Album Review: Devils & Dust

Today marks the ten-year anniversary of the release of Springsteen's 13th studio album Devils & Dust.  Usually, I start these reviews with my persona relationship I had with the album at the time it was released (such as my love of The Rising and my hatred of Working On A Dream).  However, this is an album that never quite left a mark on me in any direction.  I was out of the country when it was released, and subsequently never saw any of the shows on the Devils & Dust Tour.  Basically, before going into this album, I remember just having a generally positive attitude about this album.  And, after a couple of listens recently, that's about all I'm left with: a generally positive attitude.



Devils & Dust is a difficult album to review.  While it generally gets lumped in with other acoustic albums like Nebraska and Ghost of Tom Joad, there are much more instruments than the guitar integrating into these songs (when perhaps they shouldn't be).  In fact, many of these songs were old songs Springsteen had written that were cleaned up and recorded, making the album much more like High Hopes.

There are some good songs, but they never quite reach "great" status.  There are some bad songs, but nothing that can't pass as adequate filler.  It wouldn't be fair to call it "average", but it isn't a classic either.  In fact, I think the album is best summarized by it's title track above.  "Devils & Dust" is a protest strong that has held up fairly well over the years, with its evocative lyrics and stark atmosphere.  However after a strong opening minute, it gets bogged down by overproduction, adding in strings and piano.  It doesn't make the song unlistenable, mind you, but it holds it back from being an all-time Springsteen classic.



While the name Devils & Dust invokes a dark, somber attitude, the best songs on this album are actually Springsteen's love songs.  "Long Time Comin'" is one of the strongest songs on the album, both musically and lyrically.  Invoking the name Rosie again (instantly recalling the classic "Rosalita"), Springsteen weaves a great tale of failed relationships with the hope of working to make the future different from the past.  "Leah" is little love song that has always stuck with me.  While it is very similar to "Long Time Comin'" musically, the "li-li-li's" give it an classic 1960s pop feeling.  "All I'm Thinkin' About" completes this love song trilogy.  Here, Springsteen challenges himself, singing in complete falsetto.  It's a risk that pays off, as it makes the narrator sound breathless, overtaken with his love.



The rest of the songs have one or two things that help them stand out.  You've got "All The Way Home", the random hard rocker on the album that stands out like "Open All Night" on Nebraska.  You've got "Reno", the hooker song.  "Maria's Bed" is a twangy song, with "woos" similar to "State Trooper" and the smiling skull ring from "(Further On) Up The Road".  "Matamoros Banks" is another slow lullaby that ends the album, which seems to be Springsteen's specialty ("My City of Ruins", "Terry's Song", "Dream Baby Dream", etc.).

 The problem is that all of these songs are different thematically.  The album doesn't have the driving direction that helps the other Springsteen work stand out.  You've got anti-war songs, love songs, songs about boxers, songs about cars, etc.  The sound isn't acoustic, but you also don't have the E Street Band, either.  With all that being said, I'd rate the album a three out of five.  It's got a handful of songs that I'd love to see in concert (and a couple I think could be revamped with a full band, such as "Black Cowboys").  Many of the songs have great elements, but they don't quite stick the landing.  Much like this review, which I'm not sure how to end.

Please share your thoughts/stories about Devils & Dust in the comments below!

Lyrics Spotlight: Long Time Comin'

“I reach beneath your shirt, lay my hands across your belly
And feel another one kickin' inside
And I ain't gonna fuck it up this time”
- Long Time Comin’, Devils & Dust

I am very blessed to share that my wife and I are going to have our first child in just over a month’s time. We were both hoping for it to happen and couldn’t be more excited. But even when it’s something you’ve so hoped would happen, it’s still natural to feel moments of anxiety (the baby books have confirmed I’m not alone on this). In the first few days after I found out back in August, the above lyrics rang through my head frequently.

I’m fortunate that I haven’t lived a life with the kind of distraught family unrest that the narrator describes in this song. But like everyone else, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. At times when I feel uneasy or uncertain about my ability to be a good father, I think of these lyrics and remind myself that this is one thing I’m not gonna fuck up.

What the F---?!?

Editor's Note: While we try to run the classiest of all Springsteen fanblogs, we also are dedicated to exploring every nook and cranny of the Springsteen-iverse.  With that being said, some of the language ahead is salty, so if you usually read the Friday Legends of Springsteen posts as bedtime stories to your children, you may want to skip this week.  

Fuck.  It isn't a word you expect to hear out of Bruce Springsteen.  Throughout most of his career, he has worked a clean act.  I'd speculate that record company executives preferred to keep it this way in order to not to alienate his fanbase.  However, pop culture continues to push the envelope over what is acceptable, and Springsteen has built up a loyal following whose adoration he constantly challenges (with controversial songs such as "American Skin" and "Death To My Hometown").  With these two factors converging, Bruce has started to test the waters of using more profanities in his music.  The first instance occurred on Bruce's 11th studio album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, over 20 years after he made his mark on the scene.  The last track, "My Best Was Never Good Enough", expresses a man's frustration with various cliches, as Bruce sings:

The early bird catches the fucking worm

The song sounds disturbingly dated (quoting Forrest Gump at the end) and uses a couple of other naughty words.  It doesn't sound true to Bruce's nature, as it seems he wasn't sure how he wanted to make his foray into the new world of swearing.  It would be ten years before Bruce would drop the f-bomb again, this time in the Devils & Dust track "Long Time Comin'".  This fantastic song tells the story of a man getting rid of his past demons and starting a new life.  When the narrator finds out he is going to be a father (again), he wishes that 

I ain't gonna fuck it up this time

As opposed to "My Best", this song was much better constructed and told a powerful story that the use of "fuck" ends up being an exclamation point on the message of the song.  In "My Best", the cursing was just out of frustration with his situation.  Here, he curses out of the self-doubt and fear every parent has.  He knows the suffering he had in his life, and he is reminding himself that he is responsible for making sure that this does not happen to his children.  Of the three songs I'm spotlighting here, this is the only one I had the chance to see performed live (during the Seeger Sessions Tour).  The audience knew that the f-bomb was coming, and erupted in applause after the line.  

The final use of "fuck" to date was in "Queen of the Supermarket", a corny love song that ranks among the worst of Bruce's songs.  It is a lovey-dovey ballad to a blue-collar worker that drives Bruce mad with desire.  Towards the end of the song, Bruce informs us that she has a smile

That blows this whole fucking place apart

Here, rather than cursing in fear and anger, he is shouting out in the name of love.  It seems like a desperate plea to make us truly buy into the romance of this song.  "I love her guys.  I love her.  I FUCKING love her!"  The song ends with a cash register beeping, a beeping which could've been used over Bruce's f-bomb earlier.  

While it is interesting to see Bruce experiment with dirtier language, the results have not been good, as he is just one-for-three in effective uses of "fuck". While it would be easy to say that it just doesn't "fit" Bruce, I feel that pidgeon-holes him, and sets expectations for an artist that has consistently tried to shed the labels given to him.  I feel the error in his use of "fuck" so far has been a lack of commitment - it seems that the use of it has been half-hearted and worked in after the fact, rather than essential to the lyrics.  Given how angry "Wrecking Ball" was, I fully expect to see more cursing from Bruce in the future, and I see them being in a different context than the previous songs.