For me it’s the witness he gives in his lyrics and in his raspy soulful voice to intense pain and despair. I might not always like every song, but when I find his witness to my pain that I can’t describe through the stories he tells in his music, I stop and listen. In some cases I not only listen, but I also respond at a visceral level.
To that point, The Ghost of Tom Joad is probably a top 3 album of all time. Just fantastic story telling on that album. Straight time is so fucking good. Galveston bay, across the border, Sinaloa cowboys (holy shit what a story), Youngstown, ghost of Tom joad, highway 29, dry lightening. I mean all of those for me are absolutely fantastic songs. Hence top 3 all time album in my view.
If I should fall behind might be the greatest love song ever written.
even routine albums like Devils and Dust have songs with lyrics that blow my mind. Working on a dream, city of ruins, nothing man, streets of Philadelphia, my hometown, secret garden (I have this on my current play list), stolen car (patty does it better I’ll be honest), and I could go on and on. Those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
his Seeger sessions tour was a bomb in the US but was wildly popular in Europe and the jam sessions on that tour were like nothing else, just spectacular. And not traditional E street music.
and so his most popular rock songs are not typically what I gravitate to when I need a Springsteen fix. Frankly the sadder and more melancholic or the intense optimistic songs from a place of destruction are the ones that speak to me. And songs like that - the stories that evoke pain and heartache and possibly optimism in those places, there are very few musicians as good as Bruce.