Night"

Bryant: Jeez, did I really give the studio version of this a mere 3.5?  Man, I might need to redo those scores.  Anyways, I'll give this live version a 3.45/5, which actually seems a bit low.

Bryan: It is too low for me; I’ll go up to 4.15/5.

"4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)"

Bryant: Another 3.45/5.

Bryan: I’ll go all the way up to 3.75/5.

"Paradise by the C"

Bryant:  3.25/5 I'd happily have listened to half a dozen albums full of instrumentals that just let the Band do their thing. I say "half a dozen," but I mean as many as they had wanted to put out.

Bryan: 4/5 Totally! I’m Ed MacMahon-ing you so far – you are cor-rect sir! – but it’s all true.

"Fire"

Bryant: 3.75/5 I saw the Pointer Sisters open for Lionel Richie in Tuscaloosa – at Memorial Coliseum! – circa 1984, so I'm sure I heard them do this song. I don't remember anything about the show, so who knows for sure – but it seems likely. Bruce's version here is solid, but there are better versions on YouTube. You probably know this, but Bruce wrote the song intending to give it to Elvis, but the King died just a few days later.  What a bummer!  Elvis would have ripped this song to pieces and probably kick-started a whole new phase of his career.

Bryan: That bums me out. What a damn shame they couldn't make that happen. I'm sure this would have led to the "Working on the Highway" movie, too, eventually! I love Val Kilmer's Elvis in True Romance, and it just dawned on me had all of this gone down with an Elvis/ E Street hook up, the King could've snapped and pointed over at Big Man: "I love you, Clarence - always have, always will." This movie that is playing in my head is epic and I want instant access to the level of Tower that takes it for granted! "Oh that's just another Elvis/ Clarence Clemens movie/ project, no big whup." Damn you all to hell, you maniacs...

3.5/5 from me. I'm glad these Bruce versions of songs he gave to others are on here, but this version underscores how smoother it sounds coming out of the Pointer Sisters.

"Growin' Up"

Bryan: 3/5 This is all E Street Band on this one.

Bryant:  I'll give this one a 3.25/5, which is higher than my studio score. But I like Bruce in storytelling mode, so I think this is actually preferable to the studio version.

"It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City"

Bryant:  Another 3.25/5 that tops the studio version. The vocals are spotty, but the band is so good that they make up for it.

Bryan: Agreed. The song itself is growing on me - only took 30 years – but my score here (3/5) is almost all E-Street-Band based. They’re rocking here pretty rockfully.

"Backstreets"

Bryant:  3.25/5 Doesn't hold a candle to the studio version in my opinion. That's an unfair way of looking at it, of course, but I'm going with my gut, and that's what it tells me.

Bryan: 4/5 Yeah it’s hard to beat the studio version. Here’s one that I had the opposite reaction to when I first heard the studio version – it took a decent track and revealed how awesome it actually was to me. As a result, I now like this live version even more. Not more than the studio – I mean more than I originally did as a youngster.

"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"

Bryan: 4/5 The autobiographical and chronological quality of this live set always delights me. I appreciated it at the time but even more now. I love the band intros here.

Bryant:  Me too. 4/5 I'm a sucker for Bruce-introduces-the-band interludes, and this one is a classic.

"Raise Your Hand"

Bryant: 3.25/5 This could pass for a River-era rocker that Springsteen wrote himself. It's a cover, of course; not sure I've ever heard the original version, but this one is solid.

Bryan: 3.5/5 Like "Paradise" this is a good window unto the band's backstory/ evolution.

"Hungry Heart"

Bryant: 5/5 If the first minute or so of this doesn't put a smile on your face, you're either dead or you don't know the song. Why did this not open disc 2?  You can't ask for a better disc-opener than this.

Bryan: 5/5 It’s a good question. Bruce does that sometimes. Or, I should say, for as many times as he chooses the perfect opener/ closer, just as often there’s the more obvious choice that’s chosen second-to-last, like here, or second on side 1, like “Cadillac Ranch” or “Tougher Than the Rest” or plenty of other places.

"Two Hearts"

Bryant: 1.95/5  An odd choice to end disc 1.  I can't agree that this live version is superior to the studio, but it gets close; it's a soft disagreement from me.

Bryan: 3/5 I still say it’d have made a better Tom Petty song. (Written before the sad news, while we're here. Bruce said it better than me: “Down here on E Street, we’re devastated and heartbroken over the death of Tom Petty. Our hearts go out to his family and bandmates. I’ve always felt a deep kinship with his music. A great songwriter and performer, whenever we saw each other… …it was like running into a long lost brother. Our world will be a sadder place without him.” So say we all.)

Disc One Totals: 49.4 (Bryan) 45.85 (Bryant)

Disc One Avgs: 3.8 (Bryan) 3.53 (Bryant)

DISC TWO

"Cadillac Ranch"

Bryant: 3/5 Vastly inferior to the studio version, in my opinion.  But great nevertheless -- everyone sounds a little worn out, albeit as if they know they need to rise to the occasion.  And they mostly do!

Bryan: 4/5 It is, you’re right – and I’m taking a point off my score to honor the Hebrew God whose ark this is – but another one where it forms my first and best impression of the song. I linked to it last time, but the sort of fun-time E Street Band choreography on display in this live performance is so much fun. Perfect song for it, too. I can’t tell who’s wearing the big hat, there – Garry? Might be Nills. I can’t quite make out whether he’s holding a bass or electric guitar.

"You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)"

Bryant:  2.75/5  Good energy, but Bruce sounds like he's on the verge of collapse.

Bryan: 3/5 That particular aspect of Bruce's live shows, that "play and scream til you can't stand" seemed to be a big part of the therapy and self-analysis Bruce (admirably) began in the 90s. He talks about it a lot in one of the Rolling Stone interviews, but I neglected to grab a quote. (Or even note which RS interview it was – he’s done quite a few of them.) But yeah: it's almost part of the appeal, how close Bruce or the band gets to death at whatever show. This rock and roll is like Anthony Hopkins in The Edge, walking up to the bear and arrogantly slapping him in the face. Tonight! We’re gonna kill that motherfucker.

Bryant: That also kind of puts Nebraska into a different light, doesn't it? I'm glad Springsteen was able to yank himself back from that edge, of course, but I suspect that drive is a big part of what forms the thing we think of as "Bruce Springsteen," so I'm also glad he walked up to that edge and teetered for a while.

"Independence Day"

Bryant:  4.5/5 Pretty great, no doubt about it.

Bryan: 4/5 I wish I had a clear memory of this song hitting me back when I was 13 and 14, but I don’t. Love it, though.

"Badlands"

Bryant: 4.5/5  Ditto.

Bryan: 5/5 That version from the Darkness blog is a straight-up 7, though. (Here’s the link again, why not. Can you ever have too many blistering “Badlands” links?)

Bryant:  You probably CAN, but only in a theoretical sense.

"Because the Night"

Bryant: I will go ahead and tell you now: this is one of my favorite Springsteen songs. Not this version (which uses Bruce's own lyrics), or, indeed, Bruce's studio version (which uses Patti's lyrics)-- both of those versions are fine, but thePatti Smith version murders me. I would give that a 6/5. I do like this live version, and will give it a 3.5/5.  But I cannot tell a lie: it mainly just makes me want to put Smith's version on and listen to it two or three times.

Bryan: 3.5 I’m in the same boat but not for Patti Smith’s – which is great, no argument there – but for the 10,000 Maniacs one. It fits Natalie's voice so perfectly. That'd be my go-to of all of them.

"Candy's Room"

Bryant: 3.5/5  Great energy on this one.

Bryan: 4.5 Agreed – great. Max’s big moment! 

"Darkness on the Edge of Town"

Bryant: 3.75/5  Nothing wrong with this one, but it doesn't do anything for me that I don't get more fully from the studio version.

Bryan: 4/5 I'm with you. But I'll add the ol' quarter-point for first-dibs in the McBrains.

"Racing in the Street"

Bryant:.75/5  I think this version really highlights the wistfulness of the song, mostly via Federeci.  Federeci was always good for that role, though; he's one of the most unsung heroes of Springsteen's career.  [Question: that IS Federeci I’m hearing, right?  I’d hate for it to actually be Roy Bittan or somebody else and me be robbing them of credit in this venue.]

The eternal dilemma.

Bryan: 3.5 I like the swaying-ness of this live.

"This Land Is Your Land"

Bryant: 3/5  A very credible performance of this song.  I don't know that much about Guthrie, apart from his early impact on Dylan; but maybe one of these days.

Bryan: That Joe Klein book Bruce mentions here is dynamite -  I read that one on what has (so far) turned out to be my last long interstate bus trip. I should re-read it. I respect this version but it reminds me of what Patrick Stewart said about too much family emphasis in Star Trek - aftre awhile you end up singing "Row row row your boat" around a campfire. It's good to know when to pull back. I almost - but not quite; i.e. I do not think this - think this is right there, like okay, with the mythology and timeline of Bruce, "This Land Is Your Land" is just a touch over the line. Is this the Star Trek V of the Live Set? Not at all. I'm throwing darts at my point but not quite hitting it. Anyway: I think he still plays this from time to time and the crowd goes wild, so whatever the cogent version of these remarks is, I'm clearly in the minority. But 2.5/5 for me. It does, however, transition eerily into:

"Nebraska"

Bryan: Which was likely the point of it – the set-up and then the spike. If you can call the morphine dirge of “Nebraska” to a spike. Different kind of spike, I guess. 4.5/5 – Not quite the impact of the studio version for me, but what a great tune.

Bryant: 4/5 I like to imagine drunken girls in tank tops standing in the crowd looking confused while Bruce is playing this.  Why would such a thing make me happy?!? Beats me, but it does.

Bryan: With Nancy and Ronnie in attendance, maybe.

"Johnny 99"

Bryant: 3.5/5 This is great, but we're mirror images in that I prefer the studio version. But I totally get how the version you encounter first is often the one that sticks with you. That might explain my preference for Patti Smith's "Because the Night," actually. Or not; I actually heard the 10,000 Maniacs version of that one first. (And I dig that one quite a bit, too, although it doesn't have the edge of Smith's.)

Bryan: 4/5 One thing that was decidedly not that band’s forte was “edge.” Which is not to say they were dull – I like them or liked them just fine. I listened to that Unplugged version of “Because the Night” an awful lot during a very specific time of my life and it’s more or less imprinted on the brain. But not for its edginess, to be sure. Anyway! It’s almost exactly the same version as appears on Nebraska, but something about it here makes me score it less.

"Reason to Believe"

Bryant: 4/5 The guitar -- Bruce I assume -- is great on this one, especially toward the beginning. More images of girls in tank tops bemusedly pondering the notion of dead dogs in ditches while waiting for "Dancing in the Dark" to happen.

Bryan: 4.5/5 I love that image. And I love this song.

"Born in the U.S.A."

Bryan: 4/5 Fantastic performance of this one. That discordant soloing is my favorite part.

Bryant: 4/5 I'm glad you pointed out the soloing. That sort of punk sensibility in the midst of this song makes a lot of sense.

"Seeds"

Bryant: Here’s the track that provides the title for our post. I'd love to hear the studio version of this, assuming there is one.  It feels like a reject from Nebraska, but I don't really know. 3/5 from me; it's good, but not a favorite.

Bryan: 5/5 for me. Just think this one is perfect. For awhile this was my favorite tune from the whole Live Set, even more than “Born to Run” or “Hungry Heart.” Now it’s probably number 2 or 3 behind those, or perhaps even further down than that. Brutal lyrics.

Disc One Totals: 56 (Bryan) 50.75 (Bryant)

Disc One Avgs: 4 (Bryan) 3.63 (Bryant)

DISC THREE

"The River"

Bryant: 4.95/5  The storytelling into of this one gets me every time.  The rest of the song is a bit of a dropoff for me, but I like the intro so much that I'm close to going a full 5 on this one.

Bryan: 4/5 So like I said at the beginning, I got this for Christmas ’86 and spent a lot of time playing computer games (Winter Olympics – on floppy discs! - Syzygy, Lode Runner, Montezuma’s Revenge, plus Lemonade Stand and a bunch of MDOS quiz / trivia games I hadn't thought about in decades until writing this post) with one particular friend. He talked all the way through "The River," like every time, and it took me forever to hear the story that Bruce was telling. I mean, we were junior high kids, playing videogames, so of course we were talking and joking and not paying close attention, but damn it, I knew he said something at the end that made the crowd go wild but could never hear it on account of the yapping. And you know how it was – rewinding tapes to get to specific things was annoying. I finally told him to shut the hell up and swear to God I think this was the end of our friendship. I don't know if it actually was the catalyst but looking at the timeline this particular friend and I hung out all the time fall and winter of '86 and then practically never again after that. I'm going to retcon this to say officially our friendship ended because he was improperly respectful to the Live Set.

Bryant: A silly thing to end a friendship over, I guess, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. I'm a deeply silly person, though, so of course I'd think that.

Bryan: What's even sillier is how often I've discovered this sort of thing in exploring these sideroads of yesteryear, music, comics, cinematic or otherwise. Like ‘Oh hey I remember that guy – whatever happened to him? Oh yeah I showed him such-and-such and he failed to properly appreciate it and I let it drift.’ So it goes! Before facebook, this was just how things went. You outgrew people, and the media you loved and collected had a lot to damn do with it.

"War"

Bryan: 3/5 I remember the appearance of this on American Top 40 and how it was underwhelming. I learned from the Carlin book that this was intentional.

Bryant: I like this one more than you do, to the tune of 4/5. What did Carlin's book have to say about it?

Bryan:  Landau’s – and Bruce’s, obviously – plan, album by album, tour by tour, was to get Bruce to the point of Born in the USA, that mega-stardom level. Do everything necessary to command the world’s attention, then unleash the Kraken. But once attained, like so many things in life, Bruce felt megastardom would rob him of too much to sustain it. So he (and Landau and the rest) intentionally began scaling it back, to puncture the myth (again. Seriously, sometimes it feels like with each album Bruce and Jon set out to "rewrite people's idea of Bruce Springsteen" - I'm glad it eventually fell to the wayside and just emphasized the songs). Anyway, they chose "War" and "Fire" as the singles as they didn't think radios would want to overplay them. And they were right - the period of time when both were singles corresponds exactly to when I was a steady commercial radio listener, and I remember how odd it was to only hear those once or twice a day but "Shot Through the Heart" a gazillion.

Bryant: A fascinating process, and one that, in a way, is just as worthy of exploration as the songs themselves. They are inextricably linked, in fact, at least in my mind. That's probably why as great as some of the b-sides and lesser-known songs are, they don't carry the same punch as something like "Born to Run." It's that simple -- "simple" being very relative -- matter of there being guys out there telling you just HOW great "Born to Run" is. Your ears know it, and would know it even if those guys didn't exist; but the fact that those guys DO exist gives it that added dimension, and probably results in your hearing it more often, so that it then actually attains an extra dimension that, say, "New York City Serenade" does not have. But then I'm equally fascinated by the way a song like that one can creep into your brain without any push from anyone else.  And then THAT sort of comes with its own isolated sort of mythology; but it's one you give it yourself as opposed to one somebody else gives it for you. It's weird to think that every song of his must have people who have embraced it in precisely that way, but I instinctively know that to be true, even of something -- maybe ESPECIALLY of something -- like "Mary, Queen of Arkansas." And hey, why not?

The video nevertheless got played a lot. America had Vietnam-fever in the mid-80s, as Bruce explains in his opening remarks.

The video ends where it began, with the war on TV, although this time, the boy is gone.

"Darlington County"

Bryant: 3.5/5 I have deducted the standard-for-Bryant one-point live-version tax compared to my studio score.  I do like this a lot, though.

Bryan: 4/5 I just gave this and the next one:

"Working on the Highway"

Bryan: 4/5s, because the songs are too cool for me to notice otherwise. Agreed tho that the studio versions are better. This one stumbles a little at the beginning, but then they pick it up.

Bryant: 3/5 I can't decide how I feel about Nils's guitar on this one; I think I like it, but I'm not really sure. And Patti's backing vocals seem mildly out of place. (I'm assuming that's her; it might not be.)

Bryan: I think it is, yeah. 

"The Promised Land"

Bryan: 4.25/5 Hmm. Looking at my notes, here, I don’t see commentary from either of us on this song, just the scores. Maybe we were in the gift shop.

Bryant: 3.25/5 In my case, I think I just had nothing to say. Good version of a great song; beyond that, shrugs.

"Cover Me"

Bryant: Why does he say "Shover Me" at the beginning? Was he doing a Michael Jackson "shome on" sort of thing? Shome to think of it, why did MJ do that?!? I'm confused by it all. I kind of like the intro, though, although I'm indifferent to Patti singing a bit of "Nowhere to Run." I'll give this one a 4/5.  It really is pretty great.

Bryan: I have no damn idea, but that’s as likely a reason as any. To me it almost sounds like “Shmo-ver me!” which is even weirder. Who knows. I love this though. 4.75/5 for me – epic solos, epic ending and beginning.

"I'm on Fire"

Bryant: Oh, the cigarette lighters in the air; I can practically see 'em. 4/5 from me.

Bryan: Tough to pull off the vibe from the record in a live setting, I imagine, but they do it. A step down but not significantly. (I mean, it’s a step down from like the greatest song ever made, so hey.) 4/5

"Bobby Jean"

Bryant: 4/5 Clarence kills it on this one. I don't see a score from you on the spreadsheet, so I assume it ranks so high that it can't be charted. If so, I can't say I blame you.

Bryan: I did neglect "Bobby Jean," oops! I'll go with 4/5, too. I agree - this one is Bruce's goodbye to SVZ but when that solo starts it feels like Clarence is saying a few things to him as well.

Great CC song.

There should be one day per year where we all have to wear this outfit.

"My Hometown"

Bryant: 3/5 I wish I liked this song a little more than I actually do. I approve of you docking the studio version's score just to give the live version preferential treatment; that's the kind of book-cooking that I admire in a project like this one.

Bryan: Bryant refers to my original score, but I’ve since downgraded it to a 3.5/5 after a few listens. This song gets stuck in my head too easily, and I end up getting annoyed, rather than happy the way “Pink Cadillac” getting stuck in my head does.

"Born to Run"

Bryan: Born in the USA made me a Springsteen fan, but the Live Set took it to a mythical level. None moreso than this song. Meant the world to me back when the video was in heavy MTV rotation. 6/5

Bryant: 4/5 Great stuff, and I bet I'd give it that point back if I had video to go with the audio.

"No Surrender"

Bryan: 4.5/5 This acoustic version was my favorite thing ever for a short period of time. Eventually I rediscovered the album version and I grew to like that one even more. Previously it hadn’t been a fave. Yet another example of the Bruce-related alchemy Live 75-85 worked upon me in my youth.  

Bryant: 4.85/5 I agree the studio version is better, but this is thoroughly agreeable to me.  To some degree, this box set marks the end of the E Street Band, doesn't it? If so, then this song serves almost as its mournful send-off.

Bryan: Absolutely. I’ve never really seen this confirmed or even suggested, but this seems like Bruce's "cash bonus," so to speak. Like, okay boys we made it, I'm going to go this way now, but before I do, let's release this triple live set at the height of our selling power. I don't know what the royalty set-up was - and I am in no way impugning anyone's integrity or questioning anything - but it sure seems like the cool thing to do for your band in such a scenario. I know there are some more negative takes on how Bruce treated the crew/ E Street guys out there, but that seems more the disgruntled remarks of individuals, not an honest reflection of business practices from this era. Anyway, good for whomever made the decision to release this in '86; it was the right place right time.

(Especially for a young Bryan McMillan! But I mean royalties-wise for the fellas.)

Bryant: If that's true -- and it does feel true -- then that's a very good thing for a Boss to do for his staff. And as cash-grabs go, that's an awfully fine one; that's a thing people actually WANTED, as opposed to most cash-grab products. It might well have been sheer accident, but my guess is that Springsteen knew his career had to go in a different direction, lest it begin to seem like a parody, and therefore something less than genuine.  He'd wisely planted the seed for that with Nebraska, and while his ultimate direction wouldn't be quite that severe, it was definitely a different trajectory. I'm guessing he felt that more innately that consciously, but who knows? It's all worked out pretty well.  Prince did a version of the same thing, if you think about it.

"Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"

Bryan: 4.75/5 Really, this should be a 5. What's my problem? I don't know.

Bryant: 4.74/5 Why DON'T you give it a 5? I think you want to, so give in to the temptation. I had the same temptation with the studio version and settled for a 4.75. I can't bear to say this version is better, but it sure is close, so I've scored it as close as I can. What a showstopper!

"Jersey Girl"

Bryan: 3.5/5 This used to be a bigtime 5 for me, but I don't know, kind of too much for me now. My score is enjoyment, you understand, not my estimate of its songwriting worth/ performance, which is as good as anything else on here.

Bryant: Tom Waits is a near-complete mystery to me, so I don't know if he wrote this as a conscious Springsteen pastiche, or if Springsteen merely makes it sound that way, or if they share a similar sensibility, or some mix of all/some of those things. I do like this a lot. I hope it turns back into a 5 for you one of these days! I give it a 4.25/5.

Disc Three Totals: 54.5 (Bryan) 51.54 (Bryant)

Disc Three Avgs: 4.19 (Bryan) 3.96 (Bryant)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Bryant: 148.09 total, 3.70 average, which puts it about where it feels like it needs to be for me. A bit more than a point beneath your score, but that's been fairly consistent across the box set, so, again, it feels about right. And if you actually dig it that much more than I do, I envy you that listening experience, because I dig it quite a bit!

Bryan: 159.9 total, 4 average. That feels right to me, too, in my own personal reckoning of where these albums all lie. I was thinking of saving all the albums-rankings until the end of this project but it might be better to post an updated list as we go along, You Only BlogTwice-style. Here’s what we have so far (ranked by Averages.)

Bryant:

Greetings from Asbury Park 2.75

The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle 3.68

Live ’75 - ‘85 3.7

The River 3.39

Born to Run 4.35

Darkness on the Edge of Town 4.4

Nebraska 4.63

Born in the USA 4.88

Bryan:

Greetings from Asbury Park 2.19

The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle 3.43

The River 3.71

Darkness on the Edge of Town 3.82

Live ’75 - ‘85 4

Born to Run 4.41

Nebraska 4.5

Born in the USA 5.44

NEXT: Tunnel of Love (1987)

Waving to the Girls, Feeling out of Sight: Born in the USA (1984)

Tonight, the one and only:

(1984) Plus:

"Pink Cadillac," B-side to "Dancing with the Dark"

Bryan: I've described elsewhere and at length how growing up in Germany during the 80s influenced to no small degree what American pop culture - particularly MTV - filtered into my consciousness. Anything that was huge on MTV in the early-to-mid-80s in America (Thriller, Purple Rain, Pyromania, Like a Virgin, etc.) was even huger on Rhein Main AFB because there was delayed access and awareness. Like a colonial complex in reverse, if it was big in the states, it was cool to be into these things faster than the next guy. I was highly motivated, therefore, to love Born in the USA, although it was outside of my other ten-year-old listening (i.e. my older brother's metal records). But - like millions of people around the world - I ended up connecting with the album to such a degree that I developed Bruce-mania.

The album cover was essential room decoration for any film or TV from this era. (My Science Project, 1985.)

I didn't rush out and get the back catalog until years later - I was only ten and my allowance only stretched so far - but from this point on the Bruce and the E Street gestalt was something I personally identified with. Let's revisit - how does it hold up thirty-three years down the road? My co-pilot as always is Bryant. Hello Bryant! So you’ve mentioned not being a Springsteen fan until college. As someone my age who did not contact Bruce-mania in '84, how did its MTV and radio ubiquity strike you at the time?

Bryant: Well, I dug the songs I heard from it, like a lot of music from that era. Like, the first albums I ever bought with my own money - this was while visiting my grandparents in San Antonio during the summer of 1984 - were Purple Rain, An Innocent Man, and... the soundtrack to The Muppets Take Manhattan. That being the case, I think just about anything regarding my taste in music is extraordinarily suspect until at least college. 

In all seriousness, though, I don't know that I was aware how big a star Springsteen was. I knew who he was, obviously; I was aware of Tunnel of Love being a big deal as a follow-up to a bigger deal. I knew some of his previous stuff ("Born to Run," "Hungry Heart," "Rosalita"). But I honestly don't remember having a sense that he was one of the decade's defining artists. And given that I watched MTV incessantly, this strikes me as odd. This is true of much of my recollections of my childhood, though; imagine me having my head turned slightly to the side and up, a bit of a frown on my mouth, a Spockian eyebrow lift hanging over it all. "Dude," I'm implying to my younger self, "what the hell?"

Bryan: I have this same time tunnel moment with myself on many occasions. Well, my friend, it's time to make the donuts. But before we get to the album itself, let's discuss "Pink Cadillac," the aforementioned b-side from which the title of this post is derived.

Bryant: 3.5/5 Wikipedia informs me this got enough airplay of its own accord that it got to #27 in the charts. Later, of course, Natalie Cole had a top-ten hit with a cover. That version is butt. This one rules. 

Bryan: 5/5 I have always just unreasonably loved this song - and another tune I wish Bruce could have time-traveled to early 60s Elvis to make a movie around – but now I have a new one: I was changing Lauren's diaper and this started and man she started grooving immediately. (Making the diaper-changing harder than it had to be). The reaction was so instant, strong, and natural that I cracked up. She really likes that one. Like father, like daughter.

Bryant: I don't think your "Pink Cadillac" love is unreasonable in the slightest. If you didn't love it, now THAT would be unreasonable. I like how Bruce says “whyvin’ to the girls.

Bryan: That "whyvin'" business is great, I agree, and I kind of wish he'd sang it that way each time it came round instead of just the once. (Also, why stop there? Could've even went to "goyls" instead of "girls" etc.) I wish I could pull off my own pronunciations of things the way Springsteen, Texans, and hip-hoppers do. And Boomhauer.) A great deal of my Bruce fandom is wrapped up in Born in the USA (and the Live set we'll be doing next) but all mixed up in that is "Crrrushed velvet seats".

"Rock and roll is a fetishist's dream. The physical totems, the jackets or the shoes, they hold such unusual power on the imagination. There's a spirit power to it." - Bruce, some interview. (David Lynch would agree, on too many levels to hyperlink.)

We talked elsewhere of Bruce's "almost" lifts from other tunes. The riff from "Peter Gunn" - which I knew only as the Spy Hunter music at the time - gets a bit of a re-arrangement here. When Clarence comes in with the sax, it really drives it home. No one's complaining or saying "Pink Cadillac" is a rip off or anything, just hey, musicians lift, just like filmmakers or anyone else, and then put their own spin on it.

"Born in the USA"

Bryant: 5/5  There have been times in my Springsteen fandom when I wasn't all that enamored by this one, but those days seem to be gone for good. The synthesizer still bothers me just a little; it's SO eighties. And not -- at least up to this point in the discography -- particularly Springsteen-y. But the shallowness and vapidity of that instrument as it is used here serves as an ironic underlining of the shallowness and vapidity of unquestioningly blind patriotism, so it works. I leave it to you to decide if I'm serious about that. Either way, the song is a classic, and still packs a wallop.

Bryan: 5/5 It took me a long time to come around to loving this one, too, or embracing it as a statement/ appreciating it as the classic it is. As for the keyboard, I guess Bruce was going for something just-evocative-of-Southeast-Asia enough, and when he heard Danny (or Roy - probably Roy) playing it that way he made him stop and do it over and over again. 

Bryant: It's weird. I spent a long time simultaneously liking and disliking it. I don't know of many songs I feel that way about. You ever heard the acoustic version? If not, boy are you in for a treat.

Bryan: I think I have but not in a long time. (Twenty-five minutes later, heroically pulling himself out of a Youtube landslide) Oh! Yeah that is awesome. Jaysus. There are some wild live variations out there, but that version is a legit peek into a whole alternate universe. 

"Cover Me"

Bryan: 4.75/5 Nils Lofgren is put to immediate good use after joining the band.

Bryant: 4.5/5  Ah, man ... I'm tempted to equal your score on this one. I'm going to restrain myself for some reason I don't currently understand. But yeah, obviously, this one is a corker.

“Darlington County”

Bryan: 4.8/5 I suppose you could quibble about its similarity to "Cadillac Ranch," if you wanted (to be a jerk).

Bryant: 4.5/5 If it were necessary to pit this and "Cadillac Ranch" in a cage match, I'd go with "Cadillac Ranch." But I'd try to talk them out of getting in the ring, because I love them both and don't want to see them hurt each other. 

“Working on the Highway”

Bryan: 5/5 It almost feels like everyone is holding onto a working jackhammer on this one, like the vocals and instrumentation are all vibrating to the rhythm of the work crew.

Bryant: 4.25/5 I used to not like this one much at all. I don't know what was wrong with me. I don't rank it as highly as you do, but I do indeed love it. 

Bryan: I only wish someone could time travel this song back to the era of Elvis movies and written it as a whole vehicle for him.

Bryant: Oh, man, IF ONLY there could have been an Elvis version. There are lots of reasons to wish Elvis could have kept right on living, but the thought of the collaborations he might have had with people like Springsteen is a powerfully sad thought. RIP, King! I'm not sure I'd ever paid close enough attention to the lyrics prior to this listen to notice that the whole song is from the point of view of a guy on a prison work crew.

Bryan: See, it could be the sequel to Jailhouse Rock. (Or does Elvis get out at the end of that one? I’ve never actually seen it. I’m sure he does. Ah well, he could be re-incarcerated and put on the highway crew.)

“Downbound Train”

Bryant: 4.5/5  You know, when I think about this album divorced from a recent listen to it, I tend to think of it as being a collection of four or five huge hits and then a bunch of filler. And boy howdy is it not that. This is a GREAT song. You can hear Tunnel of Love getting ready to happen, but you can also imagine it being recast in a Nebraska guise. Fascinating!

Bryan: (5.5/5) That’s an excellent point of this being a blend of what came before and after it. Incidentally, the ex I bring up from time to time who hated Bruce - she loved Soul Asylum. She even compared this tune to Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" - like, to point out the "superior" latter version. Not just because they have “train” in the title, presumably, on account of their covering the same conceptual ground. It stuns me in retrospect she could take her own musical opinion seriously with such an opinion as this. I’m reminded of that great anecdote about Zelda Fitzgerald relayed in Hemingway's A Movable Feast, when she turned to Hemingway at a dinner party and said "Don't you think Al Jolson is better than Jesus?" ("That's when I realized she was insane. She watched me like a hawk after that. And hawks don't share." I'm paraphrasing, but I think that's the succession of sentences.) Sure, I’m casting myself as Hemingway in this scenario, but so be it. I wish I could time travel to the moment back in 1992 or so when she was telling me she hated Springsteen but loved Soul Asylum, see myself nodding along, then stroll up and hit my young self upside the head and deliver that “hawks” line. Would’ve freed up a whole bunch of time. I like that we both have Bruce-related time travel we want to do to admonish our younger selves. But, as any TNG fan knows, you can’t outrun the Nausicaans. 

“I’m on Fire"

Bryan: 7/5 I mean what can you say? Like Johnny Cash filtered through a Miami Vice montage, but so much more than that.

Bryant: 6/5  I wish it was twice as long, if not longer ... but at the same time, I'm glad it's so brief. Something about that brevity feels right. One of Larry Underwood's very best music videos, too! 

Bryan: In case this chapeau-worthy remark puzzles any readers, Stephen King's character from The Stand was inspired by Bruce Springsteen.

Bryan: It’s like the art movie version of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” that video. (Like each of the music videos except "Dancing in the Dark," which was directed by DePalma, this was directed by John Sayles.) 

“No Surrender”

Bryan: 5.5/5 Great side 2 opener. I love this damn track. 

Bryant: 5/5 One of his very best rockers.  I don't have much to say about it, other than to click my heels together and snap a salute at it.

Bryan: In a pivotal summer between 5th and 6th grade I somehow got the responsibility of coming up with things for me and the guys I rode bikes with to do. I promptly renamed our group ("The Metallic Fire Force"), came up with a comic book origin issue for us (can't remember if this was ever completed or if it was just begun by me and one of these guys who was a good artist), dubbed several of our spots around town new names ("Skylab" for this one big-ass tree with low thick branches that we could climb, several others I can't remember), and re-organized the games we'd play from wiffleball to Tag into new things with new and over-complicated rules. I mention all of this because whenever I hear "No Surrender" I think of all these things and how seriously I took the role. I somehow transposed my own summer on this slice of E Street mythmaking/ autobiography and the disparity between the situations makes me love it all even more. Anyway! It's a great song for a hundred reasons; this is only one very individual one.

Bryant: Which makes it no less valid, of course. "The Metallic Fire Force" is in need of an actual comic-book series, I think. 

“Bobby Jean”

Bryan: 4.75/5 I had trouble believing this was about Steve Van Zandt and his departure from the band, but after the idea sat with me awhile, now it makes total sense.

Bryant: 4.75/5  I always assumed it was about he and Steve. I could say the same about "Darlington County," too. Autobiographical readings like that are always tempting, and probably a bit facile. But either way, it's a hell of a song on an album full of hell-of-a-song songs.

Bryan: Agreed. I always make a pained, dramatic face when I sing along to “we like the same clo-oh-oh-thes.” 

“I’m Goin’ Down”

Bryan: 5/5 This was the only song on the album I didn’t like (relatively) as a kid and I did a pretty funny impersonation of it. Funny for 11 or 12, I mean, just me singing this in a bad country drawl, particularly the "ba chok a wakka wakka" stuff at the end. Now, tho, I love it, sincerely - for starters, the sort of country-voice Bruce intermittently worked at in all previous records is basically a thing of perfection here. He found it and it never leaves his sight again. That slight reverb on it, too, is perfect. I'm listening to this again for the 4th or 5th time this week. I just love it.

Bryant: 5/5  In my case, I always thought this one was great. Was it a single? It must have been; I knew it from the radio, and loved it. 

Bryan: It was. I remember reading that Def Leppard's Hysteria was built on the "Thriller/ Purple Rain model," i.e. where any song could be a single. They could just have easily have said the Born in the USA model. Though hell, you've got four of my favorite albums in one paragraph, so it's a model I love regardless of how you slice it. This is how you get the Bryan McMillan vote!

Bryant: Here's another one that could very easily have been a Nebraska-style rocker.

Bryan: Am I crazy or is this one of those 7/5 songs hiding in plain sight? It's kinda perfect. I searched through a bunch of youtube live ones. This one's perfectly cool but a little slowed down \ beer tent version. Here's a contemporaneous version of it - fun for the crowd noise and PG-rated Paul Stanley-ing with the audience, mixed with John Travolta - but some blistering stuff after all that. But the studio version is so crazily perfect. Ok, maybe not 7/5, but we both gave it a 5/5. I think maybe there's something here bespeaks further study.

Bryant: I think the only reason it isn't better known is that it got overshadowed by some of the other huge hits from that album. It's a hell of a tune by any standard I'd care to pay attention to. That 2013 version is good; I don't know why Nils would think it was a good idea to wear that hat he's wearing, but I guess these things happen with aging rockers. The '85 one, obviously, is great. Bruce has that crowd eating out of the palm of his dadgum hand.

“Glory Days”

Bryant: 5/5  I just last night got around to seeing Cars 3 finally, and there's a cover version of it performed by a band in an honky-tonk for old-timey racers. Pretty good movie. GREAT song. (The original, not the cover, which is inadequate, as all covers of this song are perpetually doomed to be.)

Bryan: 7/5 I mean what can you say? This is the video that forever cemented my image of Bruce and the gang. A diverse set of faces and folks, led by their hero, who they look at adoringly throughout and who's rocking the hell out of this little bar. I love the glimpses of his home life, and his feeling the orange in his palm while eating lunch at work and thinking back - all of it. It's just such a positive thing to me - I forever see and feel it through the eyes of being ten, looking forward (sort of) to looking back on the glory days passed me by. He makes it sound simultaneously like something to celebrate as well as mourn. The name of the game is to find where you are be happy right there, even when time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of...

This is also when Patti joined up with the band. Something that will have major repercussions down the line, but we'll save all that for Tunnel of Love.

I've been singing this and "Hungry Heart" around the house so much lately I'm worried Dawn's going to get the wrong idea. (Update: she tells me nope, just stop singing "Pink Cadillac" all the time. NO DEAL!)

“Dancing in the Dark”

Bryan: 7/5 I mean, it's not fair to all the other albums. By Bruce or anyone. It's like he was holding it all in reserve until he had the world's attention and then wham: here are all these classics that will forever change your life.

Bryant: 6/5  I apologize for dipping into crassness, but a female friend of mine once informed me that -- and I apologize for this, but I think it's essential -- if she ever had need of, uhm, becoming spontaneously moisturized, all it would take was watching this video. Or any Bruce video from the era, really, but this one was a clincher. And I mean, god dang, what can you do when hearing that except bow before the might of 1984-era Bruce Springsteen? All that sort of thing put to the side, this is just a great song. I guess some Bruce fans find it cheesy, but it's similar to "Hungry Heart" in that it's a powerfully sad song disguised as an uptempo rocker. Or a popper in this case, I case. (I will avoid the obvious joke there.)  And since I have no problem with pop, none of this bothers me. There's nothing inherently more worthy about rock than pop, so why should it make me grit my teeth for Springsteen to have cannonballed right into the deep end of that pool? I'd have to be a weirdo to think that. I have said it before and will say it again: give me a song as great as this, and the genre matters to me not in the slightest.

Bryan: Couldn't agree more and well-put. I can't comment as to the effect of Bruce's early 80s videos on the female anatomy, but I'll take your friend's word for it. At least for her. I don't know if it'd work for everyone. Thankfully! Because that'd have been a huge mess.

Bryant: Yes, the ravages of that would have made the melting of the polar ice caps look like a Care Bears episode.

“My Hometown”

Bryan: Like everything else on the album, definitive Americana, definitive Springsteen. I can safely say after a few dozen listens to this over the past few months, I’m kind of all set with it for awhile. But I scored this prior to that feeling. This is that “how the world looks to Sad Bruce” tunes. I can say from personal experience that driving back through one’s hometown after being gone for years is the precise opposite feeling to driving into NYC with the “Theme from New York New York” playing.

Bryant: 4/5 Is it even possible that this is my least-favorite song on this album?!? Yeah, I guess so. It's good, though, and from it, I will draw my proposed title for this post - "Son, take a good look around." (Bryant: This was the original title of the post - and it's a good one - but as you can see, we went in a slightly different direction.)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Bryan: Total 65.25 Avg 5.44 My favorite so far, and it's tough seeing anything outscore it. I could probably last quite a few years in the wilderness if I had only Born in the USA for company (and okay, maybe Invisible Touch, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath) without losing it.

Bryant: 58.5 total, 4.88 average So not quite as high as you, but still high enough to vault this straight into the first-place spot. I'm surprised by that; all along, I kind of expected it would be Nebraska, with this one coming in at maybe four or five. But after a fresh listen, I think it's 100% the correct choice. It's an intimidatingly great collection of songs.

Bryan: Before we go, let's discuss a couple of quotes. The first, lengthier one is from this 2005 article from the New York Times:

“John Lennon sang that a working-class hero was something to be. In England, maybe, but in this country, where money and mobility tend to dissolve and to mystify social divisions, a working-class hero may be a contradiction in terms. And so Springsteen, the son of a bus driver and a legal secretary, occasionally encounters suspicion when, from his current position as an unimaginably rich and successful rock star, he speaks up for, and in the voices of, the marginal and the downtrodden. His preacherly demeanor solicits accusations of bad faith, while his forays into political activism (including his mini-tour in support of John Kerry near the end of last year's presidential campaign) can be caricatured as the well-meaning sentiments of yet another wealthy show-business liberal. Springsteen's sincerity can also rankle those who prefer their pop culture affectless and ironical, or who are more attuned to the clever manipulation of sampled bric-a-brac than to the struggle for mastery over historical influences.

In a recent article in Slate, Stephen Metcalf made the provocatively revisionist claim that the real Bruce was neither the singer of quiet, Guthriesque ballads nor the purveyor of grand, operatic anthems, but rather the scruffy, mischievous New Jersey boardwalk habitué -- "a scrawny little dirtbag from the shore" -- who composed the verbose, playful, musically adventuresome shaggy-dog tales of his first two albums, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. In Metcalf's account, it was the rock critic Jon Landau, author of the most famous line of rock-critic prophecy ("I saw rock 'n' roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen") and after that Springsteen's producer and mentor, who transformed the charming beach bum into a self-conscious man of the people and, consequently, into a darling of the intellectuals. For Metcalf, at the same time that Landau "intellectualized Bruce, he anti-intellectualized him," minting a familiar, durable persona that turns out to be "Jon Landau's middle-class fantasy of white, working-class authenticity," and the basis of what is "in essence, a white minstrel act."

Strong words. But authenticity is a peculiar criterion to apply to a rock musician, since American popular music since the 1950's has provided fertile ground for self-invention, contradiction and cross-pollination. The personas of the great popular musicians of the rock era -- from Elvis to Prince, from Bob Dylan to Madonna -- are hardly organic products of native soil. There are no pure products of America. Which is not to endorse Metcalf's cynical view of Springsteen's imaginative project of the past three decades, but rather to suggest that the idea of authenticity needs to be applied somewhat differently. Not to Springsteen's persona -- which I would argue even the most passionate and literal-minded fan understands to be, to some degree, an artifact, an act -- but rather to the experience of witnessing and participating in a Springsteen performance, and also to the musical, lyrical and conceptual integrity of the songs themselves.”

Bryan: I think critics like Metcalf bring up some interesting things, but this sort of endless Marxist interpretation – particularly in art and media criticism – is such a blunt instrument, and it shatters (or attempts to shatter) too many things. I think the NYT writer gets it right here: within the discussion of purity in rock and roll, or whatever, are the more immediately relevant – and concrete – elements he describes

Bryant: This sort of stuff fascinates me. The essence of what we’re now talking about, I think (and steer me back on course if I’ve swerved onto the shoulder), is the question “Who is Bruce Springsteen?” Is he a workingman’s-spirit rocker or a dust-bowl-come-again troubadour? Is he a ghost haunting the boardwalk or a greaseball hot-rodder? Is he a war protester or a coal miner? I think it’s a mistake to think there can ever be a definitive answer to these questions. Why can’t be all of those things? He’s an artist, he’s a storyteller, he’s a man who’s made his life and living by taking on different guises that, at whatever given moment, add up to what we think of as “Bruce Springsteen.” I’m sure it means a very different thing to Bruce than it means to me; a different thing still to Patti, or Steve, or Max, or Jon Landau, or Chris Christie, or the guy selling hot dogs at one of his shows, or the guy scalping tickets to it. “Bruce Springsteen” is all of those things, and probably none of those things.  This has been Deep Thoughts, with Jack Handey.

Bryan: Amen - unsurprisingly, you have put into perfect words what I didn't quite realize was exactly how I too feel on the subject. As Bruce does himself, on many occasions. I'm in good company! And to further that good company, here's the second quote, from the Peter Ames Carlin book: 

"While Bruce's sensibility flowed largely from New Deal liberalism, his working-class idealism came with bedrock principles on the virtues of work, family, faith, and community. None of which would be considered partisan had the collapse of American liberalism in the late 70s and 80s not included a large-scale redefinition of mainstream values as being conservative. That Bruce neither accepted nor acknowledged the politicization of traditional values could be seen in his own work ethic and the symbolic communities he formed with the E Street Band and the fans who bought his records and attended his shows. And even when his songs decried ruling class greed and the fraying of the social safety net, they still came bristling with flags, work, veterans, faith, and the rock-solid foundation of home and family. 'He's got a Democratic ideology, a Republican vocabulary, and a Populist delivery system.'"

Bryan: When I read this I had a Keanu “I know kung-fu” moment. Wow – that really articulates something I’ve been trying to say not just about Bruce but about politics (my own in particular) for years. It’s a very clearly expressed birds-eye view of what has animated so much of the man’s work.

Bryant: That quote is fantastic. I mean, that's one way to build a superstar, isn't it? Not too shabby a template at all.

PERSONNEL

Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, lead guitar, acoustic guitar

Roy Bittan – piano, synthesizer, background vocals

Clarence Clemons – saxophone, percussion, background vocals

Danny Federici – organ, glockenspiel, piano on "Born in the U.S.A."

Garry Tallent – bass guitar, background vocals

Steven Van Zandt – acoustic guitar, mandolin, harmony vocals

Max Weinberg – drums, background vocals

A bit earlier than '84, but it came up when searching "Garry Tallent 1984" so blame internet.

See you next week for a triple-sized post on Live '75 - '85.