Well, this is a hefty tome, an oversized hardback running to more than 250 pages, with something of the whiff of the academic about it – a meticulous study of Springsteen’s officially released oeuvre, to date, with insightful input on each album and every song on each album. Perfect for Springsteen Studies 101 – and conveniently enough both authors teach at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey and have a specialisation in The Beatles and Springsteen with Campbell having taught courses on both. ‘Bruce Songs‘ has a chapter on each studio album – and that this need in excess of 250 pages makes it clear that Springsteen’s studio releases make for a prodigious number – covering a little historical context for its position in Springsteen’s career, all the “sleeve information” – where recorded, who is on it, and a Track listing and then provides contemporary reviews from more or less well, recognised sources (and no, nothing from Americana UK) – we know Rolling Stone and Creem, NME and Sounds of course but Co-Ed and Salon not so much. This does mean, other than when the author’s quote their own reviews, that a given album’s merits (or otherwise) are presented at one remove from the author’s own opinions and are not tempered by the passage of time and the reassessment of where the work sits twenty or thirty years after original release.
There are summaries of chart success and sales reception, contemporary and/or reflective opinions from interviews with existing Springsteen and his inner circle and then a song-by-song summary covering topics of song theme, where the song sits in Springsteen’s writing, how it performed if released as a single and of course all the detail of who played on it. There is, though, little critical analysis – put simply “is this a good song or is it a terrible song?” – because this volume is more of a primer on Springsteen than a current critical assessment. Sometimes this leads to a rather overlaboured point – the discussion of ‘Working On A Dream‘ needs half a page not to quite say it’s about the somewhat ephemeral American Dream. The only guide from the authors to the student on where in their perception the song sits in importance is the amount they write about it. Some songs get half a page, ‘Reno‘ gets 51 words.
A really irritating quirk of the song analysis is that the position of the song on Rolling Stone’s 2022 list of Springsteen’s top 100 songs is given, but this list is not replicated in the volume. One can look it up online, one could pencil it in on the inside back cover as the book is progressed through, but as important as this assessment is seen to be by the authors, the simple retabulation of the list has been left as an exercise for the reader.
A bemusing quirk of the volume is that the Chapters are headed with a picture of the album cover all the way up to ‘Human Touch‘ and then from ‘Lucky Town‘ onwards there are mostly images of Springsteen playing live, or photographs of billboards or record store displays. And then with ‘Western Stars‘ and ‘Letter to You‘ we’re back to album covers. This seems rather odd, why not always use the cover – which is, after all, Springsteen’s portrayal of the album in a single image – and just insert the live shots to break up the text?
Don’t get me wrong though, this is a valuable volume for putting the recordings of Bruce Springsteen into an historical context, with a general overview of where he was mentally at the time of writing, where it sits within his different personas whether it be Dylanesque wordsmith, rebellious young rocker, champion and documenter of the working class, MTV pop star, latter-day Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie style troubadour. With the gathered together snippets of contemporary criticism and the thoughts of those who created the records it acts as an excellent sourcebook for getting an overview of a long and varied career. Would suit anyone interested in Springsteen’s complete works who could use a comprehensive reference book, or a student with little actual knowledge of Springsteen.
