Back Track
I'm going to try a little feature here on the bloggy blog about songs/albums that I like. Since I'm here in France with a (relatively) slow Internet connection, I've been somewhat isolated from new (American) music. As a result, I've delved into my vast -- and in many spots sparsely-listened -- music collection. I'll write here about songs I've re-discovered or re-considered, and try to give them more detail than they normally get.
To start off, I'll do a not-so-obscure song, by a not-so-obscure artist... I'll try to do better next time, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for the classics.
"Backstreets" - Bruce Springsteen
Born To Run represents the moment of Bruce Springsteen's arrival. From the harmonica flourish to open "Thunder Road" to the piano and strings uncertain cadence under Bruce's moans in "Jungleland," it's a classic. Alas, it's the second epic song on the album that gets ignored so often. "Backstreets," though, points the way most directly to the broodier Springsteen who was to follow.
"Backstreets" seems to fit the pattern of fellow epics "Thunder Road" and "Jungleland": piano theme to introduce the themes, then repeated by other instruments, followed by explosive, fist-pumping bridge, before fading into the sunset, all under the watchful, mournful cheerleading of the Boss. Yet, its topic of betrayal gives the first hint that the explosive beauty of Springsteen's dream-vision of escape onto the backstreets of the American continent -- into the dark fields of the republic, if you will allow some Gatsbyizing -- may double-cross us. We feel the deception of friendly C Major family chords and the ugly undertones they mask.
From the slow rumble building into the second uptake of the theme by the other instruments to that very opening line, "One soft infested summer" (what a line!), we understand that these otherwise cliched nostalgic glimpses are "infested," that their corruption has forced us to seek escape on the open road. The drum beat mimicking a heart beat on 3 leading into 4 keeps our fists pumping, but it's a little off. As he will later perform to great effect in "Born in the U.S.A." and on his entire The Rising album, Springsteen turns the heart-breaking anthem into an uneasy foot-tapping sing-along. That heart-thump drum beat lets us know that despite it all, these forgotten kids are still alive. There is pain in the past, but there is joy in survival.
As Greil Marcus said, "you’ve never heard anything like this before, but you understand it instantly." And that's just the thing. No emotion is elicited in this song that isn't found in, say, the Shangri-Las in "Out in the Streets." In fact, in many ways, this song is like a counterpart, a book-end on an era. Unlike "Thunder Road" or "Born to Run" or even "Jungleland," this song's possibility has already parted. Its primary flight is past. And all the howling betrayal we hear in the song is only further ironized as Springsteen mentions the "faithlessness" almost in passing, sliding it in between memories of old. It's like the pair of exes who keep talking about remembering the good times, but can't hide the deeper pains.
None of this is that profound, but Springsteen has never really been about profundity. For all the talk of Springsteen as heir to Dylan, his lyrics are nowhere near Dylan's cerebral linguistic gymnastics. Yet, in their simplicity, they speak a universal language that courses through our veins as rock'n'roll. When Springsteen wordlessly screams after "I hated him and I hated you went you went away," we feel the primal force of the jilted teenager in all of us.
One side note: I've often heard that Terry is meant to be an androgynous figure. After all there's no forced indication of gender, and some moments seem to indicate a masculinity in Terry ("trying to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be," for example). I'm not sold on the androgyny of the Terry character, but I think the ambiguity allows for further universal contact. Terry has become not a person so much as an empty shell upon which the singer has layered all his nostalgic energies.
When someone told me recently that no one he knows really likes Springsteen, I was dismayed but it seemed normal for the indie rock crowd to deride. All that unironic earnestness, dreaming about rock'n'roll giving Jersey kids salvation, was just too damned sincere for the post-punk era. Yet, here we are, and Springsteen's back. From the keyboard riffs in the Hold Steady to the inflected screams of Okkervil River, that old symbol of rock'n'roll corporatism has come back as the symbol of the purer rock'n'roll. "Backstreets" was the first step towards the darker Springsteen of Darkness on the Edge of Town and Nebraska and even to some extent Tunnel of Love and The River. Where "Born to Run"'s suicidal exuberance turns off the shoe-gazing crowd, "Backstreets" points the way back.
Sure, the song's not perfect. Sometimes those little organ ornaments make me want to punch Danny Federici, and the maudlin guitar solo could've been better fleshed out, but like much of Born to Run, these signs of amateurism would sound lame and weak-ass if not for the orchestrating, song-writing and singing might of Bruce Springsteen. He ain't the Boss for nothin'. Somehow Bruce's pathos rings truer than the emo wails of his lesser imitators. "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run" are without a doubt the choice cuts from this album. But damned if "Backstreets" isn't my favorite.
"Backstreets" at the Hammerstein, 1975:
Bruce Springsteen - Backstreets mp3
