Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town

RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town

This week’s Recommendation Of The Week is an album that basically raised me into adulthood, and in a lot of ways, made me the person that I am. Darkness On The Edge Of Town by Bruce Springsteen was released this week in 1978. It was during this album that Bruce Springsteen became Bruce Springsteen. He started to explore the darkness, depression, the demons and hauntings of our inherited guilt. He made us feel like we weren’t alone in the struggle, and he gave us all a voice.

In 1975, Bruce Springsteen released his breakthrough album, Born To Run. Young, fierce, full of energy, and determination, he tirelessly worked to achieve his dream. He was searching for his voice. He set out to make the perfect album. Born To Run was a symphony, a Shakespearian Tragedy, a triumph of youth, and a Rock N Roll fantasy. He channeled Roy Orbison, Marlon Brando from The Wild One, and fused it in with The Ronettes, The Crystals and a ’57 Chevy on a “last chance power drive”! He captured the dream of breaking the chains of small-town boredom and entrapment, bursting out to be free. It centered around kids: young, reckless, free spirited, engaged in fighting, like street gangs in battle, breaking out in an all-out Rock N Roll rumble. With the spirit of youth as their greatest weapon, they flashed “guitars just like switchblades”, all in a last gasp fight, with dramatic passion and struggle, to blow it all to pieces in a Rock N Roll blaze of glory!

Born To Run was poetic, impassioned, emblazoned with the fire, heart, and a musical spirit and energy that was symbolic of the American dream.

By 1976, Bruce Springsteen was in his mid-20s and about to conquer the world. He had a groundbreaking album and was on a tour that was setting the world completely up in flames! Upon his arrival home, and back down to Earth from his meteoric launch into orbit, life’s truth set in. Bruce realized that he had nothing to show for his efforts. The album went Platinum and he was on the cover of Time magazine, yet he was living in the back storeroom of a hair salon in Asbury Park, NJ. He could barely afford to eat. How could this be? Something wasn’t right. He had someone investigate this and found that when he had signed a record contract, it was very unfavorable to him, basically making it impossible for him to earn even the smallest amount of money until after his 10th album. He couldn’t believe it! Mike Appel, his friend and manager from the beginning, had talked him into this horrendous record deal. 

After legal battles and lockout by the court, which restricted Bruce’s ability to even step into a recording studio, there was a fair settlement. Bruce gained the rights to his music, forgoing certain royalties and was still with the label, but Mike Appel was out. His friendship with Mike was fractured and would take decades to repair. He hired Jon Landau, his friend, his manager still today and closest confidant, and moved forward.

The experience left Bruce bitter, jaded, and hurt. Mike was his friend, and Bruce felt betrayed and taken advantage of.  All the thrill and glory of Born To Run was gone, and he felt like he was starting over. He also, for the very first time, was exploring the deep darkness and hurt that haunted him all his life. With "Darkness", he began what he revealed with the Nebraska sessions. He started his epic battle within where he discovered that through inherent abuse, and emotional turmoil, he had become his own greatest foe. Bruce was exploring his troubled relationship with his father, his family and his place in this world. He became darker, meaner, and bitter. This also inspired and channeled an explosion of creativity and writing proficiency. His songs were rooted deep in his struggle within.  Where Born To Run looked outward, Darkness On The Edge Of Town started the dark, dangerous, and intensely intimidating journey inward. Bruce wrote angrily, and the struggle was very real.

With "Darkness", Bruce was writing his second opus.  However, instead of a Rock N Roll fantasy, it was the heartfelt struggle for the strength, will and faith of the broken human spirit. 

“When the promise is broken, you go on living
 But it steals something from down in your soul
 Like when the truth is spoken and it don't make no difference
 Something in your heart turns cold”
 – Bruce Springsteen “The Promise”
 
Darkness On The Edge Of Town is a gut-check. It is the promise that you can’t escape as you struggle to find your identity, place and existence in a world that has no use for you. Within that, he found something deeply human. The fight is a fierce struggle, and blood will be shed along the way. Bruce dives deep in on the weight of the lost hopes, dreams and desires of his characters. They still have glimmers of hope, and that’s enough to continue the fight. I feel it asks the question that when it seems as if it can’t really end well for us, then why continue the fight? Bruce shows us why, and that all the struggle is for love, and in this case, it is the struggle to love oneself. So, we fight out of spite against time, to spit in their faces and hold on to what’s ours, for our integrity, spirit, hope, faith, and the belief that we matter. 

That is the essence of this album. It is what will become the essence of Bruce’s music going forward. It is beautiful. It is painful. It is dark. It hurts. It is our gravest fear. It is our undying faith, strength and spirit. 

This is the essence of our fragile humanity.

For most of my adulthood, I have found great, profound insight into life and its emotional capacity within this album. Its importance on my life can never truly be measured.

This album is very personal to me, and without showing a little of my personal struggle, it’s hard to express how much this album means to me. As the years have passed since I first listened to "Darkness", the layers and depths of my internal grief and emotional struggles continue to reveal themselves. Much like the protagonists of Bruce’s stories, I too struggle deeply with the hurt of being “fatherless”. Sure, my father exists, as much as he is alive and living amongst us. He was there physically, and his presence in my life existed, at least up until a couple of years ago when I cut him out of my life. However, his influence on me has and continues to be negative, destructive, hurtful, and regressive. This is my greatest struggle, which I fight each and every moment in my existence.

“Well, Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
 Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame
 But you inherit the sins, you inherit the flames”
-Bruce Springsteen, "Adam Raised a Cain"

I loved my father, and, in some ways, I guess I still do. I lived for his praise, which I never once received. I have deeply respected and revered him, all despite our struggles from birth. I can say that he was my hero. I can also say that has broken me spiritually, emotionally, and he and our never-existent relationship is the greatest disappointment of my life. As I struggle to be a better person, to live with control of my emotions, to be present emotionally for my loved ones, I am learning just how much I struggle with these thoughts and the grip they have on me. I live with that struggle, replete with the immense guilt, self-doubt, worthlessness, and shame that I inherited from him and that he instilled in me. In some ways, I guess I have always struggled with feeling I deserved this treatment, not living physically in fear of him, but emotionally. It’s like some abusive, tormenting show of respect for him. It’s a daily continuous struggle working through these inherited feelings, pangs of guilt, remorsefulness, and grief of the loss of my mother years ago and the loss of a father that never was.

“Well, nothing is forgotten or forgiven
 When it's your last time around
 Well, I got stuff running 'round my head
 That I just can't live down”
– Bruce Springsteen, “Something In The Night”
 
As I’ve grown, I’ve seen these feelings of self-doubt and insecurity are the same for the characters of Bruce’s songs throughout the album. I’ve always found support and solace in this album and can relate wholeheartedly with Bruce’s characters. That’s why I feel I can truly say that, much more than my own father, that Bruce Springsteen’s words raised me. They really did.

Sometimes, there are lyrics that resonate more than anything ever written:

“Well, everybody's got a secret, Sonny
 Something that they just can't face
 Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
 They carry it with them every step that they take
'Til someday they just cut it loose
 Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down”
– Bruce Springsteen, “Darkness On The Edge Of Town”
 
Darkness On The Edge Of Town was the moment that Bruce Springsteen became the greatest songwriter ever to live. As almost 50 years have passed since its release, Bruce has become the internal voice of the struggle of the human spirit. I am so grateful for him and his music, and as we struggle to survive in this world, I think we need him now more than ever.
 
Essential Track: “Darkness On The Edge Of Town”