Big Man & Sisters Under the Skin
By Benj DeMott
“I won’t change my mind...Keep your hand on my thigh tonight!” That’s a line from the chorus of the echt Springsteen track of the past decade. But it’s not by Bruce. The song is Kathleen Edwards’ “Oil Man’s War” – a tale of Bobby (“who wished he was from the past/He said those cars they used to drive were the best”) and Annabel (“no way in hell I'm going home/Mamma says she always knows best/God love her, but her life is a mess”). Bobby’s gone AWOL and they’re heading for Canada: “When we get up north/we’ll buy us a store/live upstairs after the kids are born.” Their hopes ride on a guitar riff that lifts like “Born to Run’s.”
Echoes from “Born to Run’s” whoa-ho-ho vocal chorus are in the mix of “Wrecking Ball” – title track (and most Springsteenesque cut) on the Boss’s new CD. The song’s story of Meadowlands Stadium uses pathetic fallacy – “I was raised out of steel…” – to evoke truths of capitalism’s creative destruction – “and we’re burning down the clock/and all our little victories and glories/have turned into parking lots.” “Wrecking Ball” mocks the cowboy mentality of boosters – “bring it on” – even as it allows America’s history of risky business fueled Springsteen’s youthful impulse to prove it all night. Live last month in Jersey (as per the Times concert review), Springsteen gave voice enduringly to capital moves behind his own and so many Americans’ defiant runs to daylight: “'And hard times come and hard times go,' Mr. Springsteen growled, repeating the line again, and again, and again, and again.”
Springsteen’s revisionist line on his own (American) history informs Wrecking Ball’s remake of his classic track “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which first appeared on a 1999 live album. The churchier new version, which adds explicit invocations of “A Change Is Gonna Come” and “People Get Ready” to Springsteen’s original spin on Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “This Train,” fits Wrecking Ball’s faith-based segues from righteous anger to beloved community. While Springsteen’s new “Land” can’t match the intensity of the live recording, the track carries its own emotion thanks to the late Clarence Clemons’ sax. Gone to glory but still on board this train, Clemons’ big-as-the-Continent sound becomes an auto-tribute to the musician who died shortly after recording his solo for Wrecking Ball’s version of “Land.”
Springsteen eulogizes Clemons in Wrecking Ball’s liner notes:
...STANDING TOGETHER WE WERE BADASS. ON ANY GIVEN NIGHT, ON OUR TURF, SOME OF THE BADDEST ON THE PLANET. WE WERE UNITED, WE WERE STRONG, WE WERE RIGHTEOUS, WE WERE UNMOVABLE, WE WERE FUNNY, WE WERE CORNY AS HELL AND AS SERIOUS AS DEATH ITSELF. AND WE WERE COMING TO YOUR TOWN TO SHAKE YOU AND TO WAKE YOU UP. TOGETHER, WE TOLD AN OLDER, RICHER STORY ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES OF FRIENDSHIP THAT TRANSCENDED THOSE I’D WRITTEN ABOUT IN MY SONGS AND IN MY MUSIC. CLARENCE CARRIED IT IN HIS HEART. IT WAS A STORY WHERE THE SCOOTER AND THE BIG MAN NOT ONLY BUSTED THE CITY IN HALF, BUT WE KICKED ASS AND REMADE THE CITY, SHAPING IT INTO THE KIND OF PLACE WHERE OUR FRIENDSHIP WOULD NOT BE SUCH AN ANOMALY.
…I’LL MISS MY FRIEND, AND THE FORCE OF NATURE THAT WAS HIS SOUND. BUT HIS LOVE AND HIS STORY – THE STORY THAT HE GAVE TO ME, THAT HE WHISPERED IN MY EAR, AND HE GAVE TO YOU – IT’S GOING TO CARRY ON.
CLARENCE WAS BIG AND HE MADE ME FEEL, THINK, LOVE, AND DREAM BIG. HOW BIG WAS THE BIG MAN? TOO FUCKING BIG TO DIE. YOU CAN PUT IT ON HIS GRAVESTONE. YOU CAN TATOO IT OVER YOUR HEART.
CLARENCE DOESN’T LEAVE THE E STREET BAND WHEN HE DIES. HE LEAVES WHEN WE DIE.
Springsteen’s yearning for a “city” where his friendship with Clemons wouldn’t seem remarkable reminds me in the early 70s (when pop life had dis-integrated), Springsteen’s E Street Band featured another anomalous brother – piano player David Sancious. And, that in turn, brings to mind Times movie critic Vincent Canby’s take on the 1978 film Blue Collar. He was unable to suspend disbelief in the tight relationship between Blue Collar's black and white working class heroes (best friends who end up mortal enemies) played by Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel. Wasn't Canby's fault - his skepticism was just one symptom of a broadscale failure of imagination back in that day.
Of course we’re no longer stuck in the 70’s or the last century of the color line. Yet Springsteen’s perception that his friendship with Big Man was…bigger than any story he’d told on his records still seems right on. Wrecking Ball’s many straight-up gospel and R&B samples hint at Springsteen’s desire to produce the sort of mixed-up, interracial music that would incarnate the sense of possibility and “transcendence” he invokes above. But, on the real side, the black voices on Wrecking Ball sometimes make it seem like Springsteen is paying studious dues (there’s more than one loop from the Alan Lomax Collection) – rather than cultivating urgent inspirations. Except, that is, when Michelle Moore nails her “featured vocal” on “Rocky Ground.” Moore’s voice is a pure pleasure. She sounds like she could be singing to herself and that adds a singular depth to her song’s expression of solidarity – “we’ve been traveling over rocky ground.” Her seeming lack of self-consciousness even makes the song’s “conscious” rap interlude sound no ways tired.
Moore’s unaffected voice reminds me of Kathleen Edwards’ who brought her natural-born singer’s instrument (and hot band) to New York City last Friday. It was a great show, though I’ll allow I missed “Oil Man’s War” and I’m thinking just now of another favorite she didn’t play, “Oh Canada.” If you haven’t heard that – think (of the Clash’s) “Safe European Home” or “Beat It” (or check the live version on Youtube with this “Top Comment:” “Has anybody rocked harder in a little black dress?”) The passionate protest of “Oh Canada” hints Edwards shares more than talent with Michelle Moore:
Just last week a white girl was shot
Outside a shopping mall
Yeah, it's written in the press
That your sweet little town
Has lost its innocence
It's not the year of the gun
We don't say it out loud
There are no headlines
When a black girl dies
Even without hearing "Oh Canada's" driving beat, maybe you can see why I suspect Edwards and Moore will be traveling together over rocky ground whether together or apart.
From April, 2012
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.firstofthemonth.org/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/135
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Big Man & Sisters Under the Skin:
» us census report of 2009 from us census report of 2009
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on June 3, 2012 03:17 AM
» Urne from Urne
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on June 26, 2012 02:00 AM
» הובלות דירה במעלה אדומים from הובלות דירה במעלה אדומים
... הובלות דירות - מצד שני, אף אחד לא רוצה את הציוד בצורה נכונה בכדי שאותו שירות הובלות הובלות דירה במעלה אדומי... [Read More]
Tracked on July 30, 2012 12:56 AM
» kortingcodes from kortingcodes
Alle kortingscodes van Nederlandse winkels [Read More]
Tracked on August 11, 2012 10:28 PM
» visit this link from visit this link
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on October 8, 2012 08:52 AM
» forearm forklift big from forearm forklift big
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on November 13, 2012 09:39 PM
» mouse click the following web page from mouse click the following web page
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on December 28, 2012 10:21 AM
» mouse click the following website page from mouse click the following website page
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on January 12, 2013 09:32 AM
» kiezfunk.net from kiezfunk.net
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on January 13, 2013 06:33 PM
» Read More At this website from Read More At this website
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on January 21, 2013 07:41 PM
» ambien from ambien
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on March 3, 2013 06:35 PM
» louis vuitton mens belt outlet from louis vuitton mens belt outlet
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on July 29, 2013 07:45 AM
» ass fucked from ass fucked
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on September 24, 2013 07:11 PM
» エアジョーダン16 from エアジョーダン16
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on December 23, 2013 02:51 PM
» stone island from stone island
desktop computers, we quite often only need the pc device by itself not including wires or peripheral devices, even though it may be a good idea supplent your software Compact disks [Read More]
Tracked on January 2, 2014 08:34 PM
» バーバリー スーパーコピー from バーバリー スーパーコピー
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on January 30, 2014 02:54 PM
» Plan cul from Plan cul
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on February 18, 2014 02:42 AM
» online betting keeneland from online betting keeneland
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on February 22, 2014 08:22 PM
» 財布/小物 from 財布/小物
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on March 4, 2014 03:44 AM
» a knockout post from a knockout post
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on March 12, 2014 12:51 PM
» plan cul from plan cul
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on March 22, 2014 01:06 PM
» hogan elective outlet from hogan elective outlet
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on April 10, 2014 04:05 AM
» devis travaux from devis travaux
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on April 19, 2014 09:20 AM
» devis travaux from devis travaux
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on April 19, 2014 09:22 AM
» tchat plan cul from tchat plan cul
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on June 29, 2014 07:24 PM
» Does Workout Finishers work from Does Workout Finishers work
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on July 7, 2014 06:32 AM
» Longchamp España from Longchamp España
First of the Month [Read More]
Tracked on November 28, 2014 05:03 AM