Music |
Devils & Dust
Bruce Springsteen
By
Published: Jan 01, 2005
Category:
Rock
Devils & Dust
Bruce Springsteen
I came to Paris this month to work on my book without the incessant buzz of American culture in my head. My wife knew that there’s no life for us without at least some of that buzz — when she saw that Bruce Springsteen was playing in Paris midway through our visit, she bought tickets on eBay. So instead of a leisurely dinner and a long walk home last night, we went to the Bercy Arena for Bruce’s one-man show. Twenty-six songs later, I can confirm what I always suspected — when you get down to it, there’s a lot of Jersey in Paris .
A New York Times reviewer wrote about one of Springsteen’s American shows that this solo effort had him “struggling under the weight of his own decency.” I would have used “struggling” as the subject of that sentence — the song cycle Springsteen has created here is a universal study of effort. How hard it is to make it through. How easy to get lost and defeated. The sacrifice of choosing our children over ourselves. The thrill of modest but available victories — a smile, a touch.
Springsteen’s formula is textbook Marine: break ’em down, then build ’em up. The key songs in this effort come early in the show — “The River” and “Point Blank.” The kid in “The River,” marrying his pregnant girlfriend at 19, and the old friend in “Point Blank
