The tracks Bruce Springsteen considered the “great American songbook of the 1960s and ’70s”
If you were to go to a Bruce Springsteen gig a few years back, the crowd would have been made up of excited punters holding homemade signs with song titles scribbled across them.
Why? Well, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are pretty good when it comes to navigating their way through a cover. Springsteen himself has previously said that because of everyone’s background in jam bands and bar bands, it’s pretty rare for them to be presented with a song that they can’t knock out within a moment’s notice.
In fact, he always said that the test was whether or not they could play ‘Wild Thing’. If a budding group member didn’t know their way around this tune, they were never going to make it in the E Street Band. It sounds like a pretty harsh audition process, but it’s worked out well for them so far, so why not?
“First of all, the entire band are bar band veterans so they play 100s of nights before we’d ever stood out in front of an audience after we had a record deal so there’s a common well which we all draw from,” he said, “I mean if we played ‘Wild Thing’, you’ll be fired from The E Street Band if you don’t know how to play that.”
You can’t really deny Bruce Springsteen’s ability to play a good cover. There’s not a song he and his band can’t take and make their own. Bob Dylan, who is famously critical of other artists, said that Springsteen’s cover of ‘Knockin On Heaven’s Door’ helped him feel nostalgic for the first time, as the sound with which that track was played resonated on an incredibly deep level. That’s pretty high praise.
“He did that song like the record, something I myself have never tried. I never even thought it was worth it,” said Dylan, “Maybe never had the manpower in one band to pull it off. I don’t know, but I never thought about it. To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten how the song ought to go […] I’m not a nostalgic person, but for a second there it all came back…”
Springsteen knew just how powerful a cover could be, and so always wanted to play songs that he felt the world needed to hear. As someone who was massively inspired by Motown, he decided to put together an entire record of classic covers called Only The Strong Survive in a bid to try and drag the joy those songs brought into the modern age, and hopefully get those tracks in front of people who might not have heard them before. When talking about why he felt the need to put together such an album, Springsteen described the tracklist as “the great American songbook”.
“I wanted to make an album where I just sang. And what better music to work with than the great American songbook of the Sixties and Seventies?” he said, “I’ve taken my inspiration from Levi Stubbs, David Ruffin, Jimmy Ruffin, the Iceman Jerry Butler, Diana Ross, Dobie Gray, and Scott Walker, among many others. I’ve tried to do justice to them all — and to the fabulous writers of this glorious music.”
Springsteen continued, “My goal is for the modern audience to experience its beauty and joy, just as I have since I first heard it. I hope you love listening to it as much as I loved making it.”
