Guest Post by Doug McCoy: How do you follow a monumental, career-changing album like Born to Run? With one of the most powerful albums of all time: Darkness on the Edge of Town. A gritty reality check about the real lives and experiences of working class Americans, Darkness is a vivid and emotional exploration of the human experience and the darker side of American working class reality. The songs are of a common theme, arranged in a meaningful order for a unique and powerful cultural message. This is not an album to pick apart on iTunes and experience one song at a time out of context. To understand the title track, start over in the Badlands and make your way to the Darkness that is on the Edge of Town. In the wake of BTR, this was a return to [and continuation of] what Springsteen does best. The ultimate musical story teller. BTR was an anthem of hope and love, here Bruce paints a portrait of blue collar/working class America at the end of the industrial revolution. The legacy of Darkness may be the fact that the three most popular Springsteen concert "anthems" which have become the mainstays of every Springsteen concert come from this album: Badlands, The Promised Land, and Prove it All Night. The secondary theme here, is the one thing in our American history that is always connected with the blue collar/working class man: the of owing and driving an American-made automobile and the connection that man has with his car.
Blogger's Note. Thanks Doug - a great (and passionate!) job. I expected nothing less from you. I picked this record and asked Doug to guest post because "The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town" will be on HBO next month. It is a 90-minute documentary that is part of the three-CD, three-DVD reissue of Springsteen’s classic 1978 album, which comes out November 16, 2010.
With the much-anticipated release of the commemorative box set for Darkness on the Edge of Town slated for this November, Bruce Springsteen's classic record is getting renewed attention in the music world. Fans are surely hungry for all the historic material they can get from the 1978 recording sessions and subsequent tour. For a preview of what's to come, we contacted Dick Wingate, who was intimately involved in the launch and marketing of the album and tour. He offers an insider's view of what the Darkness era meant to Bruce and the band, while painting an often-humorous behind-the-scenes account of some of the tour's highlights...check out the book The Light in Darkness, which one fan said, "… would make a great companion piece to the commemorative Darkness box set…"
ReplyDeleteThe Boss is The Best........check out this video I shot at Giants Stadium last September. Bruce "crowd surfed" right over me as I recorded it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTrk_OhWmyo
Agreed, I can't imagine a single person who could not feel these lyrics in their own personal lives. Indeed, this is story-telling at its best, especially in the sense that the stories when experienced as songs turn into heat in your guts. I saw the Darkness tour at Kiel Opera House in St. Louis; it was hours of emotional power that one may feel at only one concert in a lifetime.
ReplyDeleteThe sad part is, that emotional tug is a time and a place. How did Springsteen feel then playing these songs vs. now? And us listening? Much of that concert of 32 years ago is seared in me. Maybe every person who is a fan of Darkness (album and/or concert) carries its energy around even today.
Spencer