OK, even though I pre-ordered Springsteen's latest offering, I couldn't wait for the mail. I had to download it from iTunes.
Having pre-ordered it, I'd already seen the videos for Springsteen's performance of "John Henry", "Erie Canal", and "Pay Me My Money Down."
Over the past thirty years of fandom, I've learned to trust Bruce to deliver quality. Once again, he does not disappoint.
He assembled a fantastic group of musicians for this project, and invited them into his living room to record this cd. No, I'm not making it up. It's true. The whole thing was recorded live in Bruce's living room.
From the opening laugh and "count in" on "Old Dan Tucker," to the last clashing symbol on "Froggie Went a Courtin'", this thing is a load of fun. It's really interesting figuring out how Bruce chose which songs to put in what order. The cd really does build energy from Tucker up through the Dixieland style of "Jacob's Ladder." Then Bruce gets us to relax a bit with a really humorous delivery of "My Oklahoma Home" before slowing us way down and sending us a clear message during these troubled times with "Eyes on the Prize." His version of "Shenandoah" is haunting. Just as you're about to get lulled into a deep contemplative trance, he whips out the funnest song on the cd: "Pay Me My Money Down." The intent here, I think, is to wake our collective ass up so we'll pay attention to his very deliberative delivery of "We Shall Overcome."
Though his own voice is somewhat subdued on this number, the arrangement is as powerful as anything you've ever heard from him. The presence of the piano is clearly intended to evoke the church, as a place of community, a place where we come together to celebrate a collective faith in something larger than our individual selves, a faith maybe in our collective power to transform the world for the betterment of all. Bruce knows this is a time when we need that faith, to keep up our own fight to reclaim this country.
By ending the cd with Froggie Went a Courtin', Bruce sends us a message about why that fight matters. The struggle ahead of us will probably outlast us. But we have to reclaim our power to ignite the struggle to reclaim and expand democracy. Like the song itself, the reason we have to find the faith and the courage to mount that stuggle is for our children.
Moreover, this is a great cd. Bruce did a great job of digging into an important part of our past to send us a message about our present. Maybe we can carry that message as we set out to begin creating a different kind of future, lest we should do the unthinkable and simply bequeath our current problems to future generations.
