2ª Nit - Kenny Chesney: "I'm On Fire"

Tal com estava previst, Kenny Chesney va actuar ahir a la nit en el Late Night del Jimmy Fallon, interpretant "I'm On Fire".


Avui dimecres no hi ha cap actuació prevista. Dijous actuarà Elvis Costello.

Primera Nit al Late Night del Jimmy Fallon: "Open All Night"

Tal com estava anunciat, en Bruce va ser al Late Night del Jimmy Fallon, en una setmana dedicada tota al músic de Freehold, NJ.

En Bruce estava acompanyat de l'E Street Band al complet, la Cindy Mizelle i el Curtis King als cors i en Curt Ramm a la trompeta. Encara no hem tingut l'oportunitat de veure la secció de vent amb tots els seus components i sembla que haurem d'esperar a la setmana vinent a l'Apollo Theater (o bé a aquest divendres, quan en Bruce i companyia tornaran al programa del Jimmy Fallon).

L'actuació va començar amb We Take Care Of Our Own. La inclusió de la trompeta del Curt Ramm va fer que la versió fós lleugerament diferent a la que vàrem veure en els Premis Grammy.

La segona i darrera interpretació va ser la cançó que dóna nom a l'àlbum: Wrecking Ball 

Avui dimarts és el moment de veure en Kenny Chesney, que interpretarà "I'm On Fire".

Homenatge a Tony Strollo: "Souls Of The Departed"

Dissabte a la nit, en Bruce va actuar en un homenatge al recentment desaparegut Tony Strollo, que es va fer a Asbury Park, acompanyat d'en Boccigalupe and the Bad Boys.

Entre les peces tocades, hi va haver "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out". En Bruce va dir "Aquesta és la part important!!!", abans de la frase "And the Big Man joined the band".

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: "57 Channels (And Nothin'On)"

Bruce i Jimmy Fallon

Aquesta propera setmana, Jimmy Fallon dedicarà els seus Late Night Shows (NBC) al Bruce i a l'E Street Band. El propi Bruce i la banda assistiran al programa el dilluns 27 de febrer i el divendres 2 de març, on segur que interpretaran cançons del nou àlbum Wrecking Ball (que recordem sortirà a la venda el dia 5 de març).

A més, durant la setmana, Kenney Chesney i Elvis Costello interpretaran "I'm On Fire" i "Brilliant Disguise", respectivament.

Cal recordar que el debut d'en Bruce al programa del Jimmy Fallon va regalar-nos un "Back To The Future", on un Bruce caracteritzat com ell mateix "anys 70" i en Jimmy disfressat de Neil Young van interpretar "Whip My Hair".

La transformació del Bruce "anys 70" al Bruce "actual"

Mor Tony Strollo, entrenador personal del Bruce. "Souls Of The Departed"

Tony Strollo (DEP)

Segons informa el lloc web  http://belmardays.com/monmouth-county-news/passing-of-tony-strollo/, l'entrenador i assistent personal del Bruce, Tony Strollo, va morir el dia 7 de febrer a Califòrnia, a l'edat de 40 anys.

Tony Strollo va passar a ser l'home de confiança d'en Bruce a les gires quan va morir en Terry Magovern, l'any 2007.

Les lletres en català de Wrecking Ball: "For You"

 We Take Care of Our Own - Ens hem de cuidar sols

 He estat trucant a la porta que sosté el tron
 He estat buscant el mapa que em guiï a casa
 He estat donant amb bons cors que s'han tornat de pedra
 El camí de les bones intencions s'ha assecat completament
 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Allà on onegi aquesta bandera
 Ens hem de cuidar sols

 Des de Xicago fins a Nova Orleans
 Des del múscul fins a l'os
 Des de la cabana de caçadors fins al Superdome
 No hi ha ajuda, la cavalleria es va quedar a casa
 Ningú escolta el toc del clarí
 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Allà on onegi aquesta bandera
 Ens hem de cuidar sols

 On són els ulls, els ulls amb el desig de veure?
 On són els cors que desborden de pietat?
 On és l'amor que no m'ha abandonat?
 On és la feina que alliberarà les mans i la meva ànima?
 On és l'esperit que regnarà sobre mi?
 On és la promesa Des del mar fins al mar resplendent?
 On és la promesa De costa a costa?
 Allà on onegi aquesta bandera
 Allà on onegi aquesta bandera
 Allà on onegi aquesta bandera

 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Allà on onegi aquesta bandera
 Ens hem de cuidar sols

 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Ens hem de cuidar sols
 Allà on onegi aquesta bandera
 Ens hem de cuidar sols


 Easy Money - Diners fàcils

 Tu et poses l'abric, jo em posaré el barret
 Tu treus el gos, jo treuré al gat
 Tu et poses el vestit vermell per a mi aquesta nit, estimada
 Anem a la ciutat ara, a la recerca de diners fàcils

 No té cap secret, Senyor, no s'escoltarà ni un sol soroll
 Quan tot el món s'ensorri
 I tots aquests peixos grossos, es pensaran que és divertit
 Vaig a la ciutat ara, a la recerca de diners fàcils

 Tinc una pistola del calibre 38
 Tinc el foc de l'infern cremant i tinc una cita
 Tenia una cita a les llunyanes ribes, lluminoses i assolellades
 Vaig a la ciutat ara,  a la recerca de diners fàcils

 Tu et poses l'abric, jo em posaré el barret
 Tu treus el gos, jo treuré al gat
 Tu et poses el vestit vermell, tens un aspecte magnífic, estimada
 Anirem a la ciutat ara, a la recerca de diners fàcils


 Shackled and Drawn - Encadenat i demacrat 

 Penetra la llum d'un gran alba a través de l'ombra
 Un dia més vell i més a prop de la tomba
 Estic més a prop de la tomba i arriba la matinada
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 Encadenat i demacrat, encadenat i demacrat
 Agafa la roca, fill, i transporta-la
 Caminant amb dificultat per la foscor en un món que va malament
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 Sempre m'agrada la sensació de la suor a la camisa
 Queda't darrere, fill, i deixa treballar a un home
 Deixa treballar a un home, és això tan dolent?
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 Encadenat i demacrat, encadenat i demacrat
 Agafa la roca, fill, i transporta-la
 Què pot fer un noi pobre en un món que va malament?
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 La llibertat, fill, és una camisa bruta
 El sol a la cara i la meva pala a la terra
 La pala a la terra manté el diable allunyat
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 Encadenat i demacrat, encadenat i demacrat
 Agafa la roca, fill, i transporta-la
 Què pot fer un noi pobre llevat seguir cantant la seva cançó?
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 El jugador tira els daus, el treballador paga les factures
 Continua tot fàcil i engreixat a dalt al turó dels banquers
 A dalt al turó dels banquers, la festa va in crescendo
 Mentre aquí baix estem encadenats i demacrats

 Encadenat i demacrat, encadenat i demacrat
 Agafa la roca, fill, i transporta-la
 Caminant amb dificultat per la foscor en un món que va malament
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 Encadenat i demacrat, encadenat i demacrat
 Agafa la roca, fill, i transporta-la
 Què pot fer un noi pobre excepte seguir cantant aquesta cançó?
 M'he aixecat aquest matí encadenat i demacrat

 Vull que tothom s'aixequi
 Vull que tothom s'aixequi i es faci sentir aquesta nit
 Sabeu que hem de pregar junts aquesta nit
 Vull que tothom s'aixequi
 Vull que tothom s'aixequi i es faci sentir aquesta nit

 Jack of All Trades - El manetes 

 Segaré la teva gespa
 Treuré les fulles del teu embornal
 Et repararé teva teulada
 Perquè no et entri la pluja
 Faré el treball
 Que Déu proveeixi
 Sóc un manetes
 Estimada, estarem bé

 Clavaré els claus
 I col·locaré la pedra
 Recolliré les teves collites
 Quan hagin crescut i madurat
 Desmontaré aquest motor
 I l'arreglaré fins que funcioni bé
 Sóc un manetes
 Estarem bé

 Bufa un huracà
 Porta una pluja intensa
 Quan el cel blau ressona
 Sembla com que el món hagi de canviar
 Començarem a tenir cura l'un de l'altre
 Com Jesús va dir que hauríem de tenir
 Sóc un manetes
 Estarem bé

 El banquer està cada vegada més gras
 L'obrer està cada vegada més prim
 Tot això ja va passar abans
 I passarà de nou
 Passarà de nou
 Ells apostaran la teva vida
 Sóc un manetes
 Estarem bé

 De vegades el demà
 Arriba amarat de tresors i sang
 Escolta, suportem la sequera
 Ara suportarem la inundació
 Està arribant un nou món
 Puc veure la llum
 Sóc un manetes
 Estarem bé

 Així que utilitza el que tinguis
 I aprèn a fer-ho funcionar
 Agafa el vell i converteix-lo en nou
 Si tingués una pistola
 Trobaria els bastards i els mataria a l'instant
 Sóc un manetes
 Estarem bé
 Sóc un manetes
 Estarem bé

 Death to My Hometown - Mort a la meva ciutat 

 No van volar les bales dels canons, no ens van matar els rifles
 No van caure bombes del cel, la sang no va amarar el terra
 Els centelleigs lluminosos no ens van encegar, no van sonar trons ensordidors
 Però tan segura com la mà de Déu, ells van portar la mort a la meva ciutat
 Ells van portar la mort a la meva ciutat

 Els projectils no van esquinçar el cel nocturn, no van cremar les ciutats
 Els exèrcits no van irrompre a les platges per les que vàrem morir
 No van ser coronats dictadors
 Eufòrics en una nit silenciosa, mai vaig escoltar ni un soroll
 Els malfactors assaltaven durant la nit
 I van portar la mort a la meva ciutat, nois
 I van portar la mort a la meva ciutat

 Ells van destruir les nostres fàbriques familiars i ens van prendre les nostres cases
 Van deixar els nostres cossos a la intempèrie, els voltors picotejaven els nostres ossos

 Així que, escolta, fillet
 Estigues preparat per quan arribin
 Perquè ells estaran de tornada tan segur com la sortida del sol
 Fes-te amb una cançó que entonar
 I canta fins que l'hagis après
 Sí, canta amb força i canta bé
 Envia als magnats lladres a l'infern
 Als lladres avariciosos que van venir
 I que devoraven la carn de tot el que trobaven
 Els delictes dels quals han quedat impunes
 Caminen pels carrers com a homes lliures
 Van portar la mort a la nostra ciutat, nois
 La mort a la nostra ciutat, nois

 This Depression - Aquesta depressió 

 He estat deprimit, però mai tant
 He estat perdut, però mai tant
 Aquesta és la meva confessió
 Necessito el teu cor en aquesta depressió
 Necessito teu cor

 He estat decaigut, però mai tant
 He vist defallir la meva fe, però mai m'he desesperat
 Aquesta és la meva confessió
 Necessito el teu cor en aquesta depressió
 Necessito el teu cor

 Sempre he estat fort, però mai m'he sentit tan feble
 Totes les meves pregàries han estat en va
 He estat sense amor, però mai abandonat
 Ara el sol del matí, el sol del matí surt
 Aquesta és la meva confessió
 Necessito el teu cor en aquesta depressió
 Necessito el teu cor
 Aquesta és la meva confessió
 Necessito el teu cor en aquesta depressió
 Necessito el teu cor
 Aquesta és la meva confessió
 Necessito el teu cor en aquesta depressió
 Necessito el teu cor

 You've Got It - Tu el tens 

 Mai ningú el troba
 Cap escola el va ensenyar mai
 Mai ningú ho va fer
 Ningú el va comprar
 Nena, tu el tens
 Nena, tu ho tens
 Vinga, dóna-me'l

 Ningú no pot trencar-lo
 No hi ha ningú que pugui robar-lo
 Ningú pot falsificar-lo
 Simplement ho saps quan ho sents
 Nena, tu el tens
 Nena, tu ho tens
 Vinga, dóna-me'l

 No pots llegir-lo en un llibre
 Ni tan sols negociar-lo
 Estimada, no té nom
 Simplement ho saps quan ho veus
 Nena, tu el tens
 Nena, tu ho tens
 Vinga, dóna-m'ho

 Bé, escolta, el teu amor temerari
 És valuós, així que no ho malgastis
 No puc dir-te de què ho van fer ells
 Però ho sé quan ho provo
 Nena, tu el tens
 Nena, tu ho tens
 El tens als ossos i a la sang
 Ets tan autèntica com mai ho va ser la realitat
 Nena, tu el tens
 Nena, tu ho tens
 Vinga, dóna-me'l

 Rocky Ground - Terreny rocós 

 (Sóc un soldat!) (Sóc un soldat!) (Hem estat viatjant sobre terreny rocós, terreny rocós)
 ... Aixeca't, pastor, aixeca't
 El teu ramat s'ha dispersat lluny dels turons
 Les estrelles han desaparegut, el cel està tranquil
 Els àngels criden: "Glòria! Al·leluia!"

 (Hem estat viatjant sobre terreny rocós, terreny rocós)
 ... Quaranta dies i nits plujoses han netejat aquesta terra
 Jesús els va dir als canvistes de moneda que en aquest temple no s'instal·larien
 Troba el ramat, porta'l a un terreny més alt
 Les aigües de la inundació creixen, i el regne està cremant

 (Hem estat viatjant sobre terreny rocós, terreny rocós)
 ... (Sóc un soldat!) Ocupa't del teu bestiar o s'extraviarà
 Serem cridats pel nostre servei quan arribi el dia del Judici Final
 Abans creuem aquest ample riu
 La sang a les nostres mans ens serà tornada per duplicat

 (Sóc un soldat!) (Hem estat viatjant sobre terreny rocós, terreny rocós)
 ... Aixeca't, pastor, aixeca't
 El teu ramat s'ha dispersat lluny dels turons
 Les estrelles han desaparegut, el cel està tranquil
 El sol està al cel i està naixent un nou dia

 Utilitzes el teu múscul i el teu cervell i reses amb tota la força
 Que totes les forces siguin suficient, que el Senyor faci la resta
 Cries els teus fills i els ensenyes a caminar drets i segurs
 Reses perque els temps difícils, els temps difícils, no tornin mai
 Intentes dormir, t'inquietes i dónes voltes, et prenen l'essencial
 On tu una vegada vas tenir fe ara només hi ha dubte
 Reses buscant orientació, només el silenci acull teves pregàries
 Arriba l'alba, ets despert però no hi ha ningú aquí

 (Hem estat viatjant sobre terreny rocós, terreny rocós) ...
 Està arribant un nou dia ...
 (Sóc un soldat!)...

 Land of Hope and Dreams - Terra de somnis i esperances 

 (Oh ! Aquest tren)
 (Estic conduint aquest tren)
 (No vols viatjar?)
 (Aquest tren, aquest tren)
 (Aquest tren, aquest tren)
 (Oh, puja, puja, puja, puja, puja)
 Agafa el teu bitllet i la maleta
 El tro esclata en aquestes vies
 No saps on aniràs ara
 Però saps que no tornaràs enrere
 Estimada, si estàs cansada
 Reposa el teu cap al meu pit
 Ens portarem el que puguem carregar
 I deixarem la resta

 Grans rodes corren pels camps
 On la llum del sol resplandeix
 Reuneix-te amb mi en una terra de somnis i esperances

 Et cuidaré
 I estaré al teu costat
 Necessitaràs un bon company ara
 Per a aquesta part del viatge
 Deixa enrere les teves penes
 Deixa que aquest dia sigui l'últim
 Demà brillarà el sol
 I tota aquesta foscor passarà

 Grans rodes corren pels camps
 On la llum del sol resplandeix
 Reuneix-te amb mi en una terra de somnis i esperances

 Aquest tren
 Porta sants i pecadors
 Aquest tren
 Porta perdedors i guanyadors
 Aquest tren
 Porta putes i jugadors
 Aquest tren
 Porta ànimes perdudes
 Aquest tren
 Els somnis no seran desbaratats
 Aquest tren
 La fe serà recompensada
 Aquest tren
 Escolta les grans rodes sonar
 Aquest tren
 Sonen campanes de llibertat
 Aquest tren
 Porta sants i pecadors
 Aquest tren
 Porta perdedors i guanyadors
 Aquest tren
 Porta putes i jugadors
 Aquest tren
 Porta ànimes perdudes
 Aquest tren
 Porta cors trencats
 Aquest tren
 Lladres i dolces ànimes mortes
 Aquest tren
 Porta ximples i reis coronats
 Aquest tren
 Tots a bord!

 Vaig dir que aquest tren
 Els somnis no seran desbaratats
 Aquest tren
 La fe serà recompensada
 Aquest tren
 Les grans rodes sonen
 Aquest tren
 Sonen campanes de la llibertat
 Anem, aquest tren
 La gent està preparada
 No es necessita bitllet
 Oh! Has de fer això
 Simplement pujar a bord
 Pujar a aquest tren
 (Aquest tren, ja)
 La gent està preparada
 No es necessita bitllet
 (Oh, ja no! No ho necessites)
 No es necessita bitllet
 Simplement puja a bord
 (La gent està preparada )
 Simplement es dóna les gràcies al Senyor
 (La gent està preparada)
 Simplement es dóna les gràcies al Senyor
 (La gent està preparada)
 Simplement es dóna les gràcies al Senyor
 (La gent està preparada)
 (Anem, aquest tren, la gent està preparada)
 (Anem, aquest tren, la gent està preparada)

 We Are Alive - Estem vius

 Hi ha una creu allà dalt en el Calvari
 Hi ha un rastre de sang en un ganivet de plata
 Hi ha un cementiri de nens allà baix
 On a la nit tornen a la vida
 I a sobre les estrelles centellegen
 La lluna d'un home mort traça set anells
 Posem les nostres orelles sobre la freda pedra sepulcral
 Aquesta és la cançó que ells canten
 Estem vius
 I encara que els nostres cossos jeuen abandonats aquí a la foscor
 Els nostres esperits s'eleven per dur el foc i encendre l'espurna
 Per lluitar colze a colze i cor amb cor

 Una veu crida Em van assassinar a Maryland el 1877
 Quan els obrers del ferrocarril van fer una plantada
 Bé, a mi em van assassinar el 1963
 Un matí de diumenge a Birmingham
 Bé, jo vaig morir l'any passat creuant el desert del sud
 Els meus fills es van quedar enrere a San Pablo
 Van abandonar els nostres cossos aquí perquè es podrissin
 Oh! Feu-ho saber
 Estem vius
 Oh! I encara que jaiem abandonats aquí a la foscor
 Les nostres ànimes s'elevaran per portar el foc i encendre l'espurna
 Per lluitar colze a colze i cor amb cor

 Deixa que la teva ment descansi tranquila, dorm bé, amic meu
 Són només els nostres cossos que finalment ens traeixen al final

 Anit em vaig despertar en un fosc i profund somni
 Dels peus al cap, el meu cos s'havia convertit en pedra freda
 Hi havia cucs arrossegant-se al meu voltant
 Els dits esgarrapaven una terra negra i a dos metres de profunditat
 Només en la foscor de la meva sepultura
 M'havien deixat sol per morir
 Llavors vaig escoltar veus que em cridaven al meu voltant
 La terra es va aixecar damunt meu, els meus ulls es van omplir amb el cel
 Estem vius
 I encara que els nostres cossos jeuen abandonats aquí a la foscor
 Els nostres esperits i ànimes s'eleven
 Per portar el foc i encendre la espurna
 Per lluitar colze a colze i cor amb cor
 Per romandre colze a colze i cor amb cor
 Estem vius

Wrecking Ball, la meva visió: "Land Of Hope And Dreams"

Vagi per davant que no sóc músic i que la meva opinió sobre el nou disc es basa en el que a mi em fa sentir. Si voleu llegir opinions de crítics especialitzats, la xarxa n'anirà plena, segur...

Després d'haver estat tot el dia escoltant l'àlbum sencer, puc dir que m'agrada. Molt. Moltíssim.

Clar que això ho he dit sempre de tots els àlbums que treu en Bruce. I per tant, la meva opinió no és gens objectiva. Però què carai! Si aquest és el meu bloc, la meva opinió és totalment subjectiva. Suposo que hi tinc dret...

Però anem al gra. A hores d'ara ja s'han fet molts comentaris sobre l'àlbum, ja que ha corregut com l'escuma per tota la xarxa. Jo posaré els comentaris que he anat fent al twitter mentre escoltava l'àlbum per primera vegada. Són frases molt curtes, però que expressen l'estat d'ànim que he tingut en aquell moment.

També aprofito per penjar les lletres de les cançons noves (gràcies a SpringsteenCorner).

El resum, per mi, seria que en Bruce ha fet un mix del millor de l'E Street Band i el millor de la Seeger Sessions Band, retornant als seus origens familiars (el so irlandès està molt present en la majoria de les cançons i ja bastant de folk).

EASY MONEY

Ideal per a tot l'estadi cantant
El principi és el 'You Win Again' dels Bee Gees

You put on your coat, I'll put on my hat
You put out the dog, I'll put out the cat
You put on your red dress for me tonight honey
We're going on the town now, looking for easy money

There's nothing to it, Mister, you won't hear a sound
When your whole world comes tumbling down
And all them fat cats, they'll just think it's funny
I'm going on the town now, looking for easy money

I've got a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight
I've got a hellfire burning, and I've got me a date
I made a date on the far shores, bright and sunny
I'm going on the town tonight looking for easy money

You put on your coat, I'll put on my hat
You put the dog, I’ll put out the cat
Put on your red dress, you're looking real good honey
We're going on the town now, looking for easy money

SHACKLED AND DRAWN

Fa que no pugui parar de seguir el ritme amb el peu

Great morning's light splits through the shade

Another day older and closer to the grave

I'm closer to the grave and come the dawn

I woke up this morning shacked and drawn

Shackled and drawn, shackled and drawn

Pick up the rock son and carry it on

Trudging through the dark in a world gone wrong

I woke up this morning shackled and drawn

I always love the feel of sweat on my shirt

Stand back son and let a man work

Let a man work, is that so wrong

I woke up this morning shackled and drawn

Shackled and drawn, shackled and drawn

Pick up the rock son and carry it on

What's a poor boy to do in a world gone wrong

I woke up this morning shacked and drawn

Freedom, son, is a dirty shirt

The sun on my face and my shovel in the dirt

The shovel in the dirt keeps the devil gone

I woke up this morning shackled and drawn

Shackled and drawn, shackled and drawn

Pick up the rock son and carry it on

What's a poor boy to do but keep singing his song

I woke up this morning shacked and drawn

Gambling man rolls the dice, working man pays the bill

It's still fat and easy up on banker's hill

Up on banker's hill, the party's going strong

Down here below we're shackled and drawn

Shackled and drawn, shackled and drawn

Pick up the rock son and carry it on

Trudging through the dark in a world gone wrong

I woke up this morning shackled and drawn

Shackled and drawn, shackled and drawn

Pick up the rock son and carry it on

What's a poor boy to do but keep singing this song

I woke up this morning shacked and drawn

I want everybody to stand up

I want everybody to stand up and be counted tonight

You know we've got to pray together tonight

I want everybody to stand up

I want everybody to stand up and be counted tonight

JACK OF ALL TRADES

Serà el moment dels mòbils (abans els encenedors)

I'll mow your lawn
Clean the leaves out your drain
I'll mend your roof
To keep out the rain
I'll take the work
That God provides
I'm a jack of all trades
Honey, we'll be all right

I'll hammer the nails
And I'll set the stone
I'll harvest your crops
When they're ripe and grown
I'll pull that engine apart
And patch her up 'til she's running right
I'm a jack of all trades
We'll be all right

A hurricane blows
Brings a hard rain
When the blue sky breaks
Feels like the world's gonna change
We'll start caring for each other
Like Jesus said that we might
I'm a jack of all trades
We'll be all right

The banker man grows fatter
The working man grows thin
It's all happened before
And it'll happen again
It'll happen again
They'll bet your life
I'm a jack of all trades
We'll be all right

Now sometimes tomorrow
Comes soaked in treasure and blood
Hey, we stood the drought
Now we'll stand the flood
There's a new world coming
I can see the light
I'm a jack of all trades
We'll be all right

So you use what you've got
And you learn to make do
You take the old
You make it new
If I had me a gun
I'd find the bastards and shoot 'em on sight
I'm a jack of all trades
We'll be all right
I'm a jack of all trades
We'll be all right

DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN

Àfrica? Irlanda?

No cannonballs did fiy, no rifles cut us down

No bombs fell from the sky, no blood soaked the ground

No powder flash blinded the eye, no deafening thunder sounded

But just as sure as the hand of God, they brought death to my hometown

They brought death to my hometown

No shells ripped the evening sky, no cities burning down

No armies stormed the shores for which we'd die

No dictators were crowned

High off on a quiet night, I never heard a sound

The marauders raided in the night

And brought death to my hometown, boys

And brought death to my hometown

They destroyed our families' factories and they took our homes

They left our bodies on the plains, the vultures picked our bones

So listen up, my sonny boy

Be ready for when they come

For they'll be returning sure as the rising sun

Now get yourself a song to sing

And sing it 'til you’re done

Yeah sing it hard and sing it well

Send the robber baron's straight to hell

The greedy thieves that came around

And ate the flesh of everything they found

Whose crimes have gone unpunished now

Walk the streets as free men now

They brought death to our hometown, boys

Death to our hometown, boys

THIS DEPRESSION

Em recorda les cançons del malaurat Warren Zevon

I've been down, but never this down
I've been lost, but never this lost
This is my confession
I need your heart in this depression
I need your heart

I've been low, but never this low
I've had my faith shaken, but never hopeless
This is my confession
I need your heart in this depression
I need your heart

I've always been strong, but I've never felt so weak
All my prayers have gone for nothing
I've been without love, but never forsaken
Now the morning sun, the morning sun is breaking
This is my confession
I need your heart in this depression
I need your heart
This is my confession
I need your heart in this depression
I need your heart
This is my confession
I need your heart in this depression
I need your heart

YOU'VE GOT IT

Em recorda molt a 'All Or Nothin'At All'

No one ever found it

Ain't no school ever taught it

No one ever made it

Ain't no one ever bought it

Baby you've got it

Baby you've got it

Come on and give it to me

Ain't no one can break it

There ain't no one can steal it

Ain't no one can fake it

You just know it when you feel it

Baby you've got it

Baby you've got it

come on and give it to me

You can't read it in a book

You can't even treat it

Honey it ain't got a name

You just know it when you see it

Baby you've got it

Baby you've got it

Come on and give it to me

Well listen up, your reckless love

Is precious so don't waste it

Can't tell you what they made it of

But I know it when I taste it

Baby you've got it

Baby you've got it

You've got it in bones and blood

You're real as real ever was

Baby you've got it

Baby you've got it

come on and give it to me

ROCKY GROUND

Necessito escoltar-la més cops. Gospel, Rap...

We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground
Rise up shepherd, rise up
Your flock has roamed far from the hills
Stars have faded, the sky is still
Angels are shouting "Glory Hallelujah"

We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground
Forty days and night of rain have washed this land
Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand
Find your flock, get them to higher ground
Flood waters rising, and the kingdoms on fire

We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground
Tend to your flock or they will stray
We'll be called for our service come Judgment Day
Before we cross that river wide
Blood on our hands will come back on us twice

We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground
Rise up shepherd, rise up
Your flock has roamed far from the hills
Stars have faded, the sky is still
Sun's in the heavens and a new day's rising

You use your muscle and your mind and you pray your best
That your best is good enough, the lord will do the rest
You raise your children and you teach 'them to walk straight and sure
You pray that hard times, hard times, come no more
You try to sleep, you toss and turn, the bottom's dropping out
Where you once had faith now there's only doubt
You pray for guidance, only silence now meets your prayers
The morning breaks, you awake but no one's there

We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground
There's a new day's coming

WE ARE ALIVE

El començament podria ser un outtake de 'Devils&Dust', derivant a Seeger.

Podria haver estat escrit pel Johnny Cash 

There's a cross up yonder up on Calvary Hill

There's a slip of blood on a silver knife

There's a graveyard kid down below

Where at night did come to life

And above the stars that crackle and fire

A dead man's moon throws seven rings

Well we put our ears to the cold grave stone

This is the song they'd sing

We are alive

And though our bodies lie alone here in the dark

Our spirits rise to carry the fire and light the spark

To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

A voice cried out I was killed in Maryland in 1877

When the railroad workers made their stand

Well I was killed in 1963

One Sunday morning in Birmingham

Well I died last year crossing the southern desert

My children left behind in San Pablo

Well they left our bodies here to rot

Oh please let them know

We are alive

Oh, and though we lie alone here in the dark

Our souls will rise to carry the fire and light the spark

To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

Let your mind rest easy, sleep well my friend

It's only our bodies that betray us in the end

I awoke last night in a dark and dreamy deep

From my head to my feet, my body had gone stone cold

there were worms crawling all around me

Fingers scratching at an earth black and six foot low

Alone in the blackness of my grave

Alone I'd been left to die

Then I heard voices calling all around me

The earth rose above me, my eyes filled with sky

We are alive

And though our bodies lie alone here in the dark

Our souls and spirits rise

To carry the fire and light the spark

To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

We are alive

Més articles sobre les cançons de Wrecking Ball: "Leap Of Faith"

PointBlank publica al seu lloc web una nova revisió de les cançons de Wrecking Ball, segons en Jos Westenberg, periodista holandès que va estar a l'audició de París de dijous passat. La cosa promet i molt!!!

Land Of Hope And Dreams

by Jos Westenberg
from the Dutch Springsteen fanzine BeTrue.nl, authors of the book Magic Night. Jos had the opportunity to listen to Wrecking Ball on Friday February 17th. Here’s his song by song analysis on the album.

We Take Care of Our Own
The albums opens with the most rocking song you all heard before.

Easy Money
Hiphop with Irish folk mixed together. A lot of hollering by Bruce. There are violins, tambourine and slide guitar. It sounds joyful. In the lyrics, the singer asks his girlfriend to get ready and put on her red dress, to go to town. “You put out the dog, I put out the cat. You put on your coat, I put on my hat.” He’s got a Smith and Wesson .38, to go out robbing some easy money. “All those fat cats will just think it’s funny”. The story does not develop much further than this, and therefore, it’s a little thin. More of a singalong.

Shackled and Drawn
“I woke up this morning shackled and drawn.” It’s a working man song, starts out like folk and ends in gospel. “What’s a poor boy to do in a world gone wrong?”, asks the singer. You can work your life hard, it’s all just “another day older, closer to the grave”. The party is with the bankers who got all the money, and not with the working people: “Gambling man rolls the dice, working man pays the bill. It’s still fat and easy up on banker’s hill. Up on banker’s hill, the party’s going strong. Down here below we’re shackled and drawn.” At the end of the song there is a female singer, straight out of the gospel church, calling repeatedly: “I want everybody to stand up and be counted, I want everybody to pray together”.

Jack of All Trades
Another working man song, like a slow waltz more introvert than the previous song but still with an electronic beat to it. The singer takes on every job he can acquire: gardener, roof mender, carpenter, car mechanic, farmer. “I take the work that God will provide, I’m the Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright.” This is someone who is taking care of his own. If you work hard enough and have faith, you will be alright: “We stood the drought, we’ll stand the flood. There’s a new world coming, I can see the light.” There seems to be a positive answer to the question Bruce asked at the start of the album: “We’ll start caring for each other again.” Although in the end, there is still a slight edge to this positive message: “If I had me a gun, I’ll find the bastards and shoot them on sight.” Who are the villains? “The banker man grows fat, the working man grows thin. It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again.” Bruce is channeling Woody Guthrie’s ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’ (“The gambling man is rich and the working man is poor”). The song ends in sampled loops and a guitar solo from Tom Morello. Mid-song has horns and a trumpet solo by Curt Ramm.

Death to My Hometown
Song starts with a marching drum beat and a tin whistle. It’s a folk song reminiscent of the civil war. The singer warns: his hometown is destroyed, not by canon ball or powder flash, but by the robber barons, a term from end 19th century indicating the powerful industrialists, enriching themselves by doubtful means. “They destroyed our families and factories, then they took our homes. Greedy barons brought death to my hometown.” It’s a warning to the listener, they will be coming to your town too, so “get a song to sing, sing it loud”. And when you see them, those “the robber barons, send them straight to hell”.

This Depression
A depressing song, lyrically. First verse: “I’ve been down, but never this down. I’ve been lost, but never this lost. This is my confession. I need your heart in this depression. I need your heart.” The singer seeks comfort to get through a lot of heartache. But it all seems hopeless: “All my prayers gone for nowhere. I’ve been without love but never forsaken.” Musically, it’s mainly introvert song but with a beat. There will be no comfort at the end (except maybe for the guitar solo by Tom Morello).

Wrecking Ball
The same version as the live version that debuted in Giants Stadium, except that it is played a lot faster. “Now my home was here in the Meadowlands, where mosquitoes grow big as airplanes. Here where the blood is spilled, the arena’s filled, and Giants play their game.” At the press meeting in Paris, Bruce explained why this song fits in the big picture of the album. “Something gets destroyed, just to build something new. It’s destruction of plain American values and ideals, that happened for the past thirty years.”

You’ve Got It
A simple love song that in the beginning reminds of ‘Trouble in Paradise’ off Tracks, and later, when the rockabilly rhythm picks up, of ‘All Or Nothin’ At All’ of Human Touch. Lyrically not really deep, the character praises his loved one who has ‘it’: “No one ever found it. Ain’t no school ever taught it. Ain’t no one can break it, ain’t no one can steal it. You can’t read it in a book, you can’t dream it. Baby you’ve got it.” And then bodly: “C’mon give it to me.” The singer can not name ‘it’, but still, his love has it: “Honey, it ain’t got a name. You just know it when you see it.” And be careful: “It’s precious, so don’t waste it.” After an acoustic start, electric guitars take over, and there are two guitar solos, with slide.

Rocky Ground
The weirdest song of the album. If fans where thinking of experimental work on ‘ ‘Worlds Apart’ off The Rising, then this song will leave those fans puzzled. Song starts with a sample of someone shouting “I’m a soldier”, a sample which returns a few time. There are drum loops and later a female voice (Michelle Moore from the Alliance Singers, who also sang on ‘Let’s Be Friends’) does a rap. At the start (and ending) of the song, a female voice sings repeatedly: “We’ve been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground.”
A lot of biblical images, it’s Springsteen Catholic upbringing at best. Bruce sings to a sheperd to watch his sheep: “Rise up, sheperd, rise up. Your flock has flown far from here.” In the second verse he sings: “Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand” and “The blood on our hands will come back to us twice”. It’s a real atmospheric song, but with some hope at the end: “You pray that hard times, hard times come no more” and “There’s a new day coming.” I can not imagine Bruce playing this with E Street band, the song sounds really too electronic to me.

Land of Hope and Dreams
A true E Street song, but not from the start. An electronic beat opens the song and a woman calls “Oh this train. I’m riding this train, this train, this train.” Then there is Steve’s mandoline (I guess it’s Steve), Max’s drum, organ and then full E Street takes over and builds the intro to a loud start. At the start of the first verse, it’s Bruce solo with acoustic guitar again, but E Street is back at the chorus. Clarence Clemons plays two solos, it’s Bruce’s “lovely moment” on the record, he declared in Paris. Also Steve is singing at the second part of the song and in the end, as the song turns into a gospel similar to the later live versions., a woman is singing parts of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘People Get Ready’. It could have been the end of the album.

We Are Alive
Sounds like a bonustrack – starts out sounding like a crackling vinyl recording – but it is not one of the bonus tracks (we didn’t hear these, only the standard edition). Musically, it reminds of The Ghost of Tom Joad album. Lyrically, it’s a bit weird. Death people are calling from the grave. At the start of the song, Bruce references Calvary Hill where Christ was crucified. “A dead man’s moon follows seven rings”. Without understanding, this all sounds like some verses from a Harry Potter novel. Then, “Our spirits rise. To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.”

In the second verse, three dead people appear: “A voice called, I was killed in Maryland in 1877, when the railroad workers made their stand.” Bruce refers to the Great Upheaval, a railroad strike in July 1877, which started in Martinsburg, West Virginia and effected large parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Governor John Carroll called in militia to stop the strike with force and violence. Thomas Alexander Scott, director at Pennsylvania Railroad, who was reported to be one of the first robber barons, said that a diet of riffle would teach these workers at strike a lesson. Eventually, president Rutherford B. Hayes sent soldiers to end the strikes.

The second dead person sings: “I was killed in 1963 one Sunday morning in Birmingham.” This refers to the racial conflicts in Birmingham, Alabama. In September 1963, a bomb attack killed 4 children and wounded many more at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, from where the civics rights movement Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by dr. Martin Luther King operated. The third dead person sings: “I died last year crossing the Southern desert, my children left behind in San Pablo”. San Pablo refers probably to a Mexican town (there are three cities called San Pablo in Mexico). Bruce has written about Mexican immigrants a lot before on The Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils & Dust. Alle dead people in ‘We Are Alive’ are left alone and forgotten: “They let our bodies here to rot.” But there is a resurrection: “We are alive. And though we lie alone here in the dark, our souls will rise to carry the fire and light, the spark. To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.”

This story reminds of ‘Matamoras Banks’ off Devils & Dust, where the ghost of a deceased Mexican immigrant floats ashore at the banks of the Matamoras river, and evenually turtles come to eat the skin off his eyes. Musically, ‘We Are Alive’ is joyful and uplifting, and puts a lot of contrast with the story. At the start, it is mainly Bruce with acoustic guitar, but trumpets remind of Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ and with violins it turns into Mexican Mariachi street music. It ends with Bruce walking away, whistling.

Musically, Wrecking Ball is uncomparable to any other Springsteen album. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions from 2006 comes close, but Wrecking Ball has more a rock edge to it whereas We Shall Overcome was straight-up folk. Perhaps the closest thing to compare it to, is the song ‘How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live’, which Bruce composed out of the original by Blind Alfred Reed during the Seeger Sessions Tour. Musically, but also thematically.

Article de Fiachra Gibbons a The Guardian: "All I'm Thinkin' About"

Fiachra Gibbons - The Guardian - 17/02/2012

Bruce Springsteen: 'What was done to my country was un-American'

The Boss explains why there is a critical,
questioning and angry patriotism
at the heart of his new album Wrecking Ball

At a Paris press conference on Thursday night, Bruce Springsteen was asked whether he was advocating an armed uprising in America. He laughed at the idea, but that the question was even posed at all gives you some idea of the fury of his new album Wrecking Ball.

Indeed, it is as angry a cry from the belly of a wounded America as has been heard since the dustbowl and Woody Guthrie, a thundering blow of New Jersey pig iron down on the heads of Wall Street and all who have sold his country down the swanny. Springsteen has gone to the great American canon for ammunition, borrowing from folk, civil war anthems, Irish rebel songs and gospel. The result is a howl of pain and disbelief as visceral as anything he has ever produced, that segues into a search for redemption: "Hold tight to your anger/ And don't fall to your fears … Bring on your wrecking ball."

"I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream," Springsteen told the conference, where the album was aired for the first time. It was written, he claimed, not just out of fury but out of patriotism, a patriotism traduced.

"What was done to our country was wrong and unpatriotic and un-American and nobody has been held to account," he later told the Guardian. "There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical, questioning and often angry patriotism."

The tone is set from the start with the big, bombastic We Take Care of Our Own – a Born in the USA for our times – where the most sacred shibboleth of Ordinary Joe America is sung with mocking irony through clenched teeth by a heart that still wants it to be true. "From the shotgun shack to the Superdome/ There ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home." It is a typical Springsteen appeal to a common decency beyond the civil war he sees sapping America.

Like Born in the USA, which got pressed into service as the anthem of the first Gulf war, he's aware it has the potential to be hijacked by the angry right. But Springsteen says that to anyone who cares to listen to the lyrics, the message is clear.

"A big promise has been broken. You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses. You can't have a civilisation where something is factionalised like this."

Springsteen plunges into darker, richer musical landscapes in a sequence of breath-taking protest songs – Easy Money, Shackled and Drawn, Jack of All Trades, the scarily bellicose Death to My Hometown and This Depression with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine – before the album turns on Wrecking Ball in search of some spiritual path out of the mess the US is in.

But it is also an ode to hard work, to the dignity it brings, and the blue-collar values he claims made America:

"Freedom son's a dirty shirt

The sun on my face and my shovel in the dirt

A shovel in the dirt keeps the devil gone

I woke up this morning shackled and drawn"

Asked where the fury of this lyric had come from, he talks movingly of his father who had been "emasculated by losing his job" in the 70s and never recovered from the damage to his pride. "Unemployment is a really devastating thing. I know the damage it does to families. Growing up in that house there were things you couldn't say. It was a minefield. My mother was the breadwinner. She was steadfast and relentless and I took that from her.

"Pessimism and optimism are slammed up against each other in my records, the tension between them is where it's all at, it's what lights the fire."

Hope is there. But it is a tempered hope. Land of Hope and Dreams is a plea for America's newest immigrants, those risking their lives to ride the trains up from central America. "This train … carries saints and sinners … losers and winners … whores and gamblers … Dreams will not be thwarted … Faith will be rewarded."

Springsteen, 62, says he is not afraid of how the album will be received in election-year America: "The temper has changed. And people on the streets did it. Occupy Wall Street changed the national conversation – the Tea Party had set it for a while. The first three years of Obama were under them.

"Previous to Occupy Wall Street, there was no push back at all saying this was outrageous – a basic theft that struck at the heart of what America was about, a complete disregard for the American sense of history and community … In Easy Money the guy is going out to kill and rob, just like the robbery spree that has occurred at the top of the pyramid – he's imitating the guys on Wall Street. An enormous fault line cracked the American system right open whose repercussion we are only starting to be feel.

"Nobody had talked about income inequality in America for decades – apart from John Edwards – but no one was listening. But now you have Newt Gingrich talking about 'vulture capitalism' – Newt Gingrich! – that would not have happened without Occupy Wall Street."

Having previously backed Obama, Springsteen says he would prefer to stay on the sidelines this time. "I don't write for one side of the street … But the Bush years were so horrific you could not just sit around. It was such a blatant disaster. I campaigned for Kerry and Obama, and I am glad I did. But normally I would prefer to stay on the sidelines. The artist is supposed to be the canary in the cage."

Obama hasn't done bad, Springsteen says. "He kept General Motors alive, he got through healthcare – though not the public system I would have wanted – he killed Osama Bin Laden, and he brought sanity to the top level of government. But big business still has too much say in government and there has not been as many middle- or working-class voices in the administration as I expected. I thought Guantanamo would have been closed but now, but he got us out of Iraq and I guess we will soon be out of Afghanistan."

The album is the last on which Clarence Clemons, the legendary saxophonist from the E Street Band, played on before he died last year. "When the sax comes up on Land of Hope and Dreams," Springsteen says, "it's a lovely moment for me."

Presentació Wrecking Ball a París: "Man At The Top"

Extracte de la roda de premsa d'en Bruce, a París, el 16/02/12, presentant Wrecking Ball

Bruce: La vida del rock és brutal. No deixeu que ningú us digui el contrari: "Working On A Dream"

"La meva feina ha sigut sempre jutjar la distància entre l'Amèrica Real i el Somni Americà"


"La vida del rock és brutal. No deixeu que ningú us digui el contrari"


"El moviment Ocupem Wall Street ha sigut molt poderós per canviar les converses a nivell nacional. El Tea Party havia copat les converses durant un temps però ara la gent està parlant sobre la igualtat econòmica. Aquesta és una conversa que no s'havia tingut a Amèrica en els darrers 20 anys"


"Vaig conèixer en Clarence quan tenia 22 anys, l'edat del meu fill (Evan), realment encara era un nen. Alguna cosa passava quan estàvem junts, disparava la meva imaginació. Perdre'l va ser com perdre alguna cosa elemental, l'aire o la pluja"


"Quan sento el solo de saxo (a Land Of Hope And Dreams), és un moment molt maco per a mi"


"Quan era un nen em van rentar el cervell amb el catolicisme (...) Si has sigut catòlic, sempre ets un catòlic"


"Com a artista, és millor mantenir una certa distància amb el poder"

En Neal McCormick ha publicat ja la seva entrevista al Bruce, feta avui a París. Aquí la teniu:

Bruce Springsteen: I enjoy artists who take on the world

Bruce Springsteen’s 17th studio album is his most overtly political yet. At its launch in Paris, the blue-collar icon reveals why .

Bruce Springsteen: 'I enjoy artists who take on the world'

“You can never go wrong in rock’n’roll when you’re p---ed off,” according to Bruce Springsteen. In Paris yesterday to unveil his new album, Wrecking Ball, to the world’s media, Springsteen admitted it had been written in a spirit of political anger. “My work has always been about judging the distance between American reality and the American Dream.”

Right now, he suggested, the distance was greater than it had ever been in his lifetime. With the financial crisis, “an enormous fault-line cracked the American system wide open and its repercussions are just beginning to be felt.”

Wrecking Ball is the 17th studio album from America’s blue-collar rock icon. Befitting troubled times for the working man, it is Springsteen’s most overtly political collection of songs. The title, he said, reflects “the flat destruction of some American ideals and values over the last 30 years. It seemed like a good metaphor.”

While the album is underpinned by a dark fury, in person Springsteen was relaxed, amusing and philosophical. Asked if he felt that his role as voice of protest was a burden, he laughed out loud. “I’m terribly burdened at night when I’m sleeping in my big house. It’s killing me,” he joked. “The rock life is brutal, don’t let anyone tell you different.”

Actually, he conceded, just to be a musician was “a charmed life. That’s why they call it playing.” But he spoke eloquently about how his family background, growing up in a household where his father had been “emasculated” by long-term unemployment, fuelled his interest in the underlying political causes, describing his songwriting as “having a conversation with myself”.

If so, it is a conversation that is taking a bleak turn. Springsteen has long chronicled the underbelly of the American Dream but this time he sounds sad, angry and even, at times, close to defeat. It is his Grapes of Wrath, an album for the New Depression.

Despite the anthemic roar and gutsy drive of the opening track, We Take Care Of Our Own, Wrecking Ball is not the kind of back-to-basics E Street rock Springsteen has been essaying in recent years. Reaching into the raucous roots of his Seeger Sessions, referencing gospel, folk and blues while bringing in drum loops, hints of hip hop and a raw mix that pushes vocals high, Springsteen appears keen to build bridges between the past and the present, finding contemporary resonances in timeless sources.

It also features the last sax solo from his long-time sparring partner, the late Clarence Clemons. “I met Clarence when I was 22, my son’s age, still a child really. Something happened when we got close, it fired my imagination. So losing Clarence was like losing something elemental, the air or the rain. There’s just something missing. We were lucky to get him on Land of Hope and Dreams. When the sax solo comes up, its a lovely moment for me.”

There is, in the essence of Springsteen’s oeuvre, a very American sense of exulting in the heroic underdog, but here there is a blackness to his mood, fuelled not just by the sense that the dignity of the working man is being assaulted and undermined, but that such assaults are, perhaps, a politically inevitable expression of the very character of the nation.

Time and again, Springsteen sets the image of the honest toiler against “bankers”, “fat cats” and “robber barons”. “An outrageous theft occurred that struck to the heart of the American idea,” suggested Springsteen. “And there has been no accountability.”

He does, however, see cause for optimism. “The Occupy Wall Street movement has been powerful about changing the national conversation. The Tea Party set the conversation for a while but now people are talking about economic equality. That’s a conversation America hasn’t had for 20 years.”

There is also a religious dimension to Springsteen’s latest songs. The album shifts towards the spiritual uplift of gospel music in its rousing finale, evoking Jesus and the risen dead. “I got brainwashed as a child with Catholicism,” joked Springsteen, who says biblical imagery increasingly creeps into his songs almost unbidden. “Its like Al Pacino in The Godfather: I try to get out but they pull you back in! Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.”

Springsteen supported Obama’s presidential campaign, and We Take Care of Our Own has already been added to the Obama re-election playlist, yet the often bitter tone of the album suggests Springsteen is not impressed with the powers-that-be.

He admitted, however, that he still supports Obama, who he felt had achieved some things in a difficult political environment. Springsteen doubted he would be actively involved in Obama’s campaign, however. “As an artist, its better to maintain a certain distance from the seat of power.”

He said the only thing he was really good at was making music. “I enjoy artists who like to take on the world as well as entertain their audience. I write to process my own experiences and if I can do that for me, I hope I can do that for you.”

He did, however, suggest that Obama could have a shot at Springsteen’s job. “Obama can sing!” he joked, referring to the Presidential karaoke performance widely viewed on YouTube. “Let’s stick together,” croaked Springsteen, then laughed at his own poor effort. “He’s better than me! I can’t sing that!”

Primera revisió de Wrecking Ball, segons The Telegraph: "Across The Border"

En Neil McCormick, periodista del diari anglès The Telegraph, ha sigut dels afortunats que ha pogut assistir avui a la roda de premsa que en Bruce ha ofert a París, com a presentació europea del nou àlbum "Wrecking Ball".

Els assistents han pogut escoltar el disc sencer i aquesta és l'opinió que n'ha fet, cançó a cançó:

En Bruce arrivant a París

1. We Take Care of Our Own

Muscular anthem of blue-collar pride and American togetherness. As stirring as the first single is, only little background touches of strings and echoes keep it from being Springsteen-by-numbers. The uplifting lyrics are just generic enough to have already been adopted by Obama for his re-election campaign, which might be considered ironic when the political anger that drives the album seems to stem from a nation that is not really taking care of its own, and where Springsteen claims to be “knocking on the door that holds the throne” and deploring “good intentions gone dry as a bone”.

2. Easy Money

A stomping rock beat houses a Celtic soul romp, with strumming acoustic guitars and fiddles. Its zydeco-meets-glam-rock jolliness is undermined when you realise that it’s the song of a couple of hustlers prepared to do violence to fill their wallets. Springsteen is whooping and wailing like mugging is fun, but his real target is the bigger economic crimes that underpin his outlaw anthem. “All those fat cats will just think it’s funny,” his small-time hood acknowledges of his petty misdemeanours, “looking for easy money”.

3. Shackled and Drawn

Like a chaingang blues with an Irish lilt, Springsteen channels the exuberant energy of the folk songs he recorded for the Seeger sessions, where even a lament sounds like a party. “What’s a poor boy to do in a world gone wrong?” he calls, but makes it universal and political when his shackled narrator turns his attention to the party going on “up on banker’s hill”, where “it’s still fat and easy”.

4. Jack of All Trades

A mordant waltz, underpinned by a slow arpeggio piano figure, this is another lament for the plight of the unemployed, delivered like a 1950s rock’n’roll lullaby. There is no doubt who the villains are in Springsteen’s latest epistle from the American frontline: “The banker man grows fat / The working man grows thin / It’s all happened before /And it’ll happen again”.

Effective in its own right, with a lonely trumpet adding soulful flourishes, the major chord sequences are perhaps just a bit too predictable. You could say these are folk songs for a new depression, but does the message risk being blunted by the over-familiarity of the medium?

5. Death to My Hometown

A martial beat drives along this folky ramble about a ghost town, destroyed not by “cannon ball” or “powder flash”, although the Civil War connotations are kept up with tin whistles piping and an ethereal choir haunting the chorus. In a Dylanesque coda, blame is laid once again at the feet of villainous bankers, or rather, in the archaic language Springsteen employs, “the robber barons”.

6. This Depression

Equating depression emotional and economic, Springsteen pits a delicate melody against a harsh, sledgehammer drum pattern to sombre effect. Deft little sonic touches keep a dark little song burning, with an atmospheric echoing lead solo and hints of ghostly voices.

7. Wrecking Ball

The title track has the slow burn of classic E Street Band, a defiant narrative driven by a thrashed acoustic guitar, the band swelling and subsiding as it follows the Boss’s vocal lead, always threatening to explode. When the blast comes, it is led by trumpets, not saxophone or electric guitar, a flavour that adds to the sense that Springsteen is looking back to a musical time before rock and roll for his inspiration. His exhortation to “hold tight to your anger” seems to be the core message of this lyrically dark yet musically uplifiting album..

8. You’ve Got It

Light relief, in the form of an optimistic love song, a little pop rock gem driven by the interplay of acoustic and electric guitars and full of pithy couplets. “No school ever taught it / But baby you’ve got it / Now come on give it to me”

9. Rocky Ground

The track where a new idea of Springsteen really breaks the surface. A sampled cry of “I’m a soldier” introduces an understated female chorus phrase sung over a downbeat, echoing looped drum pattern. The ambience hints at the brooding soul of Philadelphia. Lyrics evoke biblical language, with the money lenders in the temple still the focus of attention, but as a gospel choir pitches in, all these disparate elements start to fuse into a bold, weird 21st-century anthem of hope. Is this the first Springsteen song to feature a rapper?

10. Land of Hope and Dreams

Picking up on this nu-gospel quality, Springsteen strikes out for rocking E Street uplift over loops and samples. This universal chorus has been a staple of Springsteen shows for a long time, and it is great to hear it finally find its place on an album. No one else could sing a cliché like “This train carries saints and sinners” and still sound not just like they mean it, but that they are reminding us of something vital. There is even a sinuous sax solo, the ghost of the Big Man.

“All aboard,” Springsteen roars, and makes you want to jump on. He doesn’t make the mistake of overstating his case. It’s a grand finale to an album that aims at a classic, ancient sense of folk protest.

11. We Are Alive

A campfire song for ghosts of the oppressed, martyred strikers, protesters and immigrant workers, with Springsteen strumming and whistling while a Mariachi band kicks in to celebrate the eternal possibility of good triumphing over bad as an idea, if not a reality.

It is an uplifting end to a downbeat album, that tries to channel a spirit of folk protest via roots and folk into modern-day stadium rock. One playback is not enough to tell whether Springsteen has really achieved his aim. Are the songs too simplistic to stand with the classics in his canon, or do they strike the right notes of familiar form, adult emotion and spirited delivery to repeat in the listener’s psyche? Time will tell. But it is reassuring to find that at least one old rocker is still angry and impassioned, and desperate to make a difference

Primer directe del nou àlbum: "Souls Of The Departed"

En un entorn marcat per la mort de Whitney Houston unes hores abans, en Bruce i l'E Street Band han obert la  54ena edició dels Grammy's, amb una interpretació en directe de "We Take Care Of Our Own", primer single del nou àlbum "Wrecking Ball".

En Bruce ha estat acompanyat de l'E Street Band al complet més un conjunt de músics als violins. En aquesta ocasió no hi ha participat la secció de vents que els acompanyarà durant la propera gira, però sí que hi eren en Curtis King i la Cindy Mizelle.

Al final de la cerimònia, en Bruce ha tornat a pujar a l'escenari per protagonitzar un duel de guitarres amb Sir Paul McCartney.

En Bruce durant l'assaig

En Bruce amb Sir Paul McCartney

Aquells detalls humans que el fan més gran: "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)"

Va ser el cap de setmana passat i, si fos per ell, probablement, ni s'hauria sabut. La història va anar d'aquesta manera:

Mentre la Rachel era a la sala d'urgències del Centre Mèdic Monmouth, en Bruce Springsteen va passar per allà després de visitar un amic a l'hospital.

Abans de marxar, el pare es va acostar al Bruce i li va preguntar si podia passar a saludar a la Rachel.

Ell va entrar i la mare li va dir al Bruce que la Rachel tenia tota la seva música en el seu iPod, i que probablement la Rachel l'estaria escoltant a ell en aquell moment.

Ella es va treure els auriculars de les orelles i va dir-li: "No, estic escoltant a la Shania Twain!". En Bruce es va posar a riure i li va dir que a ell també li agradava la Shania. 

Van estar uns 10 minuts xerrant amb la nena i es va acomiadar de tota la família, fent-li un petó al cap de la Rachel i posant per a la foto. Segons els pares, tot plegat va ser genial i en Bruce va estar molt cordial.

La Rachel Colby i en Bruce

(La Rachel forma part del "Challenged Youth Sports Program", que és un programa sense afany de lucre, que promou l'esport entre nois i noies amb discapacitats)

Jake Clemons: "Book Of Dreams"

Jake Clemons va començar a viatjar a través del país amb la seva família cantant i actuant com un nen i no ha abandonat l'escenari des d'aleshores. Fill d'un ex director de la banda del Cos de Marines i nebot del famós Clarence Clemons, Jake té la música corrent per les venes.

Després d'haver passat la major part de la seva carrera com a músic molt sol·licitat en el saxofon, la guitarra i el piano, va arribar a un punt (gràcies als estímuls de músics de la talla de Dave Grohl dels Foo Fighters i el llegendari productor musical Brad Leigh) on la composició de cançons es va convertir en el seu principal objectiu.

Jake ha compartit l'escenari amb una gran quantitat d'artistes que van des de Will Smith a Eddie Vedder i fins a Bruce Springsteen. Precisament avui s'ha fet públic que en Jake formarà part dels músics que acompanyaran al Bruce i a l'E Street Band en el proper Wrecking Ball Tour.

Jake Clemons - "Love'll Never Change"

Jake Clemons - Drop Down

Jake Clemons - Jungleland (amb la BruceBand)

El nou "exèrcit" del Bruce: Ain't Got You

Finalment, ja s'ha fet públic qui acompanyarà el Bruce i a la E Street Band a la gira Wrecking Ball. Un dels grans dubtes és qui ocuparia el lloc de l'estimat i recordat Clarence Clemons. Com no podia ser d'una altra manera, la figura d'un GRAN músic no pot ser ocupada només per una persona. I en Bruce, això ho sap.


Jake Clemons,  Clark Gayton, Curt Ramm, Barry Danielian i Eddie Manion seran la secció de vent i, com en les darreres gires, Cindy Mizelle i Curtis King hi posaran els cors.

Per tant, en aquesta gira, tindrem 16 persones dalt de l'escenari. la cosa promet!

Bruce Springsteen

Steve Van Zandt

Roy Bittan

Nils Lofgren

Max Weinberg

Patti Scialfa

Garry Tallent

Soozie Tyrell

Charlie Giordano

Jake Clemons

Clark Gayton

Curt Ramm

Barry Danielian

Eddie Manion

Cindy Mizelle

Curtis King