You know how it is with quotes and soundbites – sometimes their origin gets lost even when the quote itself remains pure and valid. I’ve got a sneaky feeling it was Hall of Fame related – possibly while inducting someone else – but Springsteen is on record and oft-cited as saying “I tried it [writing happy songs] in the early ’90s and it didn’t work; the public didn’t like it.”
Now the problem with this is many-fold and as we now lurch into the ’90s with this series, this feels as good an opportunity as any to address this.
Firstly – pretty sure Springsteen’s work of the previous decades is also littered with ‘happy’ songs too. I don’t think anyone is getting a lump in their throat listening to ‘I’m A Rocker’ or ‘She’s The One’ nor would they with the upbeat songs in the decades to come.
Secondly – it wasn’t the emotional nature of the songs that went unliked. It was the quality.
If there is a third point here, and I’m fairly certain of that, it’s that the ’90s were as prolific for Bruce as any other decade. We just haven’t heard most of it as it’s been shelved. I’ve seen mention, at some point, of five unreleased records from the ’90s. Even Van Zandt mentions going down to Rumson to hear a new batch of songs while the Boss fretted about not having a single yet. I haven’t spoken much about ‘Unrequited Infatuations’ yet but you have to take some elements with a pinch of salt as Van Zandt feels to have single-handedly shaped entire careers and global political movements with just a few sage words at the right time. However, given that he claims that havingtold Springsteen to revisit his Nebraska vibe resulting in The Ghost of Tom Joad, that puts this conversation in the early ’90s. Springsteen’s early ’90s seems to be more a period of second-guessing than it does of making happy songs.
Back to point 2 though…. listening back through the albums in sequence again for this series has been great. It’s also given me a different perspective on this album. I can’t remember the point in my collecting that I originally purchased Human Touch (and probably Lucky Town at the same time) but I know it wasn’t in release order. It makes it all the more evident that quality control suffered a big drop off with Human Touch. There were always lesser songs on Springsteen’s albums but Human Touch feels like the first time in which – rather than give such tunes to other artists or assign them as b-sides – the minor material makes up the bulk of the album and, while it’s not all bad, the good songs feel like outliers. After waiting four and a half years for a new Bruce Springsteen album and getting just shy of an hour’s worth of this lesser material, it’s understandable that it wasn’t well liked.
It could be that there’s a lack of chemistry between Bruce and ‘The Other Band’ that means the weaker elements of the songs can’t be carried over by great playing, but it’s not like he picked up of people that only knew a few chords. The songs are simply ineffective. There’s a song about TV, ffs. There’s also a song about feeling like a Real Man with his girl that actually contains the line “Rambo he was blowin’ ’em down”. It’s come to something when ‘Pony Boy’ isn’t the worst thing on an album.
Least: Cross My Heart
‘Cross My Heart’ is a pretty unforgettable and unremarkable tune. It doesn’t even sound like Bruce is that enthused about it and he’s the one singing it. Listening to Tracks it feels like he had half a dozen that were pretty much the same song as this and may just as well have chosen one at random to put on the finished disc. It tries to lift the beat and find momentum at points but it honestly feels more like a backing track and really sits amongst his lesser material for me.
Most: With Every Wish
Yeah, for all the mountain of filler there are some pretty good songs here that feel exactly how you’d want Springsteen to sound at the start of the ’90s. The title track is a bit of a gem. ‘Roll of the Dice’ – written with Roy Bittan – feels like it could have made a good E Street rave up given a chance.
‘With Every Wish’, though, is the rarest of things on these albums: it feels like a natural Bruce Springsteen song. The gentle nagging melody, the cautionary tale of love, the sweep of strings and a horn (courtesy of Mark Isham’s muted trumpet) that make it feel like it comes from a different, better album. It feels as close to a natural follow on from Tunnel of Love‘s material as you can get. It had me hooked the first time I heard Human Touch and still holds my attention throughout. The fact that it’s more sedate in its pace and accompaniment means not only is the production less overwrought and feel of session players absent but it suits Springsteen’s more mature songwriting themes that little bit better too.
Mumbling About... 