5.
Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
I have a daughter who is six next week. I played her some Bruce Springsteen. She’s really into sad songs. I played her ‘The River’ and she really locked into that song [Black suddenly starts singing, doing an amazing impression of The Boss]. She asked: ‘Is this a sad song? I like the sad songs.’ She really likes Bruce Springsteen.
I really liked this record, and I downloaded it for our kitchen listening. I really got into some of the other tracks. ‘State Trooper’ is so great, so minimalist. It’s fucking two chords and a few words. It’s the most and the best example of that Bruce Springsteen song where he’s the character of a down and out desperate guy. And it isn’t going to get any better.
I’ve got into listening to Suicide. I didn’t realise that Bruce Springsteen covered a Suicide song. It made sense he’d get into the vibe of the song. It’s a song called ‘Dream Baby Dream’. Suicide are so good at the psycho-rock’n’roll-landscape. Even though Bruce is not trying to be ironic, I think that Bruce Springsteen is trying to retain some primal instincts while being a modern guy on the street with a story to tell.
Bruce Springsteen gets a lot of bad press because people like his songs so much. I’m OK when someone I really like does something I’m not totally into. I’m not worried. I still have the records I really love. If they’re really going to go to the top of the mountain, they can’t be there all the time.
