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Bruce Springsteen in 1987 |
One of the
things that makes me proud to be a part of this site is the eclectic tastes of
my fellow writers, and their ability to make me aware of artists that I
previously had little or no exposure to.
So on first glance, my selection to revisit the album “Tunnel of Love”
by the enormously popular superstar, Bruce Springsteen, as a topic to write
about might seem an odd choice. But
bear with me; I promise I can be eclectic, too – I just need to get this one
out of my system. There are two reasons
I chose to revisit this album at this time.
One, despite of, or because of,
Springsteen’s status, “Tunnel of Love” is often overlooked and
underappreciated, and two, we are approaching Valentine’s Day, and “Tunnel of
Love” ranks right up there with Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” as a
confessional and personal exploration of romantic love.
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"Is he smiling? There's no smiling in rock and roll!" |
First, a little
context: I’ve been a big Springsteen fan
since the 70s. I remember when the song
“Born to Run” was released. I was sixteen
years old and developing, among other things, an interest in music, rock and
roll specifically, and “Born to Run”
was unlike anything I’d heard before. At
first I didn’t like it, as musically it broke all of the rules I’d narrowly established
for a great song: it didn’t have a
guitar or organ solo (even worse, it had a SAX solo!), it had ridiculous shifts
in tempo, it had those corny “whoa whoa
whoa whoas” at the end and I couldn’t
make sense of the lyrics (what the hell is a “last chance power drive” anyway?). It wasn’t dark, like the Deep Purple and
Black Sabbath I’d been accustomed to, and it wasn’t spacey or cosmic, like
Emerson, Lake and Palmer or Pink Floyd. But
there was something about the song I couldn’t resist, and every time it came on
the radio, I found myself turning up the volume. Finally, I accepted that, silly rules or not,
I loved the song, and I was, and still am, moved by the lyrics, “together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness, I’ll love you with all the madness in my
soul.” I bought the album (which had a
picture of him smiling and leaning on the sax player! Rock and roll bands were
supposed to look hard and mean or bored and disaffected – look at almost any
other album cover of the time – and this guy was smiling? There’s no smiling in rock and roll!) and
dropped the needle, and to my credit, from the opening piano and harmonica of
“Thunder Road” to the dramatic crash ending of “Jungleland,” I instantly
recognized that this was something different.
After hearing Springsteen sing the opening lines of “Backstreets” (“One
soft infested summer, me and Terry became friends, trying in vain to breathe the
fire we were born in”), for example, “Smoke on the Water” and Emerson Lake and
Palmer’s “Lucky Man” would never sound the same again. It was the realization that music could be
about something more, something deeper, even if I didn’t understand exactly what
yet. Listening to the album for the
first time was one of those mind blowing moments where you realize, even as
you’re experiencing it, that things will never be quite the same again.
It took a little while, but I began familiarizing myself with his catalog, and adding all of his albums to my record collection. By the time “The River” came out in 1980, I was a full blown Bruce junkie. The press loved him, too, and his status was enhanced when in 1982 he released the stripped down and bare “Nebraska,” universally accepted and praised as a masterpiece. Springsteen had accumulated a loyal and growing fan base.
Then in 1984, with the release of the monolithic “Born in the USA,” everything changed. With its synthesizers and pounding aerobics class drum beat, it became one of the best selling albums of all time. Springsteen became a superstar, and with his new muscular body-builder physique, he became an MTV staple and a cultural icon, and sold out football and soccer stadiums around the world.
It took a little while, but I began familiarizing myself with his catalog, and adding all of his albums to my record collection. By the time “The River” came out in 1980, I was a full blown Bruce junkie. The press loved him, too, and his status was enhanced when in 1982 he released the stripped down and bare “Nebraska,” universally accepted and praised as a masterpiece. Springsteen had accumulated a loyal and growing fan base.
Then in 1984, with the release of the monolithic “Born in the USA,” everything changed. With its synthesizers and pounding aerobics class drum beat, it became one of the best selling albums of all time. Springsteen became a superstar, and with his new muscular body-builder physique, he became an MTV staple and a cultural icon, and sold out football and soccer stadiums around the world.
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Bruce the superstar |
Paradoxically, Springsteen’s widening audience drove a narrowing perception of him as an empty headed, jingoistic pop star. He started to become caricature, a muscle bound, bandana wearing working class hero. It’s a tribute to the shallowness and the popularity of the persona he either intentionally or unintentionally created that Ronald Reagan tried to co-opt the song “Born in the U.S.A.” – one look at the lyrics and there isn’t a doubt what the song is about; however, the fist pumping repetitive screams of “Born in the U.S.A.” sounded triumphant and patriotic. (To his credit, Springsteen’s response was to disown Reagan’s remarks, and he put his money where his heart was, donating millions to food banks and shelters and veteran’s causes.)
As a result, the mid 80s were a difficult time to be a hard core, long time Springsteen fan. We had to constantly separate ourselves from those who were just jumping on the bandwagon, and defend Springsteen’s artistry against those who saw him as a media-hyped pop star. Many of the new comers, not familiar with his pre- U.S.A. releases, saw the muscle bound millionaire in the torn blue jeans and t-shirt singing songs about the working class, and saw an opportunistic fraud laughing all the way to the bank. Like many long time fans, I found myself defending Springsteen, but doubts were creeping in. It almost felt like the Beatles and those crazy “Paul is dead” rumors, and we wondered if the Bruce of “The River” and “Nebraska” was gone forever, replaced by the mysterious imposter with the bulging biceps.
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Julianne Phillips |
Then in
1985, People magazine broke the story about Bruce’s new romance with the
stunning model and actress Julianne Phillips.
Soon they became the latest in a series of rock star and supermodel
marriages (including Ric Ocasek of the Cars marriage to Paulina Porizkova, and
Billy Joel (!) and Christie Brinkley).
Those of us who were fans from the 70s generally didn’t care who
Springsteen was coupled with, but it was a bit disconcerting to see the man
once hailed as the “new Dylan,” who had collaborated with the likes of Lou Reed
and Patti Smith, featured on "Entertainment Tonight" between segments about
Michael Jackson and Madonna.
So it was with some apprehension that us long time devotees awaited his next release, the follow up to “Born in the USA.” There was the release of a five disc live box set that highlighted his career through “Born in the U.S.A.”, but the real response would be his first collection of new material, his first album, to be released since "Born in the U.S.A".
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Working class hero? |
That
response finally came in October of 1987, when Springsteen released the album,
“Tunnel of Love.” Just one look at the
cover and you knew this wasn’t going to be “Born in the U.S.A.” part two –
instead of the worn jeans and baseball cap and the iconic flag imagery, we had
a shot of Springsteen dressed in a well tailored suit and dress shirt leaning
against a very expensive looking sports car parked on a beach somewhere. So much for the working class hero. And if you look a little closer, you noticed
that Bruce wasn’t smiling – in fact, he looks a little bit pissed off.
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I don't think so! |
Looking
through the liner notes before you played the disc, another thing stood
out: the E Street Band wasn’t present,
its members relegated to occasional guest spots. In fact, there was no saxophone, and Clarence
Clemons’ only credit is backing vocals on one of the songs.
Interesting.
Now the
music: the first track is something
called “Ain’t Got You.” As opposed to
the pounding drums and keyboards of the opening title song of “Born in the
U.S.A.,” we hear Bruce’s voice accompanied only by his finger snaps singing the
first verse:
I got the fortunes of heaven in diamonds and
gold
I
got all the bonds baby that the bank could hold
I
got houses ‘cross the country stacked up end to end
And
everybody, buddy, wants to be my friend
I
got all the riches, baby, any man ever knew
But
the only thing I ain’t got honey, I ain’t got you
Then an acoustic guitar and harmonica join in, doing a Bo Diddley rift, one chord essentially drummed out, and a few more verses follow, but in that simple opening verse, he’s done it. He’s laid down the gauntlet and let us know, all of you expecting more “Born in the U.S.A,” go take a flying leap, the bandana is gone, this is going to be a different and darker ride, and if you don’t want that, get off now; otherwise, grab a hold of something and hang on tight, 'cause we’re going into unchartered territory.
Then an acoustic guitar and harmonica join in, doing a Bo Diddley rift, one chord essentially drummed out, and a few more verses follow, but in that simple opening verse, he’s done it. He’s laid down the gauntlet and let us know, all of you expecting more “Born in the U.S.A,” go take a flying leap, the bandana is gone, this is going to be a different and darker ride, and if you don’t want that, get off now; otherwise, grab a hold of something and hang on tight, 'cause we’re going into unchartered territory.
Not only does he instantly discard the cartoonish “Born in the U.S.A.”
icon and own up to his wealth, he also lets us know that there’s still
something missing. Singing that first
verse without instrumentation, he is alone, and we get the sense that the “you”
he is singing about is something more, something bigger, than any individual
person.
Before I get into the subsequent tracks, it’s worth noting that Springsteen has always been, first and foremost, an album artist. These days, in the early 21st century, the album release is less of an event than it was in the 70s and 80s. It used to be that album releases were as eagerly anticipated as motion pictures or novels. From the beginning, Springsteen’s albums, while not overt “concept “ or rock opera albums like The Who’s “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia” or Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” all had a unifying theme that the songs explored different aspects of. Springsteen was an incredibly prolific songwriter, and the songs he left off of his albums were some of his best. In fact, the Pointer Sisters (with “Fire”) and Patti Smith (“Because the Night”) both had bigger hits with discarded Springsteen songs than any single Springsteen released. Because these songs didn’t fit in with the themes he was exploring or the feeling he was chasing, they were left off of his albums.
The songs on “Tunnel of Love” are sequenced to mirror the arc of a love affair. The story they tell goes something like this: guy is alone, guy meets girl, guy dates and falls in love with girl, guy agonizes over committing to girl, guy marries girl, guy and girl enjoy a honeymoon period, guy and girl both have doubts and internal demons to deal with, guy and girl separate, guy is alone and aware of what he’s lost.
The second song, “Tougher Than the Rest”, is about the guy meeting the girl. Only this isn’t some fresh faced adolescent; he knows how things operate, and that he’s nobody’s Prince Charming:
Some girls want a handsome Dan
Or
some good looking Joe
On
their arms some girls like a sweet talking Romeo
Well
around here, baby,
I’ve
learned you get what you can get
That lyric may expose a certain jaded cynicism, but romance isn’t dead:
The road is dark
And
it’s a thin, thin line
But
I want you to know I’ll walk it for you anytime
From the “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” school of thought, his past failures have strengthened the guy and made him “tougher than the rest”:
It ain’t no secret
I’ve been around a time or two
I
don’t know baby
Maybe
you’ve been around, too
Well,
there’s another dance
All
you’ve got to do is say yes
And if you’re rough and ready for love
And if you’re rough and ready for love
Honey
I’m tougher than the rest
“Tougher Than the Rest”, with its deceptively simple lyrics, is one of the best songs on the album. The same simple but thundering drum beat that opens the song continues unchanged through its entirety, while a low and dark and mechanical sounding synthesizer lurches forward with a haunting and lovely melody. Springsteen’s voice is at its best when he’s singing in this confessional minor key. Simultaneously self confident and intimate, when he changes the key at the “the road is dark” lyric, and the organ sound is layered over the synthesizer, you get the feeling he is baring his soul, and just the right amount of self doubt and hope sink into his voice that no matter how tough he is claiming to be, there’s still more than a trace of vulnerability revealed. By the time the song gets to the harmonica solo at the end, the synthesizer and drum are still pounding out their dark melody and rhythm, yet there is light at the end of the tunnel, and just enough hope that the guy and the girl may rise above the darkness and make it yet.
Finding hope in the darkness, against the most overwhelming of odds, has
been a theme in Springsteen anthems ever since that last chance power drive of
“Born to Run.” It’s evident in
“Badlands” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and even in the “cool rocking
daddy” of “Born in the USA.” Those
songs are all similar in that the triumph they celebrate is defiantly shouted
out. The triumph in “Tougher Than the
Rest” is quieter and less certain, and while the guy and girl may find some
hope, they are still walking the thin line of that dark road.
The next song, “All That Heaven Will Allow,” is perhaps the weakest on the album, and exposes one of the problems with a thematic based approach to creating albums: the inclusion of songs that do nothing more than advance the narrative have to be included. “All That Heaven Will Allow” is about the guy dating the girl and the giddy anticipation one feels at the beginning of falling in love. It’s a sweet song, full of promise and optimism, but it’s light as a feather and ultimately forgettable.
The next song, “Spare Parts,” is one of only two songs on the album written in the third person, and on the surface seems out of context with the album’s story arch. “Spare Parts,” like Springsteen’s great ballad “The River,” tells the story of an unintended teen pregnancy:
Bobby said he’d pull out, Bobby stayed in
Janey
had a baby, wasn’t any sin
Note his rejection of the act as “sin:” this Catholic tidbit is no more an accident than his naming the young mother Mary in “The River” is. But more on that later.
Note his rejection of the act as “sin:” this Catholic tidbit is no more an accident than his naming the young mother Mary in “The River” is. But more on that later.
They were set to marry on a sunny day
Bobby
got scared and ran away
Jane moves in with her mother and starts to raise her child, but she
isn’t any more ready to be a parent than Bobby was. Overwhelmed by abandonment and
responsibility, she becomes familiar with the news account of a mother who
drowns her baby in the river.
Janey heard about a woman over in Calverton
Put
her baby in the river, let the river roll on
She
looked at her boy in the crib where he lay
Got
down on her knees and cried ‘till she prayed
After praying for strength, she ends up in the river herself, seemingly possessed by this distant force of evil:
Mist was on the water, low run the tide
Janey
held her son down at the riverside
Waist
deep in the water, how bright the sun shone
She lifted in her arms and carried him home
She lifted in her arms and carried him home
Snapped out of her spell by the clarity of bright sunlight, she returns home and takes out the wedding ring Bobby had given her and hocks it and her wedding dress “for some good cold cash.”
Compare Janey’s story to that of the narrator of “The River.” In “The River,” the river is a symbol of the love
and intimacy that the young couple first experienced; on the night after their
bleak wedding they return to the river and dive in for the purification it provides. At the end, the singer is alone and returning
to the river though he knows “that the river is dry.”
There are two central questions Springsteen has asked over the years that all of his work strives to answer. The first is in “Born to Run” when he says, “I wanna know if love is wild, I wanna know if love is real.” The second is in “The River” when he asks, “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true?” “Spare Parts” can be seen as an attempt to answer both questions.
In “Spare Parts,” it’s the force of evil that draws Janey to the river, but Janey’s prayer is answered, in the bright light of the sun, and she is healed. The answered prayer and the baptismal imagery are no coincidence – they are another reference to Springsteen’s ongoing wrestling with the Catholicism he was raised in. In interviews, he describes heavily reading Flannery O’Connor when writing the “Nebraska” album, and the details and morality plays he brings to life on that album (particularly the song “Reason to Believe”) resonate with the same imagery and cosmic justice that can be found in O’Connor. The same forces are at work in “Spare Parts.”
In “Spare Parts”, it turns out that love is real, but not the romantic love between Bobby and Janey, rather, the love between mother and child. As for the dream, it is in fact a lie if the dream is the wrong dream. Janey’s dream life with Bobby turns out to be a lie, but at the end, by discarding with the material artifacts of that lie, Janey seems prepared for a new dream, a true dream, a dream of the love she feels for her son.
After “Spare Parts”, we get the other third person narrative, the quiet “Cautious Man.” “Cautious Man” tells the story of Bill Horton, an honest and sincere but conflicted man finding himself in love with a woman. He's so unsure of his ability to commit to his new love that he prays for steadiness. He also has tattooed on his knuckles the words “love” and “fear,” just as Robert Mitchum has the words “love” and “hate” across his knuckles in the film, “Night of the Hunter.” “Cautious Man” is soft and intimate, but Springsteen’s writing here could use a little more ambiguity. The metaphors of the highway and Bill finding “nothing but road” there aren’t as subtle, and some of the rhymes feel too formal, too forced.
After Bill Horton finally commits to love in “Cautious Man,” the next track, “Walk Like a Man” is about a wedding. Only this time it isn’t one of Springsteen’s characters he’s singing about, this song is directly and unmistakably about Bruce himself. Specifically, it’s another in a series of songs that try to make sense of his explosive relationship with his father, a tormented and anguished soul who suffered incapacitating bouts with mental illness and depression. “Walk Like a Man” looks at Springsteen’s own wedding day through the blurred lens of that relationship, and while it may not have the raw power of “Adam Raised a Cain” or the heart breaking poignancy of “Independence Day,” it does have a maturity and balance that those previous explorations of the relationship lacked.
In the song, as Springsteen is standing at the altar, waiting for his bride, his thoughts turn to his father and his childhood.
So much has happened to me that I don’t understand
All
I can think of is being five years old following behind you at the beach
Tracing your footsteps in the sand
Trying to walk like a man
Tracing your footsteps in the sand
Trying to walk like a man
Then he further reflects on his childhood, and for the first time in his father-son songs, we see more than just him and his dad; we see his mother and sister, and he realizes that their view of love and marriage has also been impacted by his father’s fiery temperament:
By
the Lady of the Roses
We
lived in the shadow of the elms
I remember Ma dragging me and my sister up the street to the church
I remember Ma dragging me and my sister up the street to the church
Whenever
she’d hear those wedding bells
Would
they ever look so happy again
The
handsome groom and his bride
As
they stepped into that long black limousine
For
their mystery ride
Finally, there is something of forgiveness and regret in the simple summation of the son’s role in the relationship:
I
was young and I didn’t know what to do
When
I saw your best steps stolen away from you
The song is about forgiveness and the longing to heal old wounds, but it is also about carrying the burden of the scars that still remain.
After the wedding, there is time for a honeymoon, and that's what the title
track of the album is all about. That
“mystery ride” hinted at in “Walk Like a Man” is launched in “Tunnel of Love:” The
train has left the station, the plunge has been taken, the ride is
underway. Everything is great, he can
“feel the soft silk” of her blouse and “those soft thrills” in “their little
funhouse” but:
Then the lights go
out and it’s just the three of us
You, me, and all
that stuff we’re so scared of
Real intimacy, revealing your real self to another, revealing things that you are reluctant to show yourself, is a frightening thing. Intimacy holds the key to the room of shadows where all of those un-exorcised demons lurking in your subconscious have been waiting for release:
There’s a room of shadows that gets so dark, brother
It’s easy for two
people to lose each other
In this tunnel of
love
We’ve all been raised on the idea that love is the answer to all that ails us. We all know that love provides sustenance and meaning. It’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s the answer to all of our prayers, and it is salvation. It’s what makes the world go round.
This all may be true, and we come to understand that
finding true love is difficult. What
we’re not told is that maintaining love is just as difficult as finding it:
It ought to be easy, ought to be
simple enough
Man meets woman and they fall in
love
But this house is haunted and
the ride gets rough
And you’ve got to learn to live
with what you can’t rise above
If you want to ride on down,
down in through this tunnel of love
Things start falling apart on the next song, “Two Faces.” Springsteen recognizes the culprit - it's someone that he is all too familiar with:
Sometimes, mister, I feel sunny
and wild
Lord, I love to see my baby smile
Lord, I love to see my baby smile
Then dark clouds come rolling by
Two faces have I
In a 2012 profile in the New Yorker, Springsteen acknowledged that he has struggled much of his life with depression. This is no surprise to anyone who paid attention to these lyrics:
In a 2012 profile in the New Yorker, Springsteen acknowledged that he has struggled much of his life with depression. This is no surprise to anyone who paid attention to these lyrics:
One that laughs, one that cries
One says hello, one says goodbye
One does things I don’t
understand
Makes me feel like half a man
He recognizes that he can’t control the dark clouds, and again he turns to prayer, but he knows that alone won’t help.
At night I get down on my knees
and pray
Our love will make that other
man go away
But he’ll never say goodbye
Two faces have I
This is a startling admission for a man who has it all, a man who is perceived as a hero to millions of fans. If he were interested in maintaining the mythic persona he created in “Born in the U.S.A.,” he could have easily released an album of silly love songs and how perfect life was for him and his supermodel wife. Instead, he’s saying that even with all the riches any man ever knew, he still has difficulty functioning with other people, and he has to work even harder at maintaining a relationship than most people.
This is a startling admission for a man who has it all, a man who is perceived as a hero to millions of fans. If he were interested in maintaining the mythic persona he created in “Born in the U.S.A.,” he could have easily released an album of silly love songs and how perfect life was for him and his supermodel wife. Instead, he’s saying that even with all the riches any man ever knew, he still has difficulty functioning with other people, and he has to work even harder at maintaining a relationship than most people.
On the next song, it’s not only a mirror he’s standing in front of, it’s also a magnifying glass. “Brilliant Disguise” is the album’s centerpiece, as the questions of identity intensify and focus, and the character flaws and insecurities become debilitating.
From the opening verse, he is seized by feelings of distrust and suspicion:
I
hold you in my arms
As the band plays
What were those words whispered
Just as you turned away
These feelings are further articulated in the song’s chorus:
So tell me what I see
When I look in your eyes
Is that you, baby
Or just a brilliant disguise
He can see his wife’s imagined infidelities everywhere:
I heard someone call your name
From underneath our willow
I saw something tucked in shame
Underneath your pillow
But he’s actually seeing the manifestation of his own doubts and insecurities:
I’ve tried so hard baby
Underneath your pillow
But he’s actually seeing the manifestation of his own doubts and insecurities:
I’ve tried so hard baby
but I just can’t see
what a woman like you
is doing with me
How bad are those doubts and insecurities? Bad enough to affect his ability to be intimate, his ability to perform sexually:
Now look at me, baby
Struggling to do everything right
But then it all falls apart
When out goes the light
Talk about shattering your own myth! He gets to the core of the problem with the next lyric:
I’m just a lonely pilgrim
I walk this world in wealth
I want to know if it’s you I
don’t trust
Cause I damn sure don’t trust myself
Cause I damn sure don’t trust myself
Again, he is owning up to his wealth, as well as his own insecurities. The fact that having achieved superstar status doesn’t resolve the internal conflicts that have always plagued him seems to surprise him as much as it does us.
The key lyric that lets everyone in on the dirty little secret that his marriage isn’t the idyllic fairy tale the press wants us to believe is next:
Now you play the loving woman
I play the faithful man
But just don’t look to close
Into the palm of my hand
Not exactly a Hallmark card for newlyweds. And it’s apparently so bad that I won’t look too close at what that is in the palm of your hand; I’ll take your word for it.
Not exactly a Hallmark card for newlyweds. And it’s apparently so bad that I won’t look too close at what that is in the palm of your hand; I’ll take your word for it.
This is stunning stuff for anyone, let alone a superstar with a huge public following, to reveal about himself. Springsteen is essentially saying that yes, it’s true, at least in his personal life; he's been a fraud. He’s also saying that, as always, the truth can be found in his music. It’s a case of trust the art, not the artist. The art is telling us that the artist is a deeply flawed and tormented soul. Again, the influence of Catholicism is evident in that his art becomes his confessional booth, and the guilt he feels about falling short of the idealized version of himself that his public persona has become is undeniable.
He sums up the central contradiction with these devastating lines to close the song:
Tonight our bed is cold
I’m lost in the darkness of our
love
God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he’s sure of
If “Brilliant Disguise” is his confession, there doesn’t
seem to be a lot of hope for absolution.
The next song, “One Step Up,” opens with images of everyday
things not working:
Woke
up this morning the house was cold
Checked
the furnace, she wasn’t burning
Went
out and hopped in my old Ford
Hit
the engine but she ain’t turning
It turns out that, with the guy alone on the road, that those aren’t the only thing not working. The marriage has dissolved to the point that even the old romantic images have lost their meaning:
Bird
on a wire outside my hotel room
But
she ain’t singing
Girl
in white outside a church in June
But
the church bells they ain’t ringing
The song then goes on to describe the fighting that tore them apart and led them to this place. It closes with the guy drinking alone and looking into a stranger’s eyes while the love he once knew is only a distant and fading dream:
There’s a girl across the bar
I
get the message she’s sending
She
ain’t looking too married
And
me, well, honey, I’m pretending
Last
night I dreamed I held you in my arms
The
music was never ending
We
danced as the evening sky faded to black
Then comes “When You’re Alone,” by which time the couple is separated, and the guy is naively imagining that she’ll return to him, when he comes to the realization:
Now it ain’t hard feelings or nothing
That
ain’t what’s got me singing this song
It’s
just that nobody knows, honey, where love goes
But when it goes, it’s gone, gone
But when it goes, it’s gone, gone
And
when you’re alone, you’re alone
The realization of what he’s lost, and how difficult and rare it was to find, comes too late, when he’s alone.
The last song on the album, “Valentine’s Day,” just happens to be my favorite love song of all-time. By anyone. Period. It encapsulates everything learned over the course of the album, and leads to an unusually ambiguous ending. Does the guy, now knowing what is really at stake, reunite with the girl? Or will she always be his “lonely valentine,” beyond his reach?
The song, like many Springsteen
songs, opens with a guy driving a car through the dark of night. But the landscape is different; there are no “mansions
of glory,” this highway isn’t alive.
There’s just a guy and the overwhelming awareness of his own mortality:
I’m
driving a big lazy car
Rushing
up the highway in the dark
I’ve
got one hand steady on the wheel
And
one hand’s trembling over my heart
And
it’s pounding, baby, like it’s gonna bust right on through
And
it ain’t gonna stop until I’m alone again with you
He’s left to wonder what it was that drove him out here on this darkest of nights:
Is
it the sound of the leaves
Left
blown by the wayside
That’s
got me out here on this spooky old highway tonight?
Is it the cry of the river
Is it the cry of the river
Or
the moonlight shining through
That
ain’t what scares me, baby,
What
scares me is losing you
He’s haunted by a dream he had, a dream of his own death:
They say if you die in your dreams you really die in your bed
But, honey, last night I dreamed my eyes rolled straight back in my head
And
God’s light came shining on through
I
woke up in the darkness scared and breathing
And
born anew
Remember the river from “Spare Parts?” Remember the question, is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, from the song “The River?” This is what he becomes aware of after waking from the nightmare:
It wasn’t the cold river bottom
I
felt rushing over me
It
wasn’t the bitterness of a dream
That
didn’t come true
It
wasn’t the wind in the grey fields
I
felt rushing through my arms
No,
no, baby
Baby, it was you
When he woke from the dream of his death, it wasn’t the stark and
desolate and cold emptiness of eternity he felt, it wasn’t any unfulfilled
dream, it wasn't the emptiness of the wind; rather, he felt his love again, felt her rushing through his arms. Confronted with images of unending death, it
is love and human contact he turns to.
He’s learned that love is, in fact, wild and real.
The song and the album close with
So hold me close
say you're forever mine
and tell me you'll be
my lonely valentine
Again, there's just enough ambiguity that you wonder if the realization has come too late, as the bass riff continues and the organ crescendos and the song fades out.
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Patti Scialfa |
What we do know after the album is a good news, bad news kind of thing. The good news is that Springsteen hadn't sold out, and remained capable of breaking new territory and demonstrating that rock and roll can grow up and express mature and complex themes and emotions with the same depth as its always addressed sex and rebellion. The bad news, from a personal standpoint, is that fame and success really aren't enough to conquer inner demons.
Shortly into the world tour for "Tunnel of Love", scandal broke out when the papparazi uncovered an affair between Springsteen and his backup singer, Patty Scialfa. His marriage to Julianne Phillips ended after only three years, confirming all the turmoil and conflict Springsteen wrestled with on the album as real. In the subsequent years, he married Scialfa and they have remained together and raised three children. Maybe Springsteen found the absolution and redemption he sought after all.
Bruce in 2012