TRACK REVIEW: Bruce Springsteen - I’ll See You in My Dreams

TRACK REVIEW:

Bruce Springsteen

I’ll See You in My Dreams

9.7/10

The track, I’ll See You in My Dreams, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Wi5ff4pNw

The album, Letter to You, is available to order via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/bruce-springsteen/letter-to-you

RELEASE DATE:

23rd October, 2020

GENRES:

Rock/Folk Rock

ORIGIN:

New Jersey, U.S.A.

LABEL:

Sony

TRACKLISTING:

One Minute You're Here

Letter to You

Burnin' Train

Janey Needs a Shooter

Last Man Standing

The Power of Prayer

House of a Thousand Guitars

Rainmaker

If I Was the Priest

Ghosts

Song for Orphans

I'll See You in My Dreams

__________

I think this is the first time…

PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Riha Jr./WireImage

that I have reviewed The Boss, Bruce Springsteen - but it seems like the right time to do it. Only a year after recording Western Stars, the man is back with another terrific album, Letter to You. Both albums have been celebrated by the critics. I think Springsteen is on a really good run of albums, but Letter to You is him backed by his E Street Band – the first time since 2014. The twentieth studio album from Bruce Springsteen, it is amazing that he can remain so consistent and surprising! One would think he would have lost a bit of his step and energy, but he has released an album that has all the heart, emotion, physicality, and variation that one would come to expect from him! Like I do with all artists, I want to assume that people need some gaps filled in and a bit of biography, so it is only right that I do the same for Bruce Springsteen – even if his background and rise is well-known and obvious. When Springsteen spoke with The Guardian back in 2016, we learned more about his earlier years:

“As a kid, he felt invisible. That stopped when he started playing guitar. “Suddenly I was able to make a very loud noise, and a noise that was not so easy to ignore,” he says. “I had my little rock’n’roll band and we were playing to a small gym full of dancers and their friends, and they immediately looked at you as a presence in their lives.”

When he was 19 his parents moved to California, and he was free to pursue music, to become – as he would say on stage years later – a “prisoner… a prisoner of rock’n’roll”.

Politics started entering Springsteen’s music, though far from explicitly, with his fourth album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, in 1978. That was when his music ceased to be the myth-making epics of his first three albums, and he started writing instead about ordinary people and their struggles. He wasn’t informed by reading political tracts. “I just referred to my experiences growing up – my parents’ lives, my sister’s life.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

His parents had struggled to make ends meet, his mother working as a legal secretary, his father in a succession of blue-collar jobs. His sister had married in her teens, and she and her husband’s travails inspired his masterly song The River, about a couple trying to face up to the wedge that joblessness drives into relationships. “I was surrounded by people who were youthful but living very complicated adult lives,” he says. “They were having kids at young ages and trying to build a work life and a home life that was very adult. It was very easy to draw upon. It wasn’t a stretch or a strain.”

Having children made Springsteen realise that his work wasn’t his life, it was a substitute for life. “I realised that previously I’d expanded my work life so that I’d have something to do during the day, and into the evening. Without it, what am I gonna do? Go home, sit in a chair and watch TV? So I’d expanded the time it took me to do my job. Once the kids came along, I realised, I could squeeze my previous 18 hours of work day into six or eight, without any problems whatsoever. I realised the song is always going to be there – there’s always going to be a song in your heart or in your head – but kids, they’re there and then they’re gone. And when they’re gone, they’re gone. Once I realised that, I found a tremendous freedom from the tyranny of my own mind”.

I do think that it is amazing that Springsteen has built such an incredible career from fairly humble beginnings, and he has remained so rooted and loveable from the very start. I wonder whether there will be a proper biopic regarding Springsteen in the future; someone taking him on in various stages of life, so that we can see his story laid out.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

I want to bring things to 2020, as it has been as strange a year for Bruce Springsteen as everyone else. For someone who loves to tour and get his music to the fans, it would have been worrying seeing Coronavirus strike and dominate the world. Things are pretty bad in the U.S. regarding case numbers, so who knows how long it will be until Springsteen can get out there and perform his new album. In an interview from earlier in the year, Springsteen was asked how he is finding the pandemic and what he is doing:

“Springsteen said he’s “very worried” about friends such as Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Jackson Browne, who have been diagnosed as having the coronavirus. “I spoke with (Browne) a little bit and he seems to be doing all right at the moment,” said Springsteen. “‘I’m just wishing him well, and a lot of love.”

Asked if he’s talked to members of the E Street Band, he said, “I talk to Steve (Van Zandt) quite a bit, which is always a source of great entertainment. So he keeps my spirits up.”

He also said he and his wife Patti Scialfa (who also spoke briefly during the interview) “are hanging out a lot together … we’re actually have a good time together. We’re on the farm, so, you know, we have our horses here, and we get to spend a little time with them. That’s been nice.”

He also said he’s been working on new music. “I try to keep my day as full as possible, and to keep myself from going completely cabin-fever crazy.”

He said the new music “is going well, and hopefully it keeps going well.” He also said “I have no predictions on it yet,” meaning he can’t say when it will be ready to be released”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Demartin

I want to cover a few different subjects for this review, so I was interested knowing about the writing process and how Springsteen tackles songs nearly fifty years since his debut album. Every album Springsteen puts out sounds completely complete and impactful. He is still putting his all into every song, and it is evident that music means so much to him after all of these years; maybe providing a sense of release and fulfilment that so many artists feel. That said, as he told RNZ's Charlotte Ryan on Music 101, the process of writing is quite intimidating:

“Bruce has sold more than 150 million records worldwide and has won plenty of awards too, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award (for Springsteen on Broadway). In 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016.

Despite this, he still describes song writing as an equally terrifying and incredibly fulfilling experience.

It's terrifying because you never knew whether you will be able to repeat the magic, Bruce says.

"I've done it for 50 years. I don't know how a song takes place and I don't know anyone who's ever been able to explain it because you pull something from nothing and you create something physical from it...

"There's an element of it that is quite frightening in a sense and then there's another element where, when it does happen and something's good, it's one of the most wonderful feelings in my life ...it's still an incredible experience, the act of writing a song."

He says he generally writes about a third or half of a song at a time, "a little bit piecemeal" and it's a "tremendous relief" when songs are composed as quickly as for this album”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

One cannot really compare two consecutive Springsteen albums, as he does change his sound between them, and he seems to always want to move forward. Letter to You is a more stripped and live-sounding record than Western Stars and many of his previous albums - and Springsteen took on a different approach when it came to the tone and sound. The presence and influence of his E Street Band was fundamental when it came to creating something quite sparse-yet-powerful. Returning to the previous interview, and The Boss explained his plan for Letter to You’s dynamic:

“He wanted a sound that was just the basic band with no extraneous instruments. "I wanted two keyboards, guitars, bass, drums - I just wanted the raw sound of the band the way it existed on say Darkness on the Edge of Town and so it really suited itself to immediate live recording."

Reuniting once again in the studio with the E Street Band was "a sweet benediction". They recorded the new album in just four days and on the fifth day they "listened and told stories".

"It was just a great process ... [we] spent about three hours a song, the band played entirely live, all the vocals are first takes. So it was just a unique and wonderful experience for us".

I am going to jump to politics, and this will take up a large chunk of space before I actually get to reviewing a track! One cannot talk about Bruce Springsteen without mentioning politics and America, as some of his greatest work has been defined by these potent and eye-opening songs that take a look at America and really get to the core. Under the leadership of Donald Trump, I am surprised Springsteen hasn’t released a huge anthem like Born in the U.S.A. – something that really addresses the problems in America and takes a shot at the those in power.

This year has seen America being led more and more towards a point of no return; race riots have broken out and there seems to be so much more division. As Americans cast their vote – in the hope that Joe Biden can win the upcoming election -, maybe there is a sense that hope and change is close by. It must have been alarming and upsetting for Springsteen seeing everything collapse and explode this year. He spoke with The Atlantic a few months back, and he was asked how he felt about the state of America right now:

“David Brooks: We’ve got people marching in the streets. We’ve got great tumult. What do you see? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about what’s going on out there?

Bruce Springsteen: I don’t think anybody truly knows where we’re going from here yet. It depends on too many unknowns. We don’t know where the COVID virus is going to take us. We don’t know where Black Lives Matter is going to take us right now. Do we get a real practical conversation going about race and policing and ultimately about the economic inequality that’s been a stain on our social contract?

Brooks: Let’s talk about America and the meaning of America. I once heard you say, in an interview, that Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land” in response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” That’s an illustration of how songwriters have always had this long conversation about what America means. And we’re sort of in a crisis around that now. We have an American national narrative that doesn’t include everybody. So how do you think about the meaning of America, the American story?

Springsteen: When I started, I self-consciously saw myself as an American artist and as an average American. I figured I had a talent that allowed me to create a language in which I could speak about the things that concern me and that I felt were of concern to the place that I lived—to my neighbors and the people that I’d grown up with. I don’t know if I would call it a political point of view, but I had a point of view when I was very young, and I always viewed popular music as a movement towards greater freedom. Great music brings greater freedom …

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

I don’t think there will ever be one music that’s going to tell the full story, the full American story, again. The culture is too fractured right now. But I believe it’s the artist’s duty to proceed as if that above statement is untrue. To proceed as if it’s possible to have a monocultural moment and to write something and to record something that is deeply meaningful and exciting and will reach the whole nation and change the culture.You’ve got to go ahead on that impulse, you know.

Brooks: There is a question I’ve always wanted to ask you. You’ve spent so much of your life writing about working-class men and, in particular, working-class men who were victims of deindustrialization, who used to work in the factories and mills that were closed, whether in Asbury Park or Freehold or Youngstown or throughout the Midwest. But a lot of those guys didn’t turn out to share your politics. They became Donald Trump supporters. What’s your explanation for that?

Springsteen: There’s a long history of working people being misled by a long list of demagogues, from George Wallace and Jesse Helms to fake religious leaders like Jerry Falwell to our president.

The Democrats haven’t really made the preservation of the middle and working class enough of a priority. And they’ve been stymied in bringing more change by the Republican Party. In the age of Roosevelt, Republicans represented business; Democrats represented labor. And when I was a kid, the first and only political question ever asked in my house was “Mom, what are we, Democrats or Republicans?” And she answered, “We are Democrats because they’re for the working people.” (I have a sneaking suspicion my mom went Republican towards the end of her cognizant life, but she never said anything about it!)”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

That is quite a big chunk of text to quote, but I felt it was important to bring it in, as Bruce Springsteen’s music and ethos is so tied into politics. He is someone who is deeply affected by what is happening at the moment, but I think it is interesting to see how he conducts himself and what politics mean to him personally. I was looking back at that interview from The Guardian, as it seems that politics is about how one conducts their life:

“For Springsteen, politics seems to be about the way you live your life as much as anything. It’s about being decent. About being fair to others. Being a good man. So what does being a good man entail?

“That’s a big question,”

It is.

“I guess, really… I probably learned the best answers to that from my mother. My mother was basically decent, compassionate, strong, wilful. She insisted on creating a world where she could make her children feel as safe as possible, even though she certainly had her faults in that area. But she was consistent. You could count on her. Day after day after day. And she was very strong. The best part of me picked up a lot of those characteristics and I struggle to live up to them today. So I think dependability, strength, wilfulness… put in the service of something good – those are the things that matter to me.”

His mother had to be the rock because his childhood in New Jersey was, to say the least, peculiar. He spent a chunk of it in the early 1950s living in Freehold with a paternal grandmother who loved him too much, compensating for the death of her daughter in 1927 (“It was very emotionally incestuous and a lot of parental roles got crossed,” he told the writer Peter Ames Carlin); school was cruel, his father Doug – consumed by an often silent rage against the world, and against the son who mystified him – crueller still, emotionally at least”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Duncan Barnes

There is one thing I want to cover off before I tackle I’ll See You in My Dreams from Letter to You. I want to briefly circle back to that interview with The Atlantic as, among the hatred and violence that has been seen this year in America, there are aspects which make Springsteen feel optimistic. Billboard were reacting to that interview from The Atlantic; Springsteen talked about race relations and the clear divide between the Democrat and Republican parties:

“What makes him feel most optimistic, though, is watching all the young people in the street, as well as the demonstrations they've inspired around the world, which he thinks will ultimately be about more than Floyd and police violence against American citizens.

The interview also finds Springsteen talking about whether we've made any progress on racial equality and why the President's "march to St. John's [church]" to pose with a Bible with his "phony all-white contingent" just didn't look real. "Because it wasn’t real. That is not the America of today," he says. "That culture, which keeps Black people invisible, is gone. In the present moment, if Black people are not visible, that’s not acceptable. And I think that’s a sign of progress. When you see the Democratic side of the House filled with brown people and Black people, straight people and gay people, and then you look at the Republicans, who appear unchanged by history at this moment? They look ridiculous. And despite their current power, they look like a failing party".

I shall get down to reviewing I’ll See You in My Dreams, as it is a fantastic song from Letter to You, and it is also the closing track. I was keen to review this track, as it is one that I keep coming back to time and time again/ It has made a big impression on me.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

Although there is quite a lot of energy to the composition of I’ll See You in My Dreams – the band provide a definite sense of forward motion -, the lyrics seem to point to something more emotive and lost. It appears that Springsteen is remembering a friend that has gone. Whether he is talking about America in general and how the country has been lost, or whether the song pertain to a particular person, there is clearly a lot of meaning and personal relevance behind the words: “The road is long and seeming without end/The days go on, I remember you my friend/And though you're gone and my heart's been empty it seems/I'll see you in my dreams”. Springsteen’s voice carries quite a bit of weight, but it also quite contemplative and spirited. I wonder whether, when Springsteen sings “I got your guitar here by the bed/All your favorite records and all the books that you read/And though my soul feels like it's been split at the seams/I'll see you in my dreams”, there is this particular love that has been lost. The images are quite vivid and resonant, and the song really does make you think. Although he is dealing with quite weighty words and sentiments, there is a definite energy and verve that portrays a sense of reconciliation and optimism. When it comes to the chorus, Springsteen talks about meeting this person in his dreams; the suggestion that, maybe, the person has passed and this reunion has a sadder element: “I'll see you in my dreams when all our summers have come to an end/I'll see you in my dreams, we'll meet and live and laugh again/I'll see you in my dreams, yeah around the river bend/For death is not the end/And I'll see you in my dreams”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

I am really interested in the meaning behind the lyrics and whether Springsteen is reacting to someone that he is lost or has been departed from – or whether he is not necessarily taking from his personal life. One cannot help but get caught up in the drive and sense of hopefulness, even if there is a suggestion that all might not be all that it seems. At the midway point of the song, the spotlight is handed to the band and there is whirling organ, beautiful guitar licks and this very beautiful passage. I think Springsteen’s voice sounds as stirring now as it has ever been! It is impossible not to be swept up in the sense that, even if it through dreams, Springsteen will get this reunion and valuable connection. In a wider sense, I think songs like I’ll See You in My Dreams offers a bit of hope to the wider world; people are going through a really tough time and music like this really offers something positive and energising. Every song on Letter to You is fantastic, but I think that its closing track is the best. It is classic Springsteen, in the sense that there is this mixture of powerful optimism and rousing vocals, together with something deeper and more emotional. I have listened to I’ll See You in My Dreams a lot, and I think that it is one of Springsteen’s best songs in years – not that this is a slight against his other tracks; it is just that I’ll See You in My Dreams is so good!

I want to finish up by returning to the subject of Springsteen and politics. We might see a new President elected very soon (let’s hope so!), but Springsteen is as rattled and worried as everyone else at the moment regarding the way America is being run. In an interview with CBS This Morning earlier in the year, Springsteen provided his view on Trump’s presidency:

"It's just frightening, you know? We're living in a frightening time," he said of the current political landscape. "The stewardship of the nation is — has been thrown away to somebody who doesn't have a clue as to what that means. You know? I mean, United States of America is in your care. Do you know what — do you know what the stakes are? Do you know what that means? And unfortunately we have somebody who I feel doesn't have a grasp of the deep meaning of what it means to be an American."

"You campaigned for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Is there anybody, if they called you, you said, 'okay, I'll go out?'" King asked.

"I don't know ... I mean I've kind of spent my chips on the folks I've helped in the past. But I always take it as it goes and see. See how it turns out. Or what comes up as we get closer to elections".

I think the next Bruce Springsteen album will very much reflect the aftermath of the U.S. election and maybe how the world is adapting to life after a pandemic. At the moment, I think Springsteen is much more in a self-reflecting and personal mindframe. Letter to You includes some of his most affecting songs, and the critical reaction to the album has been hugely positive. It is, as I said earlier, amazing how The Boss can produce these staggering albums after all of these years! It makes us excited to see where he might go next and what the next chapter will be. Having released one of the best albums of 2020, make sure you grab a copy of…