Springsteen’s Lost Album
By David Browne • November 5th, 2007
There was a time when Bruce Springsteen was not the prodigal son of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger. There was a time when Bruce Springsteen was not the misappropriate voice of conservatism, the self-elected voice of liberalism or the covert conscience of a nation. There was a time when Bruce Springsteen was a hungry twenty-something musician overflowing with songwriting frustration, seething in a maelstrom of arrangements that clash like the tensions of a long hot Friday night on the Jersey shore. That was the time when his rhyming dictionary was his bible and his mantra was why use three chords when every chord in any key would do. And that was the time when The Wild, The Innocent and E Street Shuffle was released, stood briefly on its own and then was lost, eclipsed by its talented yet over-coached younger sibling Born To Run.
The Wild, The Innocent and E Street Shuffle is the greatest of lost albums not because of universal appeal or timeless themes but because of it’s foreshadowing of the perfect sultry storm; the pressure born of its inception, creation and execution makes you know you’re in for a big one. A couple of the tracks, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) and 4th July Asbury Park (Sandy), are still staples of Springsteen’s modern evangelistic traveling medicine show. It’s not those songs that are the album’s greatest achievement but their placement between songs of angst, confusion and celebration surrounded by arrangements that only the most brazen of kids would attempt. It’s not the Jersey boardwalk itself that creates the storm but the combination of the endless summer, disenfranchised youth and the desire to be somewhere else but not knowing where that place of salvation might be. Nowhere does that frustration surface more than in the arrangements of the seven songs that sit in large chunks of acetate, four and three a side, on this record.
The opening of side one, a discordant brass band resolving in almost harmony as sparks fly on E-Street matches perfectly the closing chord of the closing song as tuba and accordion hit a similar lone major chord - Nebraska’s our next stop. It’s the classic American road trip that leaves the familiar, heads out through manic congas, resonating tuba, chaotic shouting, Rachmaninoff inspired piano, a key clicking full-stopped Hammond and ends with the loneliness of a barren acoustic guitar and the prospect of hope in the badlands of Nebraska.
Side two returns to familiar territory, 57th Street, and Johnny’s back from his road trip. But the mood has changed, gone is the jubilation from before, replaced by a more somber desperation. Escape rather than exploration is the overtone. Perhaps the record company can offer the salvation or maybe escape is across the river in the Mecca of New York, New York. In either case Wild Billy, Diamond Jackie and Puerto Rican Jane will be back for Born To Run. Different names but the faces remain the same.
In the meantime, forget all you know (or thought you knew) about Springsteen. Put aside the Red, White and Blue, grab a pair of headphones and sit out on your balcony or rooftop on a summer’s night (perhaps the 4th of July), close your eyes and open your mind. Things will never be the same again - on so many levels.
David Browne is David once wrote for his school newspaper. He has spent the subsequent years earning money from writing, playing, singing and typing for other people. As of 2008, his net worth from such pursuits is estimated to be around $1.27. In January 2007 he left his home in the United States to travel the world in the hope that non-native English speakers would enjoy his company. He has not returned home since (although their enjoyment is currently unproven). He was born in England, resides in Amsterdam but is domiciled in Seattle.
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