Tramps like Us: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

With the release of Tracks II, Springsteen's archive dump of seven previously unreleased albums, I figured it was time to shore up my own knowledge of the Springsteen discography. This means a full run of the completely discography, in (mostly) chronological order, including archival releases (not including live recordings or Greatest Hits compilations, probably). The way my brain works is that I don't retain anything unless I document the experience in words, and so I'm going to be here writing about it. I don't have the energy for any grand, ornate, 4000-word essays. But I wanna scribble a little something in the margins of this blog, once for each album, including all the albums I already know well (like this one). Expect these every two or three weeks. I'm taking my time. I don't want to get sick of Bruce Springsteen.

Is that even possible though? Let's start there. Is it possible to get sick of Bruce Springsteen? It's a funny question, because the man has such a vast body of work that, even if you get sick of a certain sound or era, there's something else tucked away in another corner of his career that might reignite the flame for you. I think if I was alive in 1973 and bought Springsteen's debut album, I'd probably get sick of him pretty quickly. 

For reasons that are incredibly boring and trite, I've always slightly disliked Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Right at the beginning, the criticism lobbed at Springsteen was "the new Dylan," and only here on this very first album is that criticism completely true. He's trying too hard. The relentless, occasionally nonsensical jumbles of poetry cause a considerable amount of flopsweat, you can just tell. Springsteen was and is a master at making the myth of rock and roll feel so natural, so effortless. That doesn't happen here. You can hear the seams bursting.

Not to say it's a bad album—it's all relative with this artist. Sometimes I think that I am so exhausted that I hate a song, but then by the end of the I'm like, damn, that was good. "For You" did that for me a few times during these current relistens. I hate how the bottom falls out in every chorus, but yo, that verse leading up to the final chorus? Amazing tension-building. The good shit is here, but Bruce just needed to refine it a little bit.

Something that I wasn't aware of before diving into this album again—or maybe I was and I had just forgotten—was that the album originally consisted of five "solo" songs and five full-band songs. Apparently Clive Davis, head of Columbia Records, balked at this, and Springsteen cut three of the solo songs and wrote/recorded "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirit in the Night" real quick. The two solo songs that survived, "Mary Queen of Arkansas" and "The Angel," are by far the worst songs here, and so cool, yeah, add the E Street Band to everything, I'm down.

The issue is that I'm also iffy on those two hits that were recorded last minute. "Spirit in the Night" is fine. It was overplayed on classic rock radio, but only because it's not that great of a song and they still played it the requisite number of times and I got sick of it real quick in my youth. Too jazzy for my tastes. Too... Sharks v. Jets or something, I dunno. "Blinded by the Light" is handicapped by the fact that I heard the shitty Manfred Mann version one thousand times before I realized it was a Springsteen original (to this day, that cover version is the only Springsteen-penned track to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100). The stink is too deeply ingrained to wash off. It's irrevocably been made corny as shit!

It's funny, though. I forget about this sometimes, my minute personal history with "Blinded by the Light." Nineteen years ago, I was tasked with coming up with a quote for my senior yearbook. I wanted something that fit my outlook on life at the time—sort of reckless, freedom-seeking, so much ahead of me. I suppose I was drawn to the youngest version of Springsteen available in commercial print, since I too was young. And plus, this album, and "Blinded by the Light" in particular, seem to pack as many words in there as possible (always chuckle when he says the entire sentence "blow the bar but first remove the cookie jar we're gonna teach those boys to laugh too soon" as if it's one single word), so there was a lot to choose from.

What I chose was: "Mama always told me not to look into the sights of the sun, but mama, that's where the fun is." In my mind, this line speaks to the idea of living your life to the fullest, especially when you're young, regardless of the hard-earned wisdom from the elders in your life. It means living in the here and now, regardless of the pain it's going to cause you later. It means accepting the consequences of your decisions, because it'll have all been worth it.

Two decades later, I am now the "Mama" in that equation, and I constantly tell my kids not to look into the sights of the sun. But I understand too that some people have to make their own mistakes so that they learn. I was like that, growing up ("ooooooooh ooooooh, growing up"). I learned my lesson. I looked into the sights of the sun, because that's where the fun was. The yearbook quote came true. No regrets. 

No regrets for becoming acquainted with Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. at an early age, either. Even though it's definitely Springsteen's worst album. I can tell you not to look into the sights of this particular sun, but I know you'll never listen to me. That's okay.

I don't know if I have this many words for every Springsteen album, even for the next two, which are essential, towering albums from my youth. But we'll see. No pressure. I'm just typing a little bit, and listening to one of my favorite artists. Feel free to listen along? I dunno. Or just ignore this blog post, that's fine.

Song for the "Tramps like Us" mixtape: For each album, I'll pick one song to add to a playlist. I don't want the pick to automatically be "the best song on the album," because that would be boring. No "Born to Run" on this thing. I'm looking more for a deep cut that nevertheless encapsulates what makes that particular album special. This week, I'm going with "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City."

I've also added a new "Springsteen" tag for the blog, and I'm going to spend some time going into the archives and adding the tag to all relevant posts. You can click HERE to explore Bruce Springsteen on Puke on Your Birthday so far!