Magic... finally

A little over a week after the worldwide release of MAGIC, I got my copy from Arjun. The week's delay had a slight drawback - apart from the fact that I stayed 604800 seconds without Bruce's new tunes in my head. Clear Channel had the album on the site - but I just hate listening to Bruce like this - stuck in a 1 meter radius to my lap-top, with 'You are listening to clear channel' coming up time and again. I like my albums playing loud on my stereo - and I prefer to have the lyric booklet for company. Lyrics are important to me. Why?

The Magic (ahem) of a Singer-Songwriter is that... automatically half talents like just Singers (Kelly Clarkson, until My December - where she contributes as songwriter on every trashy track) or just Songwriters (Holland-Dozier-Holland) are not counted. Add 'Performer' to the Singer-Songwriter tag, you have a complete musician... an entertainer, and an individual worth being remembered as a symbol of our times. Bruce Springsteen is one of a dying breed - the Singer/songwriter-performer.

Now, the real issue I had with a delayed arrival of the album was I would be exposed to all sorts of reviews (from the mundane tripe fans write - ode to the Cult of the amateur - to all the important ones like that on Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and retailer amazon).

I usually pay a lot of attention to a few reviews before i watch a movie or buy an album. But Bruce is different. And Bruce's new work being reviewed by someone from today's highly polarized United States would be quite misrepresentative of the true intent in the lyric.

Now to the album itself...

Radio Nowhere

You'll Be Comin' Down
Livin' In The Future
Your Own Worst Enemy
Gypsy Biker
Girls In Their Summer Clothes
I'll Work For Your Love
Magic
Last To Die
Long Walk Home
Devil's Arcade
Bonus track: Terry's Song

A few have called MAGIC Bruce's best work since The River. Few have said its his best since Born in the USA. Song for song - I wouldn't compare albums like this. Bruce best album will always remain Born To Run. Not because it was the best written - but it came out at a time when Bruce needed to get an album like that out. After listening to MAGIC a few dozen times, I don't agree with either. I reckon this is the E Street Band at its best (thanks to Brendan O Brien) and Bruce doing what he should be doing in 2007. This is not 1975 when Bruce had a 'one-shot' at fame and stardom, where he had to deliver a Born to Run. Today Bruce Springsteen IS the Boss (despite what Simon Cowell thinks), and no one tells him what to write or say. He puts something out - you listen to it. His fierce drive for perfection will not let down - thats the word in that handshake (you pay, he plays).

As a citizen approaching his senior years, a concerned parent and most importantly - a vocal patriot, he is upset about American policies today. Most of the lyrics that bear this grudge are actually camouflaged in the rousing guitar, bass, organ, drums and saxophone of the mighty E Street Band - but cannot be ignored.

Radio Nowhere was the first singe I heard a month ago - thanks to it being made available free online. A visit to the garage-rock sound Bruce hardly touched upon in four decades. He moans about the general state of mind (of the populous) and radio. 'Is there anybody alive out there' is the first line in the album that will be given the fist-thumping treatment in arenas - albeit the true meaning lost somewhere in the night.

You'll Be Coming Down is a pop-rock 'non-sing-along'... thats how I 'd put it. The lyrics are way too complicated than ...say, Hungry Heart. The best moment of the song is during the second verse...

Easy street, a quick buck and true lies
Smiles as thin as those dusky blue skies
A silver plate of pearls my golden child
It's all yours at least for a little while

The rhythm guitar is just fabulous. Very David Evans.

The track thats really growing on me is Livin' n The Future. Very Tenth Avenue Freeze-out in arrangement. This is the album's best song to be watched LIVE. The chorus, the na-na-na's, the saxophone - its all happening here man. Again the seemingly feel-good song with Danny's soaring accordion and mighty Max's drums over-shadows the doubt and disdain Bruce feels about America and its policies today. None of this has happened yet... is America's way of not accepting reality.

My faith's been torn asunder, tell me is that rollin' thunder
Or just the sinkin' sound of somethin' righteous* goin' under?

(*America and what it stood for?)

Your Own Worst Enemy is an ode to the production technique known as the Wall of Sound. The pop arrangement (again) casts a shadow on the lyrics. I can't imagine people singing along to this. But then, if Reagan could make a war cry out of BITUSA, anything can happen there.

Gypsy Biker is cool. Period. An ode to a dead soldier. And I read that the LIVE performance is simply awesome - a guitar fest with Nils, Little Steven and Bruce trading axe-works. The image painted by Bruce in this song is poetic. It is so vivid (like the next song) - its like a bloody painting. Mama, Sister Mary, Brother John, Bobby, and the singer - depressed and getting stoned on cocaine... I'm not American. But I feel it.

The painting/ setting is classic Springsteenian in Girls In Their Summer Clothes... how many times have we men felt like this...

Things been a little tight
But I know their gonna turn my way
And the girls in their summer clothes
In the cool of the evening light
The girls in their summer clothes, pass me by

She went away, she cut me like a knife
Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life
In just a glance, down here on magic street
Loves a fool's dance
And I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet

I'll Work For Your Love was written in the after-glow of a moment of pleasure with Ms. Scialfa, I guess.

In Magic (title track), Bruce plays a street magician. The song again is a metaphorical take on the state of American leadership today - how they make Americans trust what they hear and see - and make truth seem like lies and lies seem true.

I got a shiny saw blade
All I needs' a volunteer
I'll cut you in half
While you're smiling ear to ear

His best songwriting in decades...

Last to Die is a simple straight forward question... nothing the E Street could do here!!

The best song in MAGIC is Long Walk Home. A guy comes back to his hometown after years - and people treat him like a rank stranger.

My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town
It's a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
You know that flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't."

That last line... The reason I live is to hear such songs.

In Devil's Arcade, a wounder soldier's lady visits him at the hospital where he lies with the other wounded... his mind torn by his experiences in the desert, his lost friends, his ideals, his quest for heroism, his longing for the touch of his girl...

The last-minute addition to the album is Terry's Song - an ode to Terry Magovern, Bruce's friend and working partner of 23 years who passed away on July 30th.

'When they built you brother, they broke the mold'.

Thanks Boss.