The Rocky Mountain News
May 7, 2005
Fans joke about cars and girls and other such topics being at the core of Bruce Springsteen's work, but he moved past that years ago.
One thing has remained constant, however. A streak of faith has always been present in Springsteen's work - faith that if you do the best you can, good things will happen, even if at the moment you can't quite see how that could possibly work out.
"Faith" is a word that gets kicked around in the public arena these days, but it's a word that Springsteen has made an integral part of his work from nearly the start. It pops up in 20 different songs - from Thunder Road to Devils & Dust, from Backstreets to My City of Ruins. Land of Hope and Dreams spells it out explicitly, as he sings "faith will be rewarded."
Even when the word isn't used overtly, the concept is in scores more songs, from Born to Run to Long Time Comin'.
Three of his greatest songs of faith - in yourself, in your fellow humans, in right and wrong - have been cornerstones so far in the Devils & Dust acoustic tour, which includes a sold-out show tonight in the Colorado Convention Center Lecture Hall.
We won't give away the set list – it's changing every night, anyway. Springsteen has done brand-new songs that he has obviously never played before live, but he's also plucking gems from his catalog that haven't been played in years. The one thing he warns fans is that he's not doing the hits - you might want to dump your tickets if you're expecting Glory Days or Dancing in the Dark. And please, shut up.
While the shows change, several songs make the cut every night in stunning versions. Through the magic of bootlegging, to quote Springsteen, fans around the world already have been able to hear these shows, many of them appearing online hours after the shows' end. Here are three songs of note to listen for tonight:
• The Rising (from The Rising, 2002)
A transcendent tale of a firefighter going in to his death on Sept. 11, this song was a rousing intro to nearly every show on the tour that followed the album.
It's a song about faith - the protagonist keeps heading upward in the building, even though he doesn't know where he is or what he'll find. It's about faith in the afterlife; the firefighter dies and is surrounded by the lord and images of his family and his life.
As the title cut of The Rising, this song focused on the nobility of everyone who died as a victim in the terrorist attacks, viewing the bigger picture. Other songs on that album addressed the awful toll in more human terms, whether it was the sick feeling conveyed through Empty Sky or the tragic, personal loss in You're Missing.
As a booming anthem, The Rising was a cornerstone of the tour for that album. Springsteen has stripped it back to just an acoustic guitar and his voice, in the process finding the definitive version of it much the same way he stripped back No Surrender on the Born in the U.S.A. tour.
• Reason to Believe (from Nebraska, 1982)
Nebraska was an album of small songs, looking at people and the choices they make, from the nihilistic serial killer in the title cut to the stinging shame a little boy feels riding with his working-poor parents in Used Cars.
After going through scenarios that range from sweet to tragic, the Nebraska album ends with Reason to Believe - not so much a shot at redemption but almost a prayer to keep strong.
The song is filled with not-so-hopeful scenarios - a dead dog by the side of the road, a groom left standing at the altar, a birth, a death. But, he sings, "at the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe."
An acoustic song to start with, it does get a harder edge in concert.
• The Promised Land (from Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978)
One of fans' best-loved anthems, The Promised Land tells a Steinbeck-like story in just three verses.
It's the story of a man in a small town in the west, "just killing time" and seething with frustration at his circumstances - working all day just to survive, no prospects for that to change, and "driving all night chasing some mirage."
Inspired by his driving trips across the desert, Springsteen places the man in Utah and mentions driving across the Waynesboro county line – which doesn't exist (Wayne County, Utah, is the closest thing).
Feeling like he'll explode if he doesn't, the man finally vows to leave and make something of his so-far empty dreams, with nothing to hold onto except the concept of "I believe in the promised land."
The Promised Land has been a huge song in concert since Darkness was released in 1978 and has also undergone a metamorphosis in his acoustic concerts.
When he first started playing it with just a guitar, it was a fairly straight rendition. Somewhere during the Ghost of Tom Joad tour, he found a new arrangement that worked for him. Rather than strumming the chords, he has taken to beating out an eerie, trance-like rhythm on the hollow body of the guitar flavored with low-key chords.
The song is slowed way down, stretched from its normal five minutes to more than seven minutes (and that's without the guitar and sax breaks that take up a good bit of the normal version).
Mark Brown is the popular music critic. Brownm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303- 892-2674
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