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"It's here that the country opens and things get a little weird," writes Bruce Springsteen in his memoir about a trip on a crucial road in the West. It was in the early 80s and he was learning, for the first time, to deal with depression in a real way. "How Sisyphus can count on the rock," he writes. "I can always count on the road, the music and the miles, no matter what hurts me." Here is the implied promise of his music, presented with all the burdens and heavy consequences attached to it. Remember: the door is open but the journey is not free.
His new song "Hello Sunshine" takes place somewhere during the trip. His friendly arrangement in the country is in a long line of radio clbadics: "Everybody Speaks", "Sweet for My Mind", "Good Times Charlie's Got the Blues", all songs are from concert halls silent early in the morning. As if to prove his place among them, Springsteen spends his time singing whole worms, guided by ropes guiding the way to the light of a jukebox. In the middle of the glow, he is surrounded by pedal steel raining on the windows, a silent honky-tonk piano in a corner, a frayed rhythm section that gives the impression of running in place on a path earthen. Fat but inhabited, it's the most alive sound of his music for at least two decades.
The words are sparse but important. The road is "empty" and not "open". Sunshine is a stranger, not an absent friend. "You're walking too far, you're going," he warns in a low, weathered cross. First single from an album that was left out for most of the decade – first for an Obama era protest statement, later for a jubilant but retrograde tour of E Street Band, and more recently for a one-man Broadway show this has turned the scale of his songbook into a seemingly complete tale with a happy ending (mostly) – his pulse is particularly inspired. It's a song about changing your habits while there are still miles to go, sung by someone with the landscape etched in his heart.
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