Album Review and Reflection
3 ½ Stars
By Anthony Kuzminski
It'll turn your heart black you can trust
-“Devils and Dust”
After completing The Rising tour in October 2003, Springsteen laid low for the better part of a year. In 2004, he did two significant things. First he took the E Street Band out on the controversial Vote For Change tour raising money and awareness for the upcoming presidential election. Secondly, he started digging through tracks he recorded in the late 1990’s after The Ghost of Tom Joad and began playing them for producer Brendan O’Brien. A lot has been discussed and talked about O’Brien’s production of Springsteen. Some love it and others hate it. O’Brien is one of the most invigorating producers working today and yet, while I think he has embellished Springsteen’s sonic textures and forced him to work within strict timelines; I’ve sometimes had issues with the way he makes the E Street Band sound. It’s something I can’t put my finger on exactly. It may be because I’m such a fan of Steve Van Zandt’s no nonsense live feel he brought to The River and Born in the U.S.A.. Regardless, O’Brien’s greatest contribution to Springsteen in the last decade is Devils and Dust, which was released in April of 2005. Finding perfect middle ground between the personal intimacy of Nebraska and the distant third person narrative of The Ghost of Tom Joad, Devils and Dust strikes it rich in a field that should have been barren.
What differentiates Devils and Dust from his other acoustic albums (Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad) is his willingness to be open to collaboration. The core tracks for virtually all of these songs stem from the late 90’s and rumor has it they were due for release in late 1997, but the Sony suits are rumored to have politely declined the record at that time. Most of these songs were short listed for his box set Tracks in 1998, but pulled when Springsteen changed his focus to work exclusively on outtakes from released albums. That was a smart move, because if they had been included on Tracks these songs would have been lost in the shuffle and largely forgotten (which sadly happened to the superb outtakes from The River). When Springsteen revisited these songs in 2004, he knew there was a void and that’s where Brendan O’Brien comes into play. O’Brien’s input to this record was by adding subtle flourishes like drums by Steve Jordan, slide guitar, Soozie Tyrell’s shimmering violin, bass guitar (performed by O’Brien) and faint piano that adjoins the colors to bring the songs into a clearer focus. Of the four records O’Brien has worked with Springsteen on, this is the one where he truly deserved his paycheck. In my humble opinion, he took what very easily could have been The Ghost of Tom Joad II and injected the songs with dynamic palpitations bringing them to life.
The title track {Video Link} is a summation of everything Springsteen excels at. You can hear his rage exude from his understated acoustic guitar, fervent harmonica and empathetic vocals. Written from the point of view of a conflicted soldier at war, he is struggling with the actions he has to take, he prays to God for the grace to see it through. The visceral lyrics puts you right in their shoes, like all of Springsteen’s best work, “What if what you do to survive, kills the things you love”. The topic of fear is front and center here. We all make sacrifices in our lives, but what if those very sacrifices destroy who we are at our core? The heavy handed topic is accentuated by delicate cellos, drums that slither and hiss and a harmonica solo that finds middle ground between saints and sinners. These are characters trying to survive, merely trying to make a life. War turns the heart dark to the point that the sun may never shine on it again. Is their sacrifice too great? The track could have been preachy but it’s not. It paints a picture of someone who despite their best intentions, are faced with horrors no one should have to encounter. I’ve always been a big believer that Springsteen has greater success when tackling immense subjects in specific songs versus entire albums. “Devils and Dust” could have set the template for an album of anti-war sentiments, but it didn’t. Instead it was the only track on the album written after 2001 and as a result, it’s that much more effective and impressive.
“All The Way Home” was originally given to Southside Johnny for his superb Betters Days record produced by Steve Van Zandt. The burly tone of Springsteen’s track is a polar opposite to the almost hymn-like original. It was jarring and something I was disappointed in profoundly upon hearing it. However, after witnessing the soul bearing performance on the 2005 tour where Springsteen sung the song unadorned, it brought me back to his version. While Southside’s version may be definitive, this is an alternate path for the track. “Reno” is a song that shocks more than elicits your ear. Sadly performed at every stop on the 2005 tour, this was one he could have left in the vaults for all time and I don’t think anyone would have felt differently. The story of a man who is so despondent over the loss of his wife, that he can’t even find short term redemption from a hooker. The theme is strong but the execution is weak. However, the fertile instrumentation that surrounds it is a vast improvement over the desolate aural nature of Joad. “Black Cowboys” is a plaintive ballad and one of the album’s lesser tracks, but I find Springsteen’s songwriting, while not as precise, to be more on persuasive that most of what is found on Joad. Ditto “Silver Palomino” which is aurally disappointing, but the lyric of a young child trying to come to term with his mother’s death strikes a chord if you listen close enough. “Maria’s Bed” is upbeat, sunny and finds salvation in its backing beats that is as alluring as the sensual touch of a woman. The minimal “Leah” gets its plaintive yearning for love across with a mere three verses while Springsteen’s guitar provides faintly echoes the harmony of the narrator. “All I’m Thinkin’ About” is another proclamation of love sung in a high falsetto voice that cracks with sentimental teen love yet holding off bombastic tendencies. “The Hitter” was written in the wake of Joad of a boxer who takes one too many hits, but the way he explains it “every man plays the game”, demonstrates that every man is trapped inside the ring but circumstances beyond their control. Whether we take our hits in the ring or inside an office building is no different. “Matamoros Banks” is a distant relative of “Across The Border”, but told in backwards fashion seeking salvation and redemption in the promised land, but they don’t succeed yet the haunting atmosphere of these characters prove to be much more trancelike than anything on Joad. By sprinkling these bucolic poems amidst songs with more revealing flair allows the listener to revel in the albums quieter moments.
Sprinkled in the album are two defining compositions; “Long Time Comin’” and “Jesus Was An Only Son”. Both deal with children from the parent’s perspective. Springsteen is at his best when he exposes himself rather than trying to attempt executing the struggles of others. While he sometimes works his magic and succeeds, he’s at his best when he purges from within. “Long Time Comin’” finds Springsteen letting us into his heart and mind once again. A song that wouldn’t have been out of place on Lucky Town, it was written after Joad and performed with great regularity on the latter legs of that tour in 1996 and 1997. Life, love and the pursuit of happiness provides you with a sense of oneself and this song celebrates it. The narrator doesn’t want to mess up his life, his children’s future and their own as well. It’s about second chances. “Well if I had one wish in this god forsaken world, kids, it'd be that your mistakes would be your own”. It’s also about renewal and not passing the mistakes of your parents onto your children. The compelling folk number is embroidered by O’Brien’s strapping production, elevating it far above of what it could have been. “Jesus” is handled the same way you would hold a newborn baby, with a lot of attention to detail. It’s emotions pour over in a song where Springsteen may be telling a tale about a prophet but it’s clearly first person. In concert, he often introduced it speaking of the horrors parents face bringing children into the world and how they would do anything to keep them safe. If you are a parent, it would be impossible to not be moved by either song. These two songs, along with the title-track, center the album with poignant themes that elevate Devils and Dust to something more than a stop-gap release, and they make it an almost classic record.
I don’t feel that Devils and Dust is an all encompassing masterpiece, the themes and songs are indiscriminate and lack a thematic arc like previous albums The Rising, Darkness on the Edge of Town and Nebraska. This album is a closet cleaning record if you may. With that being said, it’s a rather wondrous in-between release that houses enough emotional bite for it to be deemed a significant Springsteen album. By balancing the sundry songs and music, it makes it far more rewarding than The Ghost of Tom Joad. One may listen with more profound depth to a song like “Reno” or “The Hitter” when it’s proceeded by lush instrumentation and melody. It’s much like a Sunday morning sermon, where the priest loses his flock when his homily stretches past seven-minutes. You sometimes have to work your audience for maximum impact. Joad was an arduous listening experience, not so on Devils and Dust. Joad may be a more accomplished sociological collection of songs, but Devils and Dust is more persuasive and palpable. While it is not a masterpiece, it is a severely satisfying record full of remarkable songs that deserved to be housed on more than an outtakes set. When Springsteen connects with the material on an intimate level (like he did on the title-track, “Jesus Was An Only Son” and “Long Time Comin’”) he clears the bases with a swing so immense that it soars to heights few can see with the human eye.
Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer and Special Features Editor for the antiMusic Network and his daily writings can be read at The Screen Door and can be contacted at thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com.
