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.
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.
Bruce Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, released in 1995, was a return to the style and themes of the haunting Nebraska. Recorded mostly on acoustic guitar, the somber album drew inspiration (and its title character) from Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
Springsteen has always been a populist songwriter though he tends to not get overly political in his songs. Instead he gets his point across by weaving the hard-luck tales of men and women who are society’s victims.
I used the word “dud” yesterday to describe Bruce Springsteen’s Lucky Town and that was probably unfair. It is generally lumped together with Human Touch — understandably, as they were released simultaneously — but it is widely considered the stronger record.
Springsteen had nearly completed Human Touch and he set out to write one more song. Instead he came up with ten, and decided to release them as a separate album. I haven’t heard either of the albums but everything I’ve read suggests that this one is the keeper.
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.
Meet Me In Montauk 