I love the mini-soap opera that runs throughout this album. It'a a shame that the lyrics get a little lost in the music. This is Springsteen as a poet. His whole soul meets rock 'n' roll is hard to resist. The wall of sound works really well. There's something of a goosebumps moment when he sings "when the Big Man joined the band..." ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! Brooding.
I really want to like Bruce. Plenty of people that I have a lot of time for have a lot of time for him. But this album just sounded like someone belting it out over a pub rock band for the most part. I found myself humming along to the title track, but that is probably due to its pleasingly familiarity. The rest of the songs left me rather non-plussed. She’s The One just made me want to go to the source and bust out Bo Diddley. I keep trying with Springsteen, but I have the feeling that if I don’t get it by now, I probably never will.