•
Rating:
The Boss has long been scraping the bottom of the barrel. His good fortune is that the bottom never arrives, as every time he wishes to fill the market with some musical release without having a new album of original songs ready, he puts out a collection of tracks excluded from previous works, or a live album. In this 2010, he even played both cards with the live album "London Calling" and this "The Promise", which collects everything that couldn't make it into the marvelous "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" back in 1978. That was a more intimate and disillusioned album than its predecessors, especially when compared with the 1975 masterpiece "Born To Run", where youthful hopes and dreams reigned, only to find themselves drowning in the rough regrets of adulthood three years later, with which one eventually has to come to terms.
The most fascinating aspect of the artist that was Bruce Springsteen is surely that he hasn't composed albums by choosing from the vast range of songs he wrote the most radio-friendly ones, thus producing a jumble of catchy pieces to feed the charts, but instead those that gave the album a complete sense, those that were closer to what he wanted the spirit of the album to be. "Born In The U.S.A." managed to be both. This explains the exclusion from the '78 album of some excellent tracks that are being revived here, like "Because The Night" or "Fire" later donated to others but always remaining in the heart of the Boss: they weren't sufficiently coated with that disenchantment of a vanished dream, of a promised land discovered not to be his America, of that sense of emptiness that only hope stored away in a basement box can convey. As Springsteen himself stated, the songs contained in this "The Promise" should have been released between "Born To Run" and "Darkness On The Edge Of Town", and that's where they should be placed, forming a bridge between illusion and disillusion, they are certainly less dreamy but haven't given up yet. The title track, already known for appearing on the "18 Tracks" compilation in '99 in a different (and better) version, embodies the entire sense of the album and throws that bridge completely: "I followed that dream just like those guys do up on the screen, and I drive a Challenger down Route 9 through the dead ends and all the bad scenes, and when the promise was broken I cashed in a few of my dreams" only to end by recalling that Thunder Road which, until just a few years before, meant escape, hope, a shake to sedentary life to not die in a bed of regrets; now, sadly, ends on a melancholic note: "Thunder Road, we were gonna take it all and throw it all away". And then? And then there's darkness on the edge of town.
This album is appreciated by those nostalgic for the storytelling Springsteen, the authentic, true, American uncle, and not the grotesque caricature of himself he's been proposing for a while now. The Boss's barrel is incredibly well-stocked, and what comes out of it certainly isn't up to the albums released in the golden days, but it is much superior to those published in recent, dark times.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Badlands (04:04)
Lights out tonight
trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision
smashin' in my guts, man
I'm caught in a cross fire
that I don't understand
But there's one thing I know for sure girl
I don't give a damn
For the same old played out scenes
I don't give a damn
For just the in betweens
Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul
I want control right now
you better listen to me baby
talk about a dream
Try to make it real
you wake up in the night
With a fear so real
Spend your life waiting
for a moment that just don't come
Well, don't waste your time waiting
(Chorus)
Badlands, you gotta live it everyday
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay
We'll keep pushin' till it's understood
and these badlands start treating us good
Workin' in the fields
till you get your back burned
Workin' `neath the wheel
till you get your facts learned
Baby I got my facts
learned real good right now
You better get it straight darling
Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
till he rules everything
I wanna go out tonight,
I wanna find out what I got
I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that could save me
I believe in the hope
and I pray that some day
It may raise me above these
(Chorus)
mmmmmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmm
For the ones who had a notion,
a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin
to be glad you're alive
I wanna find one face
that ain't looking through me
I wanna find one place,
I wanna spit in the face of these badlands
02 Adam Raised a Cain (04:35)
In the summer that I was baptized
my father held me to his side
As they put me to the water
he said how on that day I cried
We were prisoners of love, a love in chains
He was standin' in the door I was standin' in the rain
With the same hot blood burning in our veins
Adam raised a Cain
All of the old faces
ask you why you're back
They fit you with position
and the keys to your daddy's Cadillac
In the darkness of your room
your mother calls you by your true name
You remember the faces, the places, the names
You know it's never over it's relentless as the rain
Adam raised a Cain
In the Bible Cain slew Abel
and East of Eden he was cast
You're born into this life paying
for the sins of somebody else's past
Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames
Adam raised a Cain
Lost but not forgotten, from the dark heart of a dream
Adam raised a Cain
04 Candy's Room (02:48)
In Candy's room there are pictures of her heroes on the wall
But to get to Candy's room you gotta walk the darkness of Candy's hall
Strangers from the city call my baby's number and they bring her toys
When I come knocking she smiles pretty she knows I wanna be Candy's boy
There's a sadness hidden in that pretty face
A sadness all her own from which no man can keep Candy safe
We kiss my heart's pumpin' to my brain
The blood rushes in my veins fire rushes towards the sky
We go driving driving deep into the night
I go driving deep into the light in Candy's eyes
She says baby if you wanna be wild you got a lot to learn, close your eyes
Let them melt let them fire let them burn
`Cause in the darkness there'll be hidden worlds that shine
When I hold Candy close she makes these hidden worlds mine
She has fancy clothes and diamond rings
She has men who'll give her anything she wants but they don't see
That what she wants is me, oh and I want her so
I'll never let her go no no no
She knows that I'd give all that I got to live
All that I want all that I live to make Candy mine
Tonight
07 Factory (02:20)
Early in the morning factory whistle blows,
Man rises from bed and puts on his clothes,
Man takes his lunch, walks out in the morning light,
It's the working, the working, just the working life.
Through the mansions of fear, through the mansions of pain,
I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain,
Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life,
The working, the working, just the working life.
End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
And you just better believe, boy,
somebody's gonna get hurt tonight,
It's the working, the working, just the working life.
10 Darkness on the Edge of Town (04:30)
They're still racing out at the Trestles
But that blood it never burned in her veins
Now I hear she's got a house up in Fairview
And a style she's trying to maintain
Well if she wants to see me
You can tell her that I'm easily found
Tell her there's a spot out 'neath Abram's Bridge
And tell her there's a darkness on the edge of town
Everybody's got a secret, Sonny
Something that they just can't face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take
'Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town
Some folks are born into a good life
Other folks get it anyway anyhow
I lost my money and I lost my wife
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop
I'll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By thunder87
"In my opinion, this is the best rock album ever produced. A timeless masterpiece underrated as a whole."
"The strangled and agonizing cry of 'Adam Raised a Cain,' 'Something in The Night,' and 'Streets of Fire' do the rest."
By mosesgama
This is the most beautiful album in history, at least for me.
The Boss sings as if the words were piercing his heart, the E Street Band plays as one, and the songs are perfect.
By Blackdog
The journey to adulthood corresponds to an inevitable and painful loss of innocence spawned by merciless 'Badlands'.
The angry guitar riff make clear a certain autobiographical discomfort and the disillusionment present in the entire album.
By Ancora D'Oro
The album in question is a real mess.
Big raw rock, this big raw rock that scatters examples in every corner, is mindlessly insignificant stuff.
