I'm sitting here listening to Bruce Springsteen's The Promise, songs from the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions, thinking Bruce chose the right songs to release back then when he blew my teenage mind, man. There's an urgency, a passion, a spirit in that album that spoke to naive boys and made us think anything was possible, that even owning a car might be romantic. Of course cars and young relationships could never live up to Bruce's billing but I still get a rush of adrenaline whenever I hear that album. The Promise is OK but not essential, a bit like the reality of the motor car.
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I'm sure you were all riveted by the Golden Twit Awards yesterday. So pleased for Stephen Fry and the Greater Manchester Police. Fry's childish strops and the Force's kettling puns have been essential reading. And they had the gall to have "Public" awards for certain categories, as if the general public actually give a shit about nonentities' egos. Twitter's a great source of news and good for pissing around on with like minds but awards and books and sitcoms based on of-the-moment Twitter accounts? Get a life!
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14 hours ago
Agreed on Bruce. I even prefer the previously released version of the title song. A lot of the rest sounds like pastiche - which appealed to Steve Van Zandt but was clearly just aping other styles. Fine for Southside Johnny but not for Bruce
ReplyDeleteBrucie had a major effect on my adolescent years as well.
ReplyDeleteSunday Night at the London Palladium mainly.
Never really got the sound of Bruce thing but I relate on a 'small, east-coast dishy' level.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Twit link saving me a google. I had no idea. Do you think mounted police will inform the public next time they charge school children and students? How Peterloo!
Bruce is the boss. End of.
ReplyDeletexxx
Bob
(...apart from the wrod vrecificatoin: phaze. As in - it's just a...Couldn't let that one go, could we?)
Bob - The presumably earlier versions of the tracks on the Darkness album needed a lot of work, a lot of the tracks are filler and Patti Smith and Pointer Sisters did better versions of the others.
ReplyDeleteRog - I've seen the old black & white clips. Teds ripping up seats 'n' all.
Arabella - Those were Bruce's dishy years and I wanted to be him. Then he bulked up and didn't look right. Did the Met really deny they used horses? With so many people carrying recording equipment? Discomforting and fearful tactics from workers who are supposed to protect the public. We are all in this together? Divide and rule, more like. Public school shits.
Bob - Well, I'd rather have Bruce than Avram Grant. And he's worked under the Dildo Daves before. Do you think Sunderland would let him go?
I've never forgiven Brucie for his paedo anthem:
ReplyDelete'Hey little girl, is your daddy home?
Did he go and leave you all alone?
Uh huh, gonna take you high.
Oh oh oh, I'm on fire.'
A cliched redneck with sinister undertones.
Tramps like us, baby we were born to – good game, good game, give us a twirl, didn’t he do well, I’m in charge, what do points make, nice to see you, to see you – run.
ReplyDeleteLaura - I think the "daddy" in question is the woman's ("little girl" being the traditional male rock 'n' roll sexist term for this grown woman - grown woman unless you're talking about Jerry Lee Lewis of course) husband. But it's still a shit song from a shit album.
ReplyDeleteTim - Give us a twirl, Courtney!
Glory days, yeah they'll pass you by.
ReplyDeleteMy glory days never came :-(
ReplyDelete