BY RICHARD PITHOUSE
Tracks, Bruce Springsteen's most recent release, is a beautifully packaged four CD collection. Although 56 of the 66 songs have never before been released in any form, such was the faith of loyal Springsteen fans that on the day of its release, a large number of US stores had to stay open till midnight to cope with the demand.
Now that the critics have had time to immerse themselves in this ocean of music, the verdict is that Tracks is nothing short of soul food.
The songs were recorded between March 1972 and August 1998, but because Springsteen has always put meaning before fashion, each one has the timeless feel that sets great music apart from mere product. From the brilliantly executed, stripped down bluesy folk of his first ever demo through to his mid-career jazzy rock and the more martial sounds of the early '80s, to his recent return to the raw roots rock, every song in the collection is as least as good as any previously released work.
The musicianship is equally superb, the vocals are as deeply evocative as ever, and the melodies have warmth and power.
From mournful meditations to euphoric celebrations, the lyrics are honest without being self-indulgent, intelligent and deeply poetic without being pretentious, progressive without being sanctimonious, fun and uplifting without being vacuous, vital without being contrived or macho, funny without being crass and, most of all, beautiful without ever being trite.
Why were these songs released only in 1999? Springsteen's not saying much more than, "My albums became a series of choices — what to include, what to leave out? I based my decisions on my creative point of view at the time — the subject I was working on, something musical or emotional I was trying to express ... [so] a lot of my favourite things remained unreleased."
Taken individually, each song could have comfortably been slotted into other Springsteen albums. Taken as a whole, this collection is quite different.
Although there are gripping versions of darker classics like "Stolen Car" and "Born in the USA", as well as plenty of newly released songs about things such as ending up on the wrong side of a knife, seeing an emptiness in your child's eyes and drifting in search of work, most of the previously unreleased songs are a lot more exuberant, celebratory and happy than the work he has previously made available.
Perhaps the most dramatic contrast is the difference between "Jackson Cage" from The River and "Where the Bands Are" from Tracks. Some of the words and parts of the melody of the two songs are exactly the same, and while both songs are set in the same working-class context and share an underlying theme of struggle, the first is a dark critique of poverty, alienation and hopelessness while the second is a spirited celebration of music, community and love.
The lines "You can try with all your might/ But you're reminded every night/ That you've been judged and handed life/ Down in the Jackson cage" could not be more different from "Tonight I wanna feel the beat of the crowd/ And when I love you/ I wanna have to shout it out loud/ Shout it out loud".
Springsteen has said that he was uncomfortable with "No Surrender" from Born in the USA because, "You don't hold out and triumph all the time in life. You compromise, you suffer defeat; you slip into life's grey areas."
Listening to Tracks, it seems that Springsteen has consciously kept back songs which don't raise an obvious finger to the myth of the "American dream". Although it is politically just as important to affirm as it is to accuse and reject, his caution does make sense in the light of the Republican Party's inability to understand "Born in the USA".
But it's meant that there is a crucial part of the human condition which, until now, Springsteen has not explored in public in his usual depth. After all, without acceptance, excitement, love and happiness, there's no energy for getting up in the morning, let alone for political struggle.
Tracks not only shows that Springsteen produces quality at an astoundingly prolific rate, but that the emotional range of his work is wider than was previously evident. It also feels like the last piece of the Springsteen puzzle.
In a way, the music on Tracks feels like it should be handed down by your parents at a coming of age ceremony, revealed by a guru or discovered in a cave on the misty slopes of a distant mountain. But, of course, life is such that you've got to take your credit card and buy it at your nearest shopping mall. That doesn't change the fact that once this music seeps into a person's soul, they have another weapon with which to defend the fire in their eyes.
[Richard Pithouse teaches philosophy at the Workers' College and the University of Durban-Westville, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He writes on politics, media and music for South African radio stations, newspapers and magazines, as well as underground Durban publications like Durban Poison and Bunnychow.]