Halftime outshines The Game

OK, let's just do this: Just as Guy Lombardo and later Dick Clark owned New Year's Eve, Bruce Springsteen must be the official Super Bowl halftime entertainer every year from now until the end of his life, or he retires, whichever comes first.

'Nuff said.

Danny Federici 1950-2008

If you grew up in New Jersey in the 1950s and ’60s, you feel something in the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that can't be described. We're grateful it was captured in fine recordings, because the musicians are mortal. This way the music will last, if not forever, then for a very long time. (And selfishly, I am grateful it will last the rest of my lifetime at least.)

But just as I can't put into words what the music feels like to a Jersey boy, I can't put the loss of Danny Federici into words. The authentic E Street Band sound is gone with this first parting. At least we have the recordings.

Danny Federici in Indianapolis, March 20, 2008:

Bruce-Bruce-Bruce

After a few weeks of listening, I'm ready to declare Bruce Springsteen's Magic his best album in quite a few years. How many is quite a few? I'm still trying to decide.

It's my humble opinion that Lucky Town - the album Bruce wrote and recorded in 2-3 weeks after spending two years over-fine-tuning the comparatively lackluster Human Touch, then released 'em both at the same time - was the only studio album that matches up well with his amazing first half-dozen projects, from Greeting From Asbury Park to Born in the U.S.A.

Magic belongs side-by-side with Lucky Town on the B.W. scale, and it doesn't seem to have any clunkers in the mix ("Local Hero" and "The Big Muddy" wore out their welcomes for me on LT). But does it harken back all the way to Darkness at the Edge of Town? As Yoda says, "Difficult to say." But I'm going to say it is, indeed, the band's best studio effort since 1984. Does it crack the big six? Give me a little more time to think about that.

In case you care, here's B.W.'s list of favorite Springsteen albums, excluding live albums and Tracks, which is too chock full of great stuff from all eras to be compared fairly to the others:

1. Born to Run (hey, I'm nothing but predictable)
2. Darkness at the Edge of Town
3. The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle
4. Born in the U.S.A.
5. The River
6. Nebraska
7. Magic
8. Lucky Town
9. Gets a little fuzzier at this point ...

What is it about Magic, you ask? It's hard to put a finger on it, but like his best work, Springsteen and the boys have produced a solid pile of songs that linger in the mind long after you've turned them off - extremely catchy hooks, often powerful words, and they sound like vintage Springsteen without being exact copies.

I'm reluctant to put the new album any higher than #7 at this early stage because the sheen of newness is still on it. I still remember when I was designating Field of Dreams as my second-favorite movie of all time - that's how strong the initial impact was - but after further review it doesn't even make my top 10. But it's encouraging, as a guy who's about four years younger than The Boss, to see someone from my generation still pumping out stuff this good. Or maybe I should say "pumping out stuff this good again." Twenty-three years between genius projects is a long time.

An aptly named 'Revival'

Let's get one thing straight from the top: By putting out an album called Revival, and by putting a tune called "Creedence Song" in the third slot, John Fogerty raises the expectations over the top.

(And am I the last person on Earth to notice that Fogerty returned to Fantasy Records two years ago? Life was so much simpler when every album on a particular label was labeled with that particular label's label!)

Fogerty, for the one or two of you who didn't know, was the driving force behind Creedence Clearwater Revival, which put together four or five of the best gorram roots-rock records of the late 1960s/early 1970s. There's not a frickin' note wrong on Cosmo's Factory, CCR's greatest project.

By putting out an album called Revival on Fantasy Records and calling one of the tunes "Creedence Song," Fogerty is invoking the memory of his great band and promising some of that stuff before you even take the plastic wrap off the record.

Oh, yeah, that, too: By putting out his first (to my knowledge) album in years that is available on vinyl, he's really signalling "It's back to the basics, baby!"

Long story short: Oh my goodness, he made a promise and he delivers nicely - eventually.

I gotta tell ya, friends, I spent the first five songs on this 12-tune project thinking, "Ho hum, it's the same old solo Fogerty, but it isn't that stuff. Even "Creedence Song" - it's a clever little tune that tosses out a few homages to "Green River" and some of the other gems in his holster, but I spent the first five little country-rock numbers thinking, "Come ON, John, let's get chooglin' already!!!"

Then "Long Dark Night," the last song on Side 1, kicked in with a growling, jangling guitar. From there until the end of "Longshot," the finale, this is the album Fogerty fans have been waiting for since, well, Cosmo's Factory. "Summer of Love" is a funky tribute to that era, part "Purple Haze," part "White Room," a hint of "Sunshine of Your Love," and oh yeah, a big bit of CCR.

"Natural Thing" dives right into the Bayou for a glorious swim, "It Ain't Right" is an echo of "That's All Right Mama" and "Ooby Dooby," and "I Can't Take It No More" is a pedal-to-the-metal rocker in the tradition of "Traveling Band." "Somebody Help Me" is up there with the best of Fogerty's blues-rock yellers, and "Longshot" closes the proceedings with a nice bang. I imagine I'll wear out Side 2 before Side 1.

But it's not simply a nostalgia album. Did I mention that John has a few issues with the current gang of thieves in Washington?

I can't take it no more, I can't take it no more
Sick and tired of your dirty little war, I can't take it no more
You know you lied about the casualties,
You know you lied about the WMDs,
You know you lied about the detainees
All over this world ...

Like Springsteen the other day, Fogerty suffers from the delusion that replacing this specific administration will solve most of the country's problems, which are deep set after percolating for a century, perhaps longer - but it certainly is fun to have two veteran rockers coming back into their own and speaking truth to power in very fine albums that were released the same day.

And a tip of the hat to Wally for pushing me to grab the Fogerty project; I was going to pass after the tepid Deja Vu All Over Again of a couple years' back. At some point I would have encountered Revival and wished I'd bought it earlier; I'm spared that now.

On time, more or less: The next Dylan

About 10 years ago, 56-year-old Bob Dylan released an album called Time Out of Mind, the first of three absolutely captivating projects (with Love and Theft and Modern Times) that prove you don't have to be a young buck to be a musical genius. I dare say his latest work is among the best of his career. I have a small pile of Dylan albums in the collection, but it's these three that I keep coming back to.

When Bruce Springsteen was a young buck, a lot of people tried to pigeon-hole him as "the next Dylan," and he has been that only in the sense that he has been the pre-eminent poet-songwriter of his generation (if Dylan and Springsteen really can be counted as belonging to different generations). If the analogy is correct, the Boss has been a little late getting to the aging-genius stage where Dylan has been for a decade. But 58-year-old Springsteen appears to have arrived there at last.

Like Dylan before him, Springsteen probably hasn't produced an album in a couple of decades that is pretty much completely satisfying from beginning to end. Magic is it. Strike that, your honor – In Concert: MTV Unplugged and Live in New York City are awesome albums, but they're a tad short on new material.

A first listen tells you Bruce and the E Street Band are as good as ever; they slip the new songs on like a well-broken-in pair of jeans. The sound is familiar but just new enough to be fun and interesting, strong, rollicking. It's just a solid, solid rock 'n' roll record. Then it's time to sit back with the lyrics sheet and get the full experience. And, as usual with the best Springsteen, that's when the Magic happens.

A number of reviews have been published noting that the Boss seems to send a message about the current gang of thieves in Washington – Bruce has never quite figured out the Who's sharpest insight: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" – but it's not the message, it's the brilliant way Springsteen weaves the words, that make it memorable.

That, and the contrast between the angst-ridden words and the joyous rock 'n' roll music, are what makes this package shine like the man and his band haven't shone since Born in the U.S.A. "You'll Be Coming Down" is about how what goes around comes around. "Livin' in the Future" details how a beautiful love affair will come crashing down someday, but not to worry, "None of this has happened yet." And you might not catch the ominous tone of the words while your happy feet are dancing to the vintage Jersey rock.

The best Springsteen lyrics say something you have felt in your gut but say it in a memorable way that brings the feeling back – "There were ghosts in the eyes of all the men you sent away," for example. Try this one for size: "Pour me a drink, Theresa, In one of those glasses you dust off, And I'll watch the bones in your back Like the Stations of the Cross." The words invoke the peace and awe of watching a special lover do something perfectly ordinary – wow, this fabulous woman chose me! So you proclaim to her, "What others may want for free, I'll work for your love."

But nothing lasts forever, the songs say, and that is both the joy and sadness of Springsteen's message. The joy fades, but so does the sadness, and we press on. In my personal early favorite, "Long Walk Home," Springsteen tries to make sense of the changes in his life and his hometown, and recalls his father telling him how lucky they were to be in this town: "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." Well, even the things that are set in stone don't seem to last forever, but we press on. It will indeed be a long walk home, but we'll dance there.