The album Bruce Springsteen said nothing could replace: “Invaluable piece of music history”
The heart of any great Bruce Springsteen song has nothing to do with fitting into the rock and roll sphere.
‘The Boss’ had a healthy respect for all kinds of rock and roll, but even if Elvis Presley and The Beatles made him want to pick up a guitar, what mattered was whether a song moved him deep inside, whether that was listening to the greatest tunes coming out of Motown or the blues that came out before rock and roll even existed. Then again, the greatest songwriters in American history don’t always need to have the roaring guitars to make a statement in a few minutes.
After all, Springsteen proved that more than once when making albums like Nebraska. The E Street Band is one of the most important parts of any of his records, but once they were removed from the equation altogether for those ten tracks, it was much easier for someone to focus on the story behind the song rather than listen to the ripping saxophone or wait for the massive crescendo at the end of the tune.
Because good songs were ones that stood out by the person that was singing them. You have to remember that for people like Springsteen, delivering the right song has to be done the same way a brilliant actor delivers a perfect scene, and while Springsteen had a lot of real-life experience to draw from, there were more than a few artists in his record collection that knew how to phrase a line perfectly.
It goes without saying that Bob Dylan is probably at the top of Springsteen’s list of influences, but what he did for rock and roll music was about more than trading in an acoustic guitar for an electric. The folk tradition was always about storytelling whenever the song started, and while everyone from Pete Seeger to Woody Guthrie stood alone in American culture, country music wasn’t that far behind when Springsteen first heard what Hank Williams was doing.
By the time that ‘The Boss’ was coming up, country music had definitely grown up since Williams’s prime, but there was a purity to his music that no one else really had before. He had been searching for that ex-factor in his own songs for years, but even if he didn’t understand where Williams was coming from half the time, he slowly started to understand the work of genius on display when he picked up one of his compilation records.
This was a singer without an ounce of dishonesty, and by the time the record grew on him, Springsteen felt like he was holding an ancient artefact in his hands, saying, “I played it in my stereo in Asbury Park over and over again. I don’t remember what made me run out and buy it, because it took me quite a while before I recognised it as being the invaluable piece of music history that it is.”
And the power behind the songs wasn’t lost on future generations, either. Despite being as far removed from old-school country as possible, artists like Beck would also take a liking to Williams’s music, eventually singling it out as one of the reasons why he opened up a little bit more when making his more emotional releases like Sea Change.
It might not be the coolest thing in the world to admit to liking Williams in the modern age, but it was never about whether the sound quality was as crisp as it is nowadays. All that the people really care about is emotional honesty, and there’s never been any song that Williams sang that didn’t have the kind of conviction that any great singer has.
