‘The Last Mile of the Way’: The song Bruce Springsteen would play to save somebody’s life
No matter what Bruce Springsteen song you’re listening to, or what period in the man’s life you’re revelling in, everything he does comes with truth buried at the heart of it. You can thank Bob Dylan for that.
Springsteen liked other artists before he heard Bob Dylan, and he was already pretty sure he wanted to make music, but it was Bob Dylan who truly highlighted the power that music had. This didn’t just mean making the listener feel something, but also revealing something to the listener in the process, revealing something about the artist, oneself, or even the country they both live in. From that point on, Springsteen referred to Bob Dylan as the “Father of my country”, and he knew he wanted to make music that came from a similar place of honesty.
Springsteen’s all-or-nothing attitude doesn’t just stop with the music – it bleeds into everything he does. So when a biopic about Nebraska was on the cards, he wasn’t about to let it turn into some half-baked Hollywood fluff. The cast had to be bang-on, the soundtrack needed to reflect what he’d actually have been spinning at the time, and the whole thing had to properly transport viewers – not just tick boxes. If it wasn’t honest, it wasn’t happening. Simple as that.
In a bid to achieve this effect, for a large portion of the filming of the new film, Deliver Me From Nowhere, Springsteen, and other people involved in the making of the movie, were on set, behind the camera, watching the story they all know far too well be brought to life. A lot of actors would find this off-putting, but Jeremy Strong, who plays Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, loved gobbling up every crumb of knowledge he could from the man he was playing.
“It’s like having an oracle that you can go directly to,” said Strong when recalling the experience of having Landau on set. “I spent time with Jon,” he said, “I drilled him with questions.”
Strong was adamant on taking Springsteen’s ethos of truth over everything else and injecting it into every second of the film. This is where having Springsteen so close to the movie came in handy, as any production questions could be shifted directly towards The Boss himself. This helped particularly when Strong was trying to explore the bond that Landau and Springsteen shared through music.
During one scene, when Strong plays Springsteen a song to try and tap into his more emotional side, he opts for Sam Cooke’s heartfelt ‘The Last Mile of the Way’. This was a suggestion from Springsteen himself, as when deciding what track Landau would have played in that moment, Strong reached out to the people who knew best.
“I said to Bruce, ‘What I’m looking for is: What song would you play if you wanted to save your friend’s life?’ He said, ‘Let me think’,” recalled Strong. Half an hour passed, then an hour, before Strong finally received the rather humble response, “You’ve stumped the band.”
Eventually, after hours of deliberation, Springsteen settled on ‘The Last Mile of the Way’, a song that seems to inspire truth, hope and heart to all of those who listen.
The track adds a raw texture to the scene, and the fact that it’s a decision made by Springsteen himself only adds to the moment. There is something inherently built into Sam Cooke’s sweet sounding vocals that makes hearts skip beats and hairs stand on end. Whether or not any song can be truly life-saving is up for debate, but ‘The Last Mile of the Way’ is certainly a contender.
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