Quick Takes: High Hopes (Steve)

It’s fitting that the album cover of High Hopes features two images of Bruce Springsteen. His 18th studio album feels like an auditory journey through the uncanny. At once, this album is unlike any of his other albums and also unmistakably the work of Bruce Springsteen. The Los Angeles Times recently described Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine as “both different and the same.” That’s an apt description for High Hopes.

The opening minute of “Harry’s Place” is the type that makes you sit bolt upright in surprise and yet “High Hopes” – a song that he didn’t even write – seems like the kind of song he could have composed in his sleep.

A collection of covers, cuts, and remakes, the album is a curio in Springsteen’s oeuvre. I doubt that it will ever be treasured by anyone as one of his best. And I wouldn’t argue with the detractors who feel that the album is overproduced, but I would say that there are a couple of gems here and a lot of fun to be had.

When you look at an album like this – or a song like “Rocky Ground” – some might regard it as a desperate attempt by Bruce to connect with an audience that doesn’t care about him anymore. But I see it as the work of a tireless creative who isn’t afraid to experiment at a point in his career when he could so easily sit back and rest on his laurels.

I look forward to digesting the album further over the coming weeks but in the meantime, here are a few thoughts track-by-track…

“High Hopes” – I really enjoy listening to the song, but will it have any pop culture relevance?

“Harry’s Place” – The unexpected, Dire Straights-esque sound reminds me of the shock of hearing “Ain’t Got You” for the first time. It’s also notable for adding another two f-bombs to the Springsteen catalogue.

“41 Shots” – I was completely caught off guard when this song began. I greatly prefer the live version, not just for nostalgic reasons but also for its raw power. On this studio version, the emotion feels too removed.

“Just Like Fire Would” – So far, this is my favorite song on the album. I loved his live version and love this, even though it’s weird to hear a song go from live to studio rather than vice versa. Is the studio version overproduced? Probably. But I really like it. It may be a guilty pleasure but it’s great for toe tapping and air guitar in the privacy of your own home.

“Down in the Hole” – A great, quiet song. It strikes me as the best song on the album, but I need to listen to it more to be certain.

“Heaven’s Wall” – I find it very catchy and one of the clearest examples of a song that sounds so different and yet so similar to his past songs.

“Frankie Fell in Love” – One of Bruce’s shortest songs, it sounds old fashioned and reminiscent of The Everly Brothers.

“This is Your Sword” – I find this to be the least remarkable song on the album. Each time I’ve listened to the album, I have no recollection of this song by the end.

“Hunter of Invisible Game” – I’ve been singing the chorus in my head a lot the past few days and I really like the melody. It might become a favorite over time.

“Ghost of Tom Joad” – The one true “remake” on the album. Have any other artists ever remade their own song to this degree before? It’s the smoothest of the live-to-studio transitions in my opinion.

“The Wall” – Along with “Down in the Hole”, this is quiet and understated, but undoubtedly significant.

“Dream Baby Dream” – I’m undecided on this song. I feel like I should love it but it hasn’t caught on with me yet.

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.