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Voices in Western stars are old and restless, lost and wandering. On the title track, Bruce Springsteen sings from the point of view of an actor who has previously worked with John Wayne, but who mainly makes commercials – credit cards, Viagra. Elsewhere, we meet a stuntman whose body was destroyed by work, a lonely widower idling over his old parking spot and a failed songwriter who wonders if the sacrifices he's made in his youth were worth it. Sung in a vanished growl, this last title is one of the shortest and darkest things Springsteen has ever recorded: a recognition of the speed with which a song – and life – can pass.
This song is called "Somewhere North of Nashville" and is a special feature of Springsteen's 19th studio album, both geographically and musically. On the rest of the album, Springsteen, with producer Ron Aniello, aims to evoke the golden expanse of the American West, with extensive orchestral accompaniments unique in its genre. Springsteen's albums are usually big business, but he's never made one that's so vast and sumptuous. Coupled with the wild characters that haunt the mountains and canyons, the deliberately anachronistic arrangements (jukebox reminder, FM radio, sepia editing, tarnished memories) are steeped in elegance. It has been a long time since popular music does not sound like that and binds these characters to a time as to a place.
You do not expect to find Springsteen, who turns 70 this fall. Over the past few years, he has drawn attention to the most cherished moments of his career, from boxes with care to outings, to live performances, to an anniversary tour after the 1980 commercial breakthrough. River. His nostalgic penchant culminated in two presentations of his story: a 500-page memoir and a solo show on Broadway. Both begin with a glimpse of his own fraud – an "absurdly successful" artist who has made his fortune telling stories of blue-collar workers – and ends with solemn prayers and reflections on mortality. In the book, Springsteen discusses depression issues that threaten to derail him in the last 10 years. "Mentally, just when I thought I was in the part of my life where I'm supposed to be cruising," he writes, "My sixties were tough."
All this while watching plays in the music of Western stars. "Damn, these days, there is no more", "he sighs in the title. Now, there is only "again." Repetition and waiting across the disc as constants – sunrise and sunset. A song called "Chasin 'Wild Horses" describes its title as a means of counterbalancing pain; the arrangement becomes more romantic as the chorus hardens. Springsteen's narrative writing has always been used to reflect his external anxieties. A darkened mentality and a sense of isolation in his early thirties inspired him the call of strangers and dark roads of Nebraska; his first marriage leads to national portraits troubled by the doubt of 1987 Tunnel of love. During his exhaustive live shows, he is known to venture into the crowd, invaded by the community united by his work. In the studio, he has to invent it himself: a sea of faces where he can find his own reflection. Western stars transports him to a ghost town of broken male narrators, alone with their endless work and shortened deadlines. He sings us somewhere among them, looking wearily beyond.
After 2012 wrecking ball and 2014 High hopes– Recordings that have responded to current political issues and have sought to modernize the E Street Band's rock'n'roll exorcism with loops and samples and Tom Morello – this music is a left turn. The stories, however, remain archetypal Springsteen. From time to time, he seems to check the characters in his book of songs, deepen them or say goodbye. For wild spirits who worked from 9 am to 5 pm and survived until the night, there is "Sundown", a visit through a bitter-sweet twilight where you yearn for company. After all his promises of escape – these two paths that could lead us anywhere – the hardened narrator of "Hello Sunshine" warned that "miles to go are miles away."
And while almost all of Springsteen's songs are sung from the driver's seat, this disc begins with "Hitch Hikin," a folk song propelled by a soft string windmill, sung by a vagabond who has nowhere else to go. go. He invites us to the rear seats of three cars, whose drivers represent the pillars of Springsteen's career. A father, a trucker headed for a large freeway and a solitary runner in a vintage 1972 model, which is also the year Springsteen signed his contract with Columbia. These avatars introduce a record that promotes new sounds and perspectives – he often sings as a shadow or a visitor, thus giving credence to a recently revealed habit of making funerals of strangers – but remains carefully steeped in his story. David Sancious, one of the first collaborators who played piano virtuoso solo in "New York City Serenade" in 1973, returns here to guide "The Wayfarer" to his tragic and triumphant conclusion. His jazzy touch of keys dampens the thud of Springsteen's acoustic guitar and the terrifying twang of his baritone, both generous and desperate.
In this song, Springsteen reframes his urge to travel in a series of confessions. He acknowledges that, in his post, most people would be happy with what they have. He knows that his worries are not new. The title of Western stars is a phrase that also appears in "Ulysses," a nineteenth-century Tennyson poem that Springsteen has already written. (Another more ubiquitous quote from Tennyson is mentioned at the end of this recording: "Better to have loved," he sings in "Moonlight Motel," his voice getting lost.) It's easy to understand why Springsteen resonates in these particular circumstances. texts: works of a sorrowful poet who wonders if our brief and complicated lives are worth the legacy we leave behind. "Ulysses" is told by a hero who approaches old age, returning from a long journey, but realizes that he felt more fulfilled on the road. Then he leaves, "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield". And stay alive, he can.
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