Devils & Dust

Bruce Springsteen - Devils & Dust

Devils & Dust
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Brand: Sony
Edition: Music CD
Format: Dual Disc
CD Release Date: 2005-04-26
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
  1. Devils & Dust
  2. All The Way Home
  3. Reno
  4. Long Time Comin'
  5. Black Cowboys
  6. Maria's Bed
  7. Silver Palomino
  8. Jesus Was an Only Son
  9. Leah
  10. The Hitter
  11. All I'm Thinkin' About
  12. Matamoras Banks

Free Music Notes for Devils & Dust

Free Music Review: Can Carry You Away... If You Are Willing and Able to Let It
Hit: 5 Stars

I bought "Devils and Dust" with some trepidation. At first listen, I liked perhaps half of it. Liked this, didn't like that, outright cringed more than once. Over the next few weeks, however, I found merit in every track. And frankly these days that's quite a feat. It's not the musician's fault it took me so long to come around.

"Devils and Dust" is a thinking person's record. It takes effort on the listener's part.

And it takes giving a damn. About what? America. It's ideals. It's promise. And, yes, it's failings. "Devils and Dust" is about you and me, the best of us, the worst of us. It's about work, family, hope, and the belief in something outside of yourself. It's about those of us who've screwed up and make no excuses. It's about the many of us who did everything right and still fell hard.

Track by track:

The lyrics of "Devils and Dust" suggest a solider, perhaps manning a checkpoint. He's in an untenable position, in no way of his own making, having to make life and death decisions - his life, the lives of others - in seconds and live with the consequences until the end of his days. The beauty of the song is that it crosses over to the citizen -- soldier or not, reminding the listener the administration has been making life-altering decisions for all of us here at home. As the narrator asks:

"What if what you do to survive kills the things that you love?"

What indeed.

The second track "All the Way Home" is easy listening, requiring no particularly deep thought. It's about a guy hoping for a chance (another chance?) with a girl. Fun and a bit of a toe-tapper. It makes a nice respite before you have to put your mind to work again.

Next is the now infamous "Reno." Picture this: A man in the here and now visits a prostitute. As he lies there, letting her, his gaze moves out the window, and he is reminded of his lost love. As the image moves to the past and his memories, the music changes as does the nature of the lyrics - much more poetic as opposed to the raw but not at all gratuitous opening lines. At some point - the music tells us when - the spell is broken and he is forced back to the here and now. The lyrics become more raw again, emphasizing the difference between the present and the past, and more importantly the difference between sex with a stranger and love with the one he's lost. The ending is as perfect as it is heartbreaking. For those with a heart.

"Long Time Coming" offers hope and is just plain fun. I defy you not to at least want to move to this one. Warning: You may not be able to get the chorus out of your head.

Darn, here he goes again, challenging the listener to think... and feel. "Black Cowboys" is about a boy apparently growing up in a ghetto. His mother is with him all the way when he's younger, telling him to stay home, stay safe, do his homework. But then she meets a man, and he takes her down an all too familiar path to self-destruction. Will he follow in her footsteps, or find his own way?

Ah, sweet redemption again with "Maria's Bed," using what for most will be a new voice for Mr. Springsteen. This is one where I was cringing at first. But I came around.

Next up is "Silver Palomino." I know from the liner notes this was written for two young boys who lost their mother. And it's about a thirteen-year-old who loses his mother and finds her spirit in a wild horse. While I appreciate the beauty and majesty of wild horses, the freedom and hope they suggest, all in all this song just doesn't work for me.

But that's OK because it's followed by a really gorgeous track with a gospel flavor. "Jesus Was an Only Son" looks at the Biblical events from the perspective of a mother and son. The final words deserve quoting:

"Well Jesus kissed his mother's hands.
Whispered, 'Mother still your tears.
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared.'"

If that doesn't move you - "Christian," or not - you might want to check if you're still breathing.

Back to that voice again. And me cringing again. I like it, somewhat like "Maria's Bed" thematically, but lacking the same punch.

Next up is "The Hitter." Settle in, it's story time kids. Musically, this one may remind fans the most of "The Ghost of Tom Joad" album. His voice is nearly monotone, but it works to show the matter-of-fact nature of the narrator and his story. A boy leaves home apparently on the run, does what he needs to in order to make a living, has no regrets, shows up at his mother's door as a man not looking for a shot at redemption but a place to rest:

"Ma, if my voice now you don't recognize
Then just open the door and look into your dark eyes
I ask of you nothin', not a kiss not a smile
Just open the door and let me lie down for a while"

And yet again, here's that voice on "All I'm Thinking About." This one really didn't work for me until I listened to the track while a passenger in a moving vehicle. As farm houses and fields flew by, I found myself picturing the narrator in a rocking chair, on a porch in need of painting, with a beat up acoustic, singing softly to a couple of kids at his feet. Then it came alive.

It ends with "Matamoros Banks." The song begins with the end of the narrator's life, working backwards to what leads him to his fate. It's at once striking and heart wrenching.

Bottom line: If you are not a big fan of critical thought, if you don't have what it takes to loose yourself in other peoples' stories, if you think America is so weak it cannot withstand self-assessment, maybe this one's just too challenging for you. That does not make it inherently bad. Not for Mr. Springsteen, not for anyone.

Devils & Dust Poster

CD AUDIO SIDE: Entire Album

DVD SIDE: * Entire album in 5.1 channel surround sound and in 2 channel stereo. * Special Devils & Dust film by noted photographer and film maker Danny Clinch, including rare, never-before-seen acoustic performances of "Devils & Dust," "Long Time Comin'," "Reno," All I'm Thinkin' About" and "Matamoras Banks" plus Bruce's personal introductions to the tracks.


The last time Bruce Springsteen ventured West for inspiration, the result was the desolate Nebraska and its tales of serial killers and used cars. On his first record in three years, Springsteen navigates barren deserts and Old West war fields for a dozen forlorn songs that co-star the artist and his acoustic guitar. Though he's always had a knack for carving out the hooks and melodies that make each journey memorable, this time around Springsteen relies on the lyrics to carry the tune-desperate tales of tragedy, heartbreak, and lust with a Latino twist, like the boxer coming home ("The Hitter"), a distressing border-crossing incident ("Matamoros Banks"), and the Nevada hooker with good intentions ("Reno," which led to the warning sticker Adult Imagery). With no E Street Band in the mix, the album is decorated with horns and strings and Springsteen?s novel falsetto on two his best efforts: "Maria?s Bed," where the narrator comes home to his woman after 40 nights on the road, and the fast-picking "All I?m Thinkin? About," where he has more than Carolina on his mind. A decade from now this will be an underrated record in the Springsteen chronicles. --Scott Holter
The Best of Bruce
by guest editor Steve Perry
Steve is editor-in-chief of City Pages newspaper in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (1973)
The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street ShuffleAfter a folk-rockish debut album that bubbled with ideas and dense lyrical play, this is where Springsteen began to find his voice as a rocker and as a songwriter. The prisoner-of-love romanticism of "Rosalita" and "Incident on 57th Street" hinted at what was coming, and this early version of the E Street Band--jazzier and more spare than later versions, thanks largely to David Sancious's piano--sounds great, if a little ragged, these many years later.


Born to Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
Born to RunDarkness on the Edge of Town These two records, which belong on any compilation of the top 100 rock albums of all time, sketched the themes that he would spend his whole career chasing, and defined the expectations fans would bring to his records ever after. The first chords of "Born to Run" sounded like freedom itself the first time I heard them on the radio, and the album lived up to them. "Thunder Road" is still the greatest rock & roll love song anyone's ever written. The record sounded so big and impassioned and propulsive it was easy to miss the dread running underneath it. Darkness... put the dread front and center. There are more of his best songs here than anywhere else, even if the sound is muddy and leaden at times.


Nebraska (1982)
NebraskaAfter The River (the best record that didn't make this list) and the ensuing tour answered his rock & roll prayers--he was a big star now, not just a perennial critics' favorite--Springsteen holed up in a rented house on the Jersey shore, where he wrote these songs and sang them into a four-track recorder in his living room. The tape was supposed to be a demo for the band, but after several false tries he concluded that the tape he'd been carrying around in his pocket was the record. Quiet and bleak, Nebraska nonetheless grabbed you by the collar and made you listen as surely as his rock & roll records ever had.


Tunnel of Love (1987)
Tunnel of LoveThe glare and hubbub surrounding the Born in the USA tour (the tour was great--the record itself overrated) made him pull back again, this time to write a cycle of songs about love and fear and self-doubt. After this, Springsteen's first marriage broke up, and he started a family with Patti Scialfa, disappearing for the better part of 10 years, notwithstanding the pair of not bad, just disappointing albums he released in 1992, Human Touch and Lucky Town.


The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
The Ghost of Tom Joad Some call it Nebraska II, but his second acoustic album was not a repeat of his first--the characters and settings had changed, and their circumstances were more expressly desperate, and social--though it did share the same interest in what happens to people whose isolation or marginal status renders them invisible.


The Rising (2002)
The RisingEverybody--including Springsteen himself--seemed to think it was a record about 9/11, but the subject was broader: death and loss as seen from more than halfway down life's road. Dave Marsh nailed it: "A middle-aged man confronts death and chooses life." Brendan O'Brien's production sounds great.


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