'You can't break the ties that bind'
Originally posted 24th January 2010
So we have a taped copy of Nebraska and The River. I am looking for another BITUSA and neither of these fit the bill. Mike loved Nebraska from the start.
He picked out Mansion on the Hill straight away and now Atlantic City is one of his all time favourites.
You will also see Atlantic City in my list of favourites - well a girl can change her mind can’t she?
Nebraska didn’t seem melodious to me and if there is one thing I like it’s a melody. My ears couldn’t pick up the tunes at all. In fact I really didn’t like it.
I am an ipod addict. I hear nearly all my Springsteen music- on a bus- via a randomised play list. Nebraska isn’t good listening on a bus as there is too much engine noise so, the upshot of this is, I haven‘t heard the album from beginning to end since those first few listens. I have it on the stereo as I write this and I hear great melodies. Compared to some of the tracks on Tom Joad and Devils and Dust the Nebraska songs are positively sing along !
The River by contrast has loads of sing-a-long pop songs but they seemed a bit too frantic. I recognised Hungry Heart (which I see from my ‘British Hit Singles’, got to number 44 in 1980) and I loved The River - good tune great lyrics: ‘But lately there ain’t been much work on account of the economy’ ( who uses ‘economy’ in a song lyric!) and ‘Is a dream a lie if it don‘t come true‘- great lines Paddy Mcaloon - not about cars or girls. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cars_and_Girls
I like lyrics. I heard one of my favourites on the radio this morning - ‘Here you come again looking better than a body has a right to’ - Dolly Parton: and continuing the country music theme you surely can’t beat ’Did I shave my legs for this?’
When I get a new album I read the lyrics along with my first listen. I am a grumpy old woman when it comes to absent lyrics. It can even be the difference between whether I play an album a lot or not.
Perhaps this is why neither The River nor Nebraska grabbed me straight away. The cassette, taped by a mate, did not come with lyrics. Many years later we bought CDs complete with words of course!
In the wider Bruce world 1985 brought a huge tour. Newcastle, London and Leeds in Britain and Paris, Dublin and Rotterdam only a hop and a skip away. This passed us by completely! Neither Mike or I had ever been to a rock concert and It would not have crossed our minds to try for tickets even if we had been remotely aware of a tour.
The closest we got was watching ‘Live Aid’ from Wembley only a few days after Bruce had done his 3 gigs. I heard he left his stage behind for them to use but is this an urban myth?
Now living in Leeds I am surrounded by people who saw Bruce at Roundhay Park in 1985 and think he disappeared off the face of the earth after that. Yes really! I have not met a single person who went to another Springsteen concert after Roundhay.
By contrast our first gig which was some years away at this point took us on a journey around the world.
Mike and I were living apart in 1985 - Mike in Shipley in Yorkshire and me in Grimsby in Lincolnshire. We later moved to Hull and then Carlisle where we bought our first CD player. Our Copy of ’Tunnel of Love’ is a CD so…next time.
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