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Song of the Day #1,259: ‘Born in Puerto Rico’ – Paul Simon

The seven years between The Rhythm of the Saints and Paul Simon’s next studio album felt like an eternity. Following the one-two punch of Graceland and Rhythm, I was primed for whatever he would come up with next and had to just wait and wait and wait.

In the days before the ubiquity of the Internet — before Twitter and official artist websites — it was hard to know what a musician was up to. It turns out that Simon spent much of that seven-year span researching and writing a Broadway musical called The Capeman about a Puerto Rican gang-banger in New York who turned his life around in prison.

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Song of the Day #1,258: ‘The Last Carnival’ – Bruce Springsteen

My final post of the three-week Bruce Springsteen series takes us to his most recent album, 2009’s Working On a Dream. This record was released just two years after Magic but found Springsteen in a much different frame of mind.

Released the year he turned 60 and a year after the death of E-Street band member Danny Federici, Working On a Dream finds Springsteen contemplating his own mortality. But this isn’t a morbid record — on the contrary, it’s a celebratory one. On songs such as ‘Kingdom of Days’ and ‘Surprise, Surprise,’ he embraces the joys of a long life lived well.

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Song of the Day #1,257: ‘Long Walk Home’ – Bruce Springsteen

In the late 2000’s, Bruce Springsteen went on a tear, releasing four studio albums in five years. I’m skipping over one of those — We Shall Overcome: The Pete Seeger Sessions — in order to wrap things up this week.

That record is Springsteen’s only album of non-original material. It features covers of a dozen folk and protest songs made popular by Pete Seeger. It’s a great listen and features some terrific musical interplay with a group of musicians Springsteen assembled for the cause, but I’m sticking to Springsteen’s own songs during this three-week series.

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Song of the Day #1,256: ‘Reno’ – Bruce Springsteen

In 2005, Bruce Springsteen wasn’t in need of a comeback, but that’s how I viewed Devils & Dust. More accurately, this was the first of his albums that established him — for me — as a relevant contemporary artist.

I was familiar with his great work from previous decades but the only Springsteen album I’d bought upon release — The Rising — had disappointed me. Devils & Dust, on the other hand, inspired me.

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Song of the Day #1,255: ‘Nothing Man’ – Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen waited seven years after The Ghost of Tom Joad before releasing his next studio album — 2002’s The Rising.

The record was inspired by the 9/11 attacks though some of the songs that seem directly tied to the events (such as ‘My City of Ruins’ and today’s SOTD) were actually written well before 2001.

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