Bruce Springsteen Devils & Dust

Tramps of the world, unite! Join me in the pitched battle for the soul of our beloved Bruce. I must warn you, we're up against a stiff competitor, who will stop at nothing and will use every trick in his bag to win. Unfortunately for us, he just happens to be the Son of God, the almighty sovereign, and a crucial member of a divine trinity which is all-knowing and all-powerful. So, who's with me?

I'm not exactly sure when our Boss found his boss, Jesus, but it may have been while recording Human Touch and Lucky Town in the early 90's. This is precisely the point where his legendary quality control, which always left piles of worthy material on the cutting room floor, mysteriously disappeared. Suddenly we found, gasp, filler on a Springsteen album. At the same time the word "faith" started appearing everywhere, along with numerous phrases with liturgical overtones. Coincidence? I think not. Our side scored a significant victory with The Ghost of Tom Joad, which focused his keen and compassionate eye on secular matters, and then lapsed a bit with the uneven, but mandatory 9/11 balm, The Rising. If I had a nickel for every "faith" on that record...

So now the hype tells us that his new one, Devils and Dust is a return to the solitary, acoustic genius of Nebraska and Joad. Who are these people who call themselves critics and where do they live, because I have a lighter and paper bags filled with dogcrap for their front porches. What we have here is much more akin to the unevenness of The Rising, which fell from the heights of Lonesome Day and You're Missing, to the depths of Mary's Place. Granted, I danced along with the rest of my brothers in arms at Shea in '03 to that extremely subpar track, but here we hit the crux of the matter. You see, Bruce always said his show was part dance party, part tent revival. This WAS our spiritual awakening, just as it was for him.

Yet, once again here comes the Lord, muscling in on my religious experience. Damn. Bruce has always been right in touch with the spirit of the country and all this God stuff fits in well with all the salvation I see on TV these days. Problem is, I can't take it any more, and while it may not be his fault that he gets all spiritual at exactly the moment I feel the middle ages breathing down my neck, well, there it is.

Oh sure, this one's got good tunes, and Bruce is typically committed to the material. And of course there are flashes of brilliance. The title track evokes the dilemma of a patriotic soldier, and the hardcore Reno captures the seediness of a broken heart left with only dregs. Perhaps best are two tales of compromise and hard choices, always the subjects that draw his deepest empathy. In Black Cowboys, a young man escapes the ghetto the only way that seems possible, and in The Hitter, a proud boxer takes a fall for the cash, and goes on fighting. There are other good moments, and Springsteen's cinematic lyricism is unsurpassed when he's deeply involved. But half the album seems half-baked. My expectations for this hero of mine I admit are very high, and I would have gladly waited another year for him to fill out the great material to album length.

But Devils and Dust is what we got and it's good enough, I suppose. I'll be there when he comes to town, no doubt dancing along with the rest of the congregation to half-hearted tunes like All the Way Home, shouting ecstatically to my favorites, and listening quietly to the soft ones. I hope to see you there, brothers and sisters. He saved us all once somewhere along the road - maybe we can return the favor.