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Song of the Day #1,244: ‘Human Touch’ – Bruce Springsteen

In 1992, after an eight-album winning streak the likes of which American rock music had never encountered, Bruce Springsteen put out his first dud. His first two duds, actually, as his follow-up to Tunnel of Love took the form of two distinct albums released on the same day.

The more popular of the two was Human Touch, though most reviews suggest it is also the weaker effort. The record finds Springsteen in a much lighter mood than on the somber Tunnel of Love. Five years after the divorce album he had settled down with Patti Scialfa and set out to prove the theory that misery makes for much better music.

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Song of the Day #1,244: ‘Brilliant Disguise’ – Bruce Springsteen

When he was bigger than anybody else in the rock-n-roll universe, as big as he would ever get, Bruce Springsteen once again defied expectations, this time by putting out his most personal and introspective album yet.

1987’s Tunnel of Love, released three years after Born in the U.S.A., was the first Springsteen album that felt like autobiography. And the personal matter he explored happened to be the dissolving of his brief marriage to model/actress Julianne Phillips.

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Song of the Day #1,243: ‘Dancing in the Dark’ – Bruce Springsteen

Two years after his bleakest, most low-key album, Bruce Springsteen released a great big shiny pop masterpiece. 1983’s Born in the U.S.A. was written and recorded with mass popularity in mind and that’s exactly what it achieved.

The album generated a record-tying seven top ten singles and ultimately went 15X Platinum. It turned Springsteen into a household name. And it did all of that without compromising his worldview, even if some of the songs were misunderstood (see Ronald Reagan’s use of the title track for an ironic example).

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Song of the Day #1,242: ‘Atlantic City’ – Bruce Springsteen

The songs of Bruce Springsteen had grown steadily darker over the albums Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, but with the release of his sixth album he mined his bleakest territory yet.

1983’s Nebraska is as desolate and stark as the landscape pictured on its black-and-white cover. Its songs tell the tales of killers and thieves, men and women whose hope for redemption is fading like the eerie glow of a dying sunset.

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Song of the Day #1,241: ‘Train in the Distance’ – Paul Simon

Paul Simon’s Hearts and Bones carries a lot of baggage but I wasn’t aware of any of it when I first heard the album. I didn’t know it was a Simon & Garfunkel reunion album gone bad, or that it was a critical and commercial flop that seemed to derail Simon’s solo career.

My first exposure to the songs on this album came during a concert in the early 90s. I was familiar with everything Simon played that night except for two gorgeous, musically ambitious ballads — one called ‘Hearts and Bones’ and one called ‘Train in the Distance.’

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