The “single most powerful” album Bruce Springsteen ever recorded
The question of which album Bruce Springsteen considered his most “powerful” could have multiple answers. His 1975 breakout record Born To Run changed his life forever by launching his career into the big time. The River and Nebraska are a masterclass in storytelling. Born In The USA is one of the most well-known records in history. But the one he picks out is a beautiful reminder that music will never truly be untangled from the context in which it is made.
Sometimes, that can come back to bite an artist. There are plenty of stories of musicians having to retire some of their fan favourite songs simply because they’re too painful. Stevie Nicks never performs ‘Silver Springs’. Elton John said ‘Empty Gardens’ is too “hard for me to sing”. Fiona Apple can’t play the deeply personal ‘Jonathan’ due to its sad subject. So, while writing the real world into music is a beautiful craft and a cathartic way to process feelings, sometimes the story behind the song is simply too tender to bring out on stage.
But Springsteen experienced the flip side of that, where the real-world context around one of his albums fills him with so much love, pride and joy that it shines a gorgeous light on the record.
The start of the 1990s was a period of change for Springsteen. After the release of Tunnel Of Love in 1987, his marriage crumbled and collapsed. He hid from that fact on Human Touch, but by the 1992 album Lucky Town came out, he was ready to face it. The record became one of his most personal, dealing with his divorce, the start of a new romance, and, most importantly to him, becoming a father.
The artist and his new partner, Patti Scialfa, moved back to Springsteen’s hometown in New Jersey. Then, in 1990, Springsteen welcomed his first child, Evan James Springsteen. Not only was he basking in the enormous emotions attached to becoming a parent, but he was doing so in the place where he was raised and a place that had provided the setting for so many of his songs and so many lyrical stories. But for the songs on Lucky Town, he was the character at hand, and the tale was his own life.
When it came to promoting the album, that fact came up time and time again in interviews as Springsteen found himself talking less about the music of the record and more about his big feelings related to fatherhood. “It was probably the single most powerful thing I ever felt, and I understood why I ran from it for so long,” he said, talking about both becoming a parent and being brave enough to tell his own story and write himself into his song.
“Along with it came this enormous fear,” he said, “Probably the fear of loss, the fear of showing your cards, admitting something is that important to you and that you can’t have it unless you show yourself.”
Springsteen did not lose sight of the parallels between creating a personal album and creating a whole new personal life. The interplay between the two made Lucky Town one of his favourite records, forever attached to the time his life changed for the better with the birth of his first child.
