ON VALENTINE'S DAY, BRUCE AND THE NEW SONGS

I'm driving a big lazy car...

On this past Valentine's day I started to like some of the new songs a
lot. No, wait a minute, I am starting to actually "love" some of the new songs a lot.
I always loved that "Tunnel of love" final track. Valentine's Day, what a nice ending. Just like "Drive all night" it's the quintessence of the romantic Bruce Springsteen.
That "love & sadness" bittersweet kind of feeling that pervades some of the best Bruce's ballads it's something that for me speaks as loud as any great BS rock'n'roll song. Simply couldn't do without it. Couldn't
do without "Fade away", "I wish I were blind", "I wanna marry you", "Back in your arms" and stuff like that.
It's not exactly what brings eighty thousand people to fill a Spanish
stadium for two nights in a row (and that's still a great thing to
witness) but it's there, it's a value, I can't forget that my love and
admiration for Bruce is built around those kind of songs as well
as "Born to run".
"Working on a dream", the album, is filled with joy and I hear many
people disliking the album 'cause of that.
Even though I'll never forget how the rage in "Darkness" and "Nebraska" songs spoke to me when I first heard them, I am open to give credit to the happy Bruce. What's wrong about being happy with your life and to show a great hope in your country's future?
I loved and love pop music as much as I love rock'n'roll.
I need the energy and rhythm of "Great balls of fire" as much as I need Roy Orbison's dramatic and melancholic falsetto.
I need the rough edge of some Rolling Stones songs as well as the
sweetness of the Beach Boys harmonies.
I need the highway and the beach.
I need "Raw power" and "Fun fun fun".
Driving my "big lazy car rushing up the highway in the dark" I was
hearing the new songs again and again and thinking that every woman, especially on a Valentine's Day, would love to have somebody writing and singing "This life", "Kingdom of days" and "Surprise, Surprise" for her. I do like to have them on a disc. I appreciate the passion that Bruce brought into crafting those incredible harmony vocals for his newly written songs.
They are not "Thunder road", everybody knows that, including Bruce, but I want to thank him for bringing his happy soul to the studio and for not forgetting his favourite 45's from the Sixties.
I think "Girls in their summer clothes" won a Grammy for this reason,
and the new album - or the most part of it - started from where that
brilliant song ended.
My hope for the tour is that Bruce and his camp would create a live
show that could be unique and strongly connected with this album. Just like the beginning of the 1988 tour was. Something that would be
coherent with the new musical approach.
The size of the tour and the way it is shaped (see: stadiums and
festivals) clearly works again any drastic change in either the whole stage setting and the band's line up (why don't bring the horns back on the road? or why don't add a small string section to the ESB? or how 'bout some proper background vocalist, a la Roy Orbison's "Black & White Night"?).
Sure, Bruce is still adding new songs to every tour, but I
can't help but thinking that "in some fashion" I've been watching the
same show for the last ten years.
It was a lot of fun, Bruce, but how 'bout a little "surprise, surprise"?

...I got one hand steady on the wheel
and one hand's tremblin' over my heart