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June 02, 2006

Tonight My Baby And Me Are Gonna Ride To The Sea

It was 28 years ago today that Darkness on the Edge of Town came out.

For the past 25 or so years, it's been my favorite album of all time.

Everyone remembers Born to Run, a timeless procession of suicide machines and old girlfriends and happy-go-lucky petty thugs and dresses flying in the wind and visionaries in parking lots dancing to late-night radio to the light of nearby billboards.

Darkness is the album for when the cruising's over, and you have to grow up and live your life for real.

There's a reason the album has stuck with me for almost thirty years - and why so many Bruce fans say that it, rather than Born to Run or The River or Nebraska, is their favorite Springsteen record.

There has never been a better record written about isolation - personal, geographical, cultural, and emotional - ever. Which may be why it resonated so much for a kid for North Dakota who desperately wanted to be elsewhere. In fact, "the Promised Land" is about exactly that:

On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert
I pick up my money and head back into town
Driving cross the Waynesboro county line
I got the radio on and I'm just killing time
Working all day in my daddy's garage
Driving all night chasing some mirage
Pretty soon little girl I'm gonna take charge

CHORUS
The dogs on Main Street howl
'cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister I ain't a boy, no I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land

Foreigner and Black Sabbath never wrote about being stuck in a small town, bored out of your skull. I was sold.

The first cut, "Badlands", is a decoy; it's almost "Born to Run"-ish, with its gleefully-sloppy guitar/sax interplay, big beat (almost danceable, by Springsteen standards) and exhortation that "it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive". But after "Badlands" it's clear - being glad you're alive is no sin, but it's something you gotta work for. "Adam Raised a Cain", a brutal, plodding dirge, raises the ante; you can be glad you're alive, but your past wants its due:

"Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames
Adam raised a Cain...
"Something in the Night" reads like an obituary to the teenage dream; like an almost-thirty-year-old is driving down the same route he covered ten years earlier - maybe the route "through the mansions of glory", for all we know.

But he's alone, this time:

I'm riding down Kingsley,
figuring I'll get a drink
Turn the radio up loud,
so I don't have to think,
I take her to the floor,
looking for a moment when the world
seems right,
And I tear into the guts,
of something in the night.

...

Well nothing is forgotten or forgiven,
when it's your last time around,
and I've got stuff running 'round my head,
that I can't live down...

So it's been 28 years since I first heard the record, and about a quarter century since it's been among my 2-3 favorite records ever. For me, it's been a long stretch; a couple of careers, two and a half kids, a marriage that splintered like a Wal-mart dining room set, and a few dreams along the way that had to get wrapped up and put away for later, whenever "Later" is.

And at the end of it all - on the title and final cut on the album, the slow, mournful "Darkness on the Edge of Town" - a late-night tale by a guy who staked a big chunk of his life on a losing bet, a song that sounds like 4AM after a long bender, about the time when resignation gells into resolve:

Well, they're still racing out at The Trestles
but that blood never burned in her veins.
I hear she's got a house out on Fairview, now,
and a style she's trying to maintain...
He's been there. He's thought about it.

He's done:

Well, some folks are born into a good life,
and other folks get it anyway, anyhow.
And I lost my money and I lost my wife,
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now.
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop
I'll be on that hill with everything I got
Where the lives are on the line, where dreams are found and lost,
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
in the darkness on the edge of town...
The album has stayed with me like none of Springsteen's other records - partly because I associate it so closely with that part of my adolescence when I was just starting to figure out who I was and where I belonged, but mostly because it's about things that are pretty timeless.

It aint' no sin to be glad you're alive. It's also something you have to earn:

Well everybody's got a hunger,
a hunger they can't resist.
There's so much that you want,
you deserve much more than this.
Well, if dreams came true, aw, wouldn't that be nice?
But this aint' no dream, we're living all through the night.
You want it? You take it, you pay the price...
So earn it.

For my money, there is no better album in the history of rock and roll.

Posted by Mitch at June 2, 2006 07:05 AM | TrackBack
Comments

The hot blooded Foreigner doesn't care about escaping BFE, he just wants to know what love is.

And he wants you to show him.

Posted by: Bill C at June 2, 2006 09:47 AM

"Foreigner and Black Sabbath never wrote about being stuck in a small town, bored out of your skull."

"Juke Box Hero" might not be a very good song, but it's at least partly about that very thing.

Posted by: Beeeej at June 2, 2006 11:02 AM

I agree that Darkness on the Edge of Town is a great album, one of the best. It's certainly my favorite Springsteen. But one of my favorite lonely, longing-for-the-past Springsteen lyrics comes from Born to Run:

Blame it on the lies that killed us
Blame it on the truth that ran us down
You can blame it all on me Terry
It don't matter to me now
When the breakdown hit at midnight
There was nothing left to say
But I hated him
And I hated you when you went away

Posted by: AK at June 2, 2006 01:08 PM

Oddly enough, I just could never get into this album ... I much prefer Born to Run, Nebraska and The River. I'm not convinced that those three albums represent the hightlight of his career (with the possible addition of The Rising, and arguably, Born in the USA.)

IMHO, of course.

Posted by: SteveM at June 2, 2006 03:40 PM

Forgot to add that I do think most of Springsteen's stuff works better live than on the record - witness the epic 1975-1985 compilation - songs like _4th of July, Asbury Park_, __Johnny 99_, the reworked _No Surrender_ and _Rosalita_ all far outstrip their studio counterparts, as does everything included from "Darkness."

Again, just IMHO.

SteveM

Posted by: Steve< at June 2, 2006 03:54 PM

Oddly enough, my favorite Springsteen song (Racing in the Streets, from which Mitch has taken lyrics to create the title for this post)is not on my favorite Springsteen album (The Wild the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle). I suppose its predictable and overly pretentious to say "I only like his early stuff," but I love the songs on that album. But Racing in the Streets, now there's a song. The other odd thing is, I'm not at all a gearhead. I hardly know what a "Hurst on the floor" means. But as a metaphor, the song just fits. Hope, heartbreak redemption, growing up, sadness, and not in that order. "Now there' wrinkles 'round may baby's eyes, and she cries herself to sleep at night..." Any one who has had to tell his wife bad news, like the loss of a job, and see the disappointment and fear (and eyes of one who hates for just being born), but (maybe later) see a glimmer of hope and trust could never forget this song.

Posted by: Patrick at June 2, 2006 05:16 PM

What knocked me out about "Badlands" - the song, not the album - was that brief but exhuberant guitar solo. It just roars out like some happy drunken whoop. Those are the loosest strings I've ever heard; it's like he tuned the entire guitar down an octave. (I think he was still playing a Telecaster.)

Your post reminded me how we used to consider Bruce as an electric guitarist as well as a songwriter. Then he pulled a Reverse Dylan, and went accoustic.

Posted by: Lileks at June 2, 2006 06:11 PM

Choosing be BTR and DOTEOT is like choosing between water and oxygen... I couldn't live without either and my favorite depends on how long it's been since I have had a breath or something to drink. I wore them both out about 4 times and had to keep buying new copies.
But, Mitch, a Darkness post without mentioning Candy's Room? :-)
If memory serves Springsteen showed up for his Columbia audition solo with accoustic guitar and the execs throught they were indeed getting the next Dylan (he played Mary Queen of Arkansas and Growin' Up, I think). They were kind of freaked out when he showed up to record with his full band!

Posted by: chriss at June 2, 2006 10:50 PM

You know, music is a personal thing. For me, Bruce Springsteen has never resonated, and neither have the Beatles or punk rock. I think what you're showing us here, Mitch, is not what a great album this is but what a great album it is for YOU. I certainly don't begrudge you that, but not all art moves everyone. The question of whether or not any of Springsteen's albums are truly great will be answered by posterity. Great art is art that resonates for a great many over a great length of time. In my opinion, it's too soon to call any rock great, even Buddy Holly, the Doors, the Stones, and, yes, the Beatles.

Posted by: eightgun at June 3, 2006 04:34 PM

What I remember with DOTEOT was waiting so long for it to come out as it was the first release after all the legal hassles and challenges that followed BTR. I didn't like it that much at first because I was still wanting to hear the "old" Springsteen, but the words worked on me as they always do. It seemed to me as if Springsteen had left the streets in favor of the highways; it was an album that left the Jersey sense of place behind for a more universal appeal (perhaps BS starting to give in - or having had enough artistic success - to give in to channeling his Woody Guthrie sensibilities). Not yet "Nebraska", but certainly not "Greetings from Asbury Park" either (and well in advance of "The Ghost of Tom Joad".

Personally, "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" will always be my favorite Springsteen album because of the moodiness of side two (back when we still thought in terms of album sides), for which "Rosalita" was merely frothy icing on the cake. "Darkness" has definitely grown on me with time, however, as my own life experiences have added context and a greater appreciation.

Posted by: Night Writer at June 5, 2006 11:44 AM

Late on my responses:

Beeeej,

""Juke Box Hero" might not be a very good song, but it's at least partly about that very thing."

Doh. You are right.

AK:

Re the "Backstreets" verse - yep. Another of my very favorites. The difference is that the narrator is regretting the end of a romance, not a major change in outlook on life. No biggie, of course - they're all great.

Patrick:

"my favorite Springsteen song (Racing in the Streets, from which Mitch has taken lyrics to create the title for this post)is not on my favorite Springsteen album...The other odd thing is, I'm not at all a gearhead. I hardly know what a "Hurst on the floor" means. But as a metaphor, the song just fits."

Absolutely. I've known some non-fans who laughed their asses off over that first line - "I got a 69 Chevy with a 396, fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor", missing the whole point; he's reciting the big values of his adolescence, having a really bitchin' hotrod. He proceeds through all his triumphs, including the night he "blew that Camaro off his back" and drove away with the girl - straight out of every Beach Boys song. And then into the real life stuff - she's lonely and scared and wants him to quit; the strain is tearing them apart; he wants to fix things. It's like throwing "Born to Run" into reverse from full speed.

James,

"What knocked me out about "Badlands" - the song, not the album - was that brief but exhuberant guitar solo. It just roars out like some happy drunken whoop. Those are the loosest strings I've ever heard; it's like he tuned the entire guitar down an octave. (I think he was still playing a Telecaster.)"

Bingo. Wonderful, sloppy-but-perfect, probably done in one take (on a Tele Squire - the one he still plays, IIRC).

"Your post reminded me how we used to consider Bruce as an electric guitarist as well as a songwriter. Then he pulled a Reverse Dylan, and went accoustic."

Yeah. That was one thing I miss about Bruce - if you listen deep in the mix of some of his older stuff, you can hear a lot of REALLY good guitar playing.

Chriss,

"Choosing be BTR and DOTEOT is like choosing between water and oxygen... I couldn't live without either and my favorite depends on how long it's been since I have had a breath or something to drink. I wore them both out about 4 times and had to keep buying new copies."

Ditto.

"But, Mitch, a Darkness post without mentioning Candy's Room? :-)"

The beeyotch of it all is, I had a 'graf about Candy's Room - and it got eaten somewhere between revisions, and I didn'thave time to recreate it. I may have to write a separate post about it; love that song.

Posted by: mitch at June 6, 2006 12:47 PM

Preved Medved

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Posted by: furniture at July 7, 2006 09:42 AM
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