Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen Has a "Wrecking Ball"

by Swan | February 21, 2012 at 11:56 am

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Swooooon.
Bruce Springsteen, that extremely hunky man of the singing world is hitting the news with his 17th studio album - "Wrecking Ball". As usual, the lyrics "The Boss" writes has a message to deliver and as usual, he's damn angry about it!

Taken from the Springsteen website, these are the tracks of the new album:

We Take care of Our Own
Easy Money
Shackled and Drawn
Jack of All Trades
Death to My Hometown
This Depression
Wrecking Ball
You've Got It
Rocky Ground
Land of Hope and Dreams
We Are Alive.

He will be touring with the E Street Band and you'll be able to see the tour dates on the same website. This time, his lyrics are telling all who are prepared to listen:

I remember listening to a more subdued version of patriotic anger in my childhood, in the form of Bob Dylan and didn't Joan Baez also often lament the situation of America?

So although the music is fresh and new, it seems that America still has vocal artists angry about a dysfunctional American government and the situation that the ordinary person finds themselves in.

A champion of the middle and lower classes if you will.

Quote

Album opener "We Take Care of Our Own" poses a question: Do Americans take care of their own? The songs that follow make the answer clear: The narrator of the slow waltz "Jack of All Trades" struggles to find work, while the anti-hero of the country-folk stomper "Easy Money" decides to imitate "all them fat cats" on Wall Street by turning to crime. The similarly uptempo "Shackled and Drawn," meanwhile, offers a political analysis worthy of Woody Guthrie: "Gambling man rolls the dice, workingman pays the bill/ It’s still fat and easy up on banker’s hill/ Up on banker’s hill, the party’s going strong Down here below we’re shackled and drawn."

by Andy Green

Springsteen has always managed to deftly say what everyone else wants to say but doesn't have the gall to say. Both he and his lyrics are powerful. He also has the attitude - 'to hell with those that would shout me down.' However, you can still hear a plea in his lyrics for the government and the people to wake up see what is happening before it's all too late.

Three of his most famous songs that I recall (often dancing till outrageous times in the morning, in my err ... youth,) are "Born in the USA", "Born to Run" and "Fire". All are about the difficult struggles so many ordinary Americans share in daily life.

More recently of course, there was "The Rising" album, a sad and angry collection of songs, dealing with the September 11th attack. The album immediately became a popular and critical success.

There are a couple of great videos to see on the Springsteen website. If 'The Boss' is your thing as he is mine - view them and treat yourself.

For the purists, Springsteen's real name is Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen and he was born September 23rd 1949, in New Jersey.

At 62 years of age, this man still holds 'hunk status' in my book.

"Wrecking Ball" is due to be released on Columbia - March 5th, 2012

Springsteen trivia:

The Chrysler Corporation offered him several million dollars to use his song "Born in the USA" for a car commercial - which he promptly turned down. This underscored his disdain and mistrust of big corporations, though not Chrysler specifically. To him, acceptance of the deal would have been too much like 'selling out'.

Ahhhh back to swooooooning ...

References
BruceSpringsteen.net

Rolling Stone
Exclusive: Bruce Springsteen Explains His Experimental New Album
by Andy Greene

Last.FM
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

The Guardian
What was done to my country was un-Americanby
Fiachra Gibbons

Bob Dylan
Chimes of Freedom