“Sometimes records dictate their own personalities and you just have to let them be…. I finally stopped doing my hesitation shuffle, took the best of what I had and signed off on what would be the biggest album of my career”

Work on what would become Born In The USA began in early 1982. The years of sessions would yield close to 80 songs – including those that became Nebraska – would see the departure of Steven Van Zandt and an album that went through multiple versions before the forces that be put an end to the inertia that Springsteen seemed stuck in and his most grab-bag collection of songs was released to kick off BOSS MANIA^TM with Rambo Bruce rocking a head band or bandana and flexing his way across a stadium stage near you for a year and a half.

I’ve written about those multiple versions, those ‘what could have been‘ albums already. But here we’re talking about two songs from the album we did get. An album that’s a real curate’s egg. king at how this was the last of Springsteen’s albums where there were whole multiple albums of outtakes, you get the feeling that this is the point at which he was starting to get lost in his search and could’ve ended up carrying on to Chinese Democracy lengths if he wasn’t careful. Which certainly explains the reserve with which he’s come to view the album too.

Thing is, each of these songs work. This is still peak-period Springsteen so none of these songs are ‘bad’ in the traditional sense (don’t worry Human Touch is only a few years away) but the album lacks the consistency / sense of cohesion that previously embodied his work. As such, and not so surprising given that seven of its twelve tracks were released as singles, it feels like a compilation rather than an album.

Least: Cover Me

I feel like I’m in a minority with this one given that it was a hit single and all but there’s something about it that just means I don’t take it in as much as the rest of the album. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t written as his own song. It was intended for Donna Summer. While ‘Hungry Heart’ was initially meant for The Ramones it felt like a Springsteen song meant to be given away rather than writing specifically for someone else’s voice. As such the feel of the song in amongst the rest of the album doesn’t gel for me.

I will say, though, that in many respects, this song is a noteworthy one. Just as the message of ‘Born In the USA’ become overlooked some flag-waving Republicans (oh, those were the days, right America? How bad does Reagan seem now?),Springsteen’s singing a song written for and from the female voice without any alteration to lyric is a wonderful thing – here’s Springsteen with his stocky frame now bedecked with muscles calling for a lover to ‘wrap your arms around me, cover me’ and protect him a rough world that’s only getting rougher.

It’s the directness of those lyrics that make it tough for me to call it ‘Least’ but it’s the sound of it that I can’t quite vibe with. He struggled trying to find a way to get it right live on that Born In The USA tour too… it wasn’t a regular set list staple until Arthur Baker’s remix gave him a way in by slowing it and making it a little ominous and brooding. The live versions are now pretty fucking great, but we can’t count those here so let’s move along…

Most: Downbound Train

Only on an album where the majority of songs were released as singles could a song this strong be considered a ‘deep cut,’ but ‘Downbound Train’ feels like a piece of over-looked gold in amidst a sea of chest-thumping stadium pleasers. “Now I work down at the car wash, where all it ever does is rain” might be one of my favourite Springsteen lyrics but this song is fucking stuffed with them, all evocative… what about the whole fucking verse:

“There in the clearing, beyond the highway
In the moonlight, our wedding house shone
I rushed through the yard, I burst through the front door
My head pounding hard, up the stairs I climbed
The room was dark, our bed was empty
Then I heard that long whistle whine
And I dropped to my knees, hung my head and cried”

‘Downbound Train’ is one of those first clutch of songs that came from Springsteen’s home recordings that included Nebraska‘s songs and tracks like ‘Born in the USA’ and ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ that he put to tape in 1982 and appeared on almost every potential track list for release between then and the final album. In less than a decade since the thesaurus-groping first two albums he’d distilled his songwriting down to the point where he could render a full story of broken hopes, marriage and lives with much clearer precision.

Pain, hope, desperation… it’s all there in a tune containing some of his most aching lyrics put to a great driving (or train-like chugging) melody with just the right amount of that ’80s synth. To me, this is the biggest indicator on the album of where we’d find New Jersey’s finest on his next outing.

Have I mentioned that some of these are gonna be harder than others? That few artists have as impressive a streak of great albums as Springsteen? Good. Because I’ve now reached my favourite Springsteen album. One of my favourite albums of all time: Darkness on the Edge of Town.

This is the first of many Springsteen albums where – after legal wranglings stopped him going into the studio for a bit – the man they call Boss began writing more tunes than anyone could possibly fit onto one album as he racked up studio time searching for the right songs and final album. It meant that three years separate it from his breakthrough and that it would, looking back, become his first left-turn from what was expected in a move he’d repeat throughout his career. Who knows: had he gone back into the studio with Jon Landau when he first wanted to – his manager Mike Appel wanted to take advantage of Born To Run‘s success with a live album instead – we might just have got Born To Run 2: The Road Worrier. The songs on Darkness.. instead drew their inspiration from characters by Johns Steinbeck and Ford, the music lost the ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ production in favour of something leaner, rawer and tinged with attitude of the nascent punk scene somehow married to Springsteen’s interest in country too. These weren’t ‘losers’ anymore, they were working class heroes living tough lives against a tough sound in which The E Street Band provide the power to give them an edge.

The result is damn-near unimpeachable. This one, though, is an easy choice for me:

Least: Factory

To me ‘Factory’ sucks the air out the album just as it’s gotten going on Side B with ‘The Promised Land’. I get it; it’s the counter to ‘Adam Raised A Cain’ in as much it’s his exploring the mundane daily toll of his father’s working life but it lacks the urgency, the punch and visceral nature of both the album’s other songs and those others he would write dealing with the same matter. The music doesn’t work for me – it didn’t work when used as ‘Come On (Let’s Go Out Tonight)’ and makes Springsteen’s invite to party (at the flipping factory of all renowned swinging hotspots) as inviting as a cold-water enema.

Most: Racing In The Street

Hell, it might just be one of Springsteen’s best ever songs. I’ve still got a love for the ’78 version too but the original has always hit hardest. One of the first songs he started writing for Darkness.. it didn’t need to evolve so much as refine until the solo piano song ‘Dying in the Street’ until it became the epic call back to Born To Run‘s dreamers who now lived only to hit the strip. Who knows when or how he hit upon the line – “Some guys they just give up living and start dying little by little, piece by piece” – that pins the song down and grounds it but it makes it one of the best he’s put to tape.