'Devils & Dust' Both Present on Springsteen's Newest

The E Street Band apparently had the evening off. Forget the raucously defiant Born in the U.S.A. or the exuberant Rosalita. Bruce Springsteen’s newest album is as spare as a black-and-white photograph of a Dust Bowl landscape, and if that evokes a familiar feeling, it’s because he’s visited this territory before in Nebraska (1982) and The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995).

There is less unity to Devils & Dust, though, Springsteen’s 23rd release since his professional debut in January 1973, in that it tells unconnected stories of people living lives of quiet desperation. A soldier in a combat zone (“Devils & Dust”). A man regretting that his life’s love got away (“Reno” and “All I’m Thinkin’ About”). A neglected inner-city boy wishing he could have lived in the Wild West (“Black Cowboys”). A busted-up, has-been boxer simply looking for shelter from the rain (“The Hitter”). A beloved mother lost to death (“Silver Palomino”).

Our Common Struggle—With a Side of Sex
In an accompanying short film on this double-sided CD, Springsteen explains the album’s theme: “People who are interesting are people who have something eating at them, but they’re not exactly sure what that thing is. The characters on this record are all trying to find their way through that. Some do it somewhat successfully, and some come to tragic ends.”

An example of the latter would be the haunting “Matamoros Banks.” This story is told in reverse order, starting with the body of a Mexican man at the bottom of the Matamoros River, where he drowned trying to sneak across the border to find a job. “For two days the river keeps you down/Then you rise to the light without a sound.” The song ends with him kissing his darling goodbye as he begins his long trek north.

An example of the former is “Long Time Comin’,” in which a dad strives to overcome his own bad upbringing and be a better father to his own kids: “I got some kids of my own/Well, if I had one wish in this Godforsaken world, Kids/It’d be that your mistakes would be your own/Yeah, your sins would be your own.” This moderately hopeful song is marred, however, by a strong profanity.

And speaking of strong content, the song “Reno” actually garners a warning sticker. Using vivid and explicit sexual language and imagery, Springsteen gives a play-by-play account of a man visiting a prostitute while pining for a lost love somewhere in his past.

On NBC’s Today show he described "Reno" as “a love song that comes at it from a different point of view.” He also defended the lyrics: “I could not have told the story without those images,” he told Today co-host Matt Lauer. “And what’s the matter with any of those things anyway?” Is that a rhetorical question, or are you asking for an answer, Bruce? If you are, Starbucks' response might shed a little light. The coffee colossus, which is increasingly influential as a music retailer, has decided against stocking the album, in part because of "Reno."

A Soul Ground Down
Because Springsteen involved himself in the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004 and made critical remarks of President George W. Bush, some might have expected a more political tone in this album. There’s none to be found. Even though the song “Devils & Dust” tells the story of a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, it doesn’t criticize the war or the soldier; it begins, simply, with a stark image of the ambiguity of those wars. “I got my finger on the trigger/But I don’t know who to trust.” It then goes on to describe how war grinds down the human soul.

Indeed, the sense of the soul at risk permeates this disc. A pervasive sense of melancholy runs through its songs, and feelings of regret and wistfulness swirl together to leave you either in a contemplative mood or simply world-weary. And yet ... the album also contains just a tinge of hope, the sense that love remains and God is ultimately in control. By telling the tragic story of “Matamoros Banks” in reverse order, the song ends on the note of a love never to be lost. And as Springsteen says in “Jesus Was an Only Son,” “For remember the soul of the universe/Willed a world and it appeared.”

I'm stumped, then, as to why Mr. Springsteen would ruin such a thoughtful collection with a sleazy and salacious song like “Reno.”