Sphinx's Music Blog - Bruce Springsteen: Darkness On the Edge of Town

DISCLAIMER: Leave your politics at the door. This album is one of the greatest ever created in my honest to god opinion. Take it for what it is - a masterpiece of music.

I am so excited to talk about this one today. We have Bruce Springsteen with the 1978 release, Darkness On the Edge of Town. Released on June 2, it reached up to the #5 spot on the Billboard Chart, and is three times platinum with over 3 million sales in the US. Bruce in the beginning of his career was trying to sound like someone else (like most do starting out). While he did a good job at it, there wasn’t much he was offering that was any different in the music scene at the time. Bruce wants to be like Bob Dylan with his storytelling, and wants that “wall of sound” made famous by Phil Spector. Springsteen finally hits his stride with Born to Run in 1975, as he starts talking more literally about the working man, being middle class, and chasing dreams. It became such a big album to live up to, that he was looking for something leaner, angry, tough, and not as heavily produced. He is also able to keep his love of the themes from the 1950’s & 60’s in rock n’ roll songs talking about hanging out and cars too, but then also starts listening to and incorporating some country (specifically Hank Williams) into the mix. 

Before I get into the tracks of the album, it’s important to share with you that in between this album and Born to Run prior, there was a three year gap created due to some legal issues with his former friend and manager. It forced him out of the studio, where he was pretty much abandoned on his farm to sit and write music. The band would come to the farm to rehearse, but it wasn’t until late 1977 that he was able to get back into the studio. By this time, he had nearly 70 (!) songs written, with which only 10 get picked. Some of the others were added to other albums, some songs were given away (Because the Night by Patti Smith, it’s Bruce’s song), and then finally in 2010 all the songs were released on an album called The Promise, which is also recommended.

The album starts with a beloved classic from Springsteen called Badlands, and is such a great opener, with the classic sound from the E Street Band with Roy Bittan’s piano work in unison with the guitar. Bruce has admitted that the song heavily borrows the main riff from “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by the Animals (1960s), but still makes the track completely his own. During the instrumental break, you have a great guitar solo by Bruce and sax solo by Clarence Clemons. You can hear some of the punk movements of the mid-late 70’s in this track too, and on the other tracks throughout the album. Badlands is a staple in Bruce Springsteen shows, and I was lucky enough to see him live a few years ago (the main literally was on stage for 3 and a half hours). During the song, the whole audience will always sing in unison to the track. It’s really cool. 

(If you didn’t, go watch that video. That crowd is nuts.)

The next track is one of the most underrated songs in rock history - Adam Raised a Cain - and provides some unbelievable guitar work. Bruce’s work on the instrument is so angry, very few songs have ever conveyed such emotion into a song . The anger comes out in his singing too, as the song is about his strained relationship with his father. To explain the transition from Badlands to this song, Springsteen told the guy mixing the album “think of a movie with a couple having a great time at a picnic. Then a dead body shows up”. I love this verse:

 “You're born into this life paying, 

for the sins of somebody else's past, Daddy worked his whole life, for nothing but the pain, 

Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame, 

You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames, 

Adam raised a Cain.”  

Such an epic song. I love the bluesy walk of the song too with the bass and piano together. (Watch the video for at least the first 30 seconds of this song. That guitar.)

Next up is a ballad - Something in the Night, and Bruce continues to pour on that emotion in his singing. It’s a pondering song about a man thinking and contemplating about his life. It’s one that really gets you to think and relate. I love the addition of the glockenspiel (sound like bells) too by Danny Federici. It’s Bruce incorporating his love of Phil Spector songs from the 60’s, and it pays off well especially when you hear Bruce just roaring and cutting through the sound. 

Candy’s Room is next, and again takes in the punk influences of the time. I like how Bruce sings within the melody guitar and glockenspiel line itself. Great guitar work again by Bruce, and the lyrics of begging, wanting, and lusting over Candy makes this a fun track. And rounding out Side A is Racing in the Street - a tale of youth, just going out and racing. It’s an homage to The Beach Boys, and Martha and the Vandellas tune “Dancing in the Street”. I love how literal the storytelling is here, and that’s perfectly ok, and the track sounds like it could be a movie plot. It’s all about aging, how life ended up not as great as you thought it would be. But hey, there’s still racing in the streets. Springsteen tells that the song is about compromise. As an adult you have to do it, but not too much or you’ll lose yourself. The idea of it makes me think of what things were like for my Grandpa and my dad. Racing in the streets here in Detroit ( on Hines Drive and Telegraph Road), that nostalgia of the 1950’s that’s here in the 1970s with things like the movie American Graffiti and others. Just a great ballad; here’s my favorite verse:

“Some guys they just give up living 

And start dying little by little, piece by piece, 

Some guys come home from work and wash up, 

And go racin' in the street.” 

Side 2 starts off with another rock anthem, Promise Land - a great rocker with some solid harmonica. We once again hear Springsteen shred though a great, melodic guitar solo, followed by good ole Clarence with a sax solo, just classic Springsteen sound. The message in the song is clear enough, being stuck in the same old thing at the same old town, but, you gotta be resilient. The song plays as a rite of passage, “Mister, I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man, and I believe in the promised land”. Man, this is a song that when I’m in the car by myself, I sing it at the top of my lungs. Read this poetry:

“I've done my best to live the right way 

I get up every morning and go to work each day 

But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold 

Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode 

Explode and tear this old town apart

Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart 

Find somebody itching for something to start”

We then move to the next track, Factory, offering great commentary on factory life and how it impacts the home. As Bruce says, “It’s the working, the working, just the working life”. The song is written about Bruce’s father, who worked in a plastic factory his whole life and actually lost his hearing due to the conditions. Streets of Fire goes next - another underrated and absolutely terrific song. Like Adam Raised a Cain, the guitar work will light your hair on fire. It is so intense! The dynamics from quiet to wall of sound of the whole band when he belts out “Street of Fire!” is so good. 

The album shows now signs of slowing down, hitting with Prove it all Night - with such a great melody all throughout. More Clarence on that sax - he takes the instrumental break first this time, then again Bruce burns the place down with his unbelievable guitar solo. I find this song to simply be a synopsis of the entire album. Prove it all night, prove your love, prove you want to leave this busted old town, prove that you're a man. Prove it all. Bruce says it himself on the documentary of this album: “this album is a meditation on where you going to stand. With who, and where you going to stand”. 

Everybody's got a hunger, a hunger they can't resist, 

There's so much that you want, you deserve much more than this, 

Well if dreams came true, oh, wouldn't that be nice,

But this ain't no dream we're living off through tonight,

Ah girl, you want it, you take it, you pay the price.

I apologize that this is a long blog this time. But I’ll be frank - this album made me want to do this blog. It has such an impact on me, tells such a tale. Each song tells a story, with all these themes carrying along. I was listening to this album over the summer, and thought to myself, there is so much I can write about concerning all this great music I own. I want to share my passion. That same passion Bruce just pours into these tracks. 

We conclude the album with the title track, Darkness on the Edge of Town. And I’ve gotten very preachy today and have shared tons of Springsteen’s lyrics because I find them so profound. So I’m going to leave these here. Let me just say the dynamics of this song bursts through your speakers. Bruce is moaning in pain, you gotta feel for him and what he’s saying.

“Well, everybody's got a secret, Sonny,

Something that they just can't face, 

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it, 

They carry it with them every step that they take. 

Till some day they'll just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down, 

Where no one asks any questions, 

or looks too long in your face, 

In the darkness on the edge of town. 

Well now some folks are born into a good life,

And other folks get it anyway, anyhow,

Well now I lost my money and I lost my wife,

Them things don't seem to matter much to me now. 

Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop, 

I'll be on that hill with everything I got, 

With lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,

I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost, 

For wanting things that can only be found 

In the darkness on the edge of town.”

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Sphinx