Bruce Springsteen
Devils & Dust

THE REVIEW

The 90s were dominated by the attempt to leave behind the grandeur of works, studio and live, with the E Street Band, an attempt which, as much as possible, succeeded. Then the "re-union" with the ESB, September 11th, and The Rising, an album, practically a "double," as beautiful as it is rich and complex, destined to remain, perhaps wrongly, too closely linked to the tragic event of the 2001 attack and somewhat detached from the rest of the production, as demonstrated by the rare live performance of most of the tracks, despite its high artistic value.

After that album, everyone expected another record with the ESB. Instead, in 2005 came Devils & Dust, a very sparse folk album, with Springsteen playing everything, including the drums, assisted by a few understated embellishments, mostly involving the subtle inclusion of the Nashville String Machine's strings, giving a country touch to an otherwise dark album, yet one with clear beauty.

It’s easy to connect the record to Nebraska (1982) and The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) under the common label of folk albums, and to some extent, it’s fair to do so, although, in my opinion, this is a more complex and richer album than the first two, without wishing to make beauty rankings, especially since both Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad are masterpieces, different from each other and different from the album at hand.

The album opens with Devils & Dust, a masterpiece, a track surely conceived to be played with the band, which rarely happened, with a final result not inferior to the album version, where keyboards, organ, and strings provide a soundscape of great beauty and impact, embracing the acoustic guitar, majestic and expressive vocals, and the author's harmonica. The lyrics are the diary of an American soldier (probably on a mission in Iraq) talking with a friend and colleague at the front, confessing to having dreamed of his death: dreaming of a friend's death in war is somewhat like dreaming of one's own death, fueling the soldier’s doubts about fighting without reason: "I got my finger on the trigger but I don't know who to trust". This is the only track on the album that addresses war, connecting it to the events of The Rising. From here on, the album's central theme becomes the man-woman relationship experienced in the family dimension of husband-wife/child-parent.

All the Way Home and Reno are songs about the end of love. In the first, the man vainly tries to recover a failing relationship; in the second (censored for its explicit lyrics), he turns to the attentions of a prostitute who nevertheless fails to give him the emotions and passion of the partner who is no longer there, in this case after a tragic event. Musically, the first is a very tense and acidic blues-rock track, played on an electrified sarangi (played by Brendan O'Brien) giving an ethnic touch, while the second is a blues-folk dominated by a dobro guitar enriched with string touches.

Silver Palomino, Jesus Was an Only Son, and The Hitter form a triad that narrates, with extremely high poetic peaks, the mother-son relationship: the first tells of a mother's death whose spirit the son revives in a silver-colored pony, the second speaks, through the biblical images of Jesus's death, of the mother's pain at losing a son, the last of a son's pain, a street-fighting boxer, seeking a bit of sweetness and forgiveness in his mother's arms; musically, Silver Palomino and The Hitter are two folk pieces of the best American school, with The Hitter considered among the most beautiful songs not only by Springsteen but in the American folk repertoire. Jesus Was an Only Son, perhaps the album's most beautiful song, has nothing of folk; it's a gospel piece dominated by piano and female choirs (Tyrell, Scialfa, Lowell), reminiscent of some "spiritual" musical episodes from Bob Dylan's Christian conversion albums.

Usually, Bruce Springsteen's albums close with a filler (so to speak): All I'm Thinkin' About was perhaps conceived as a closure, a piece with simple and carefree lyrics ("all I think about is you, baby"), after so much poetry; musically interesting, though, country played on a dobro guitar and sung with an effective falsetto voice.

Closing with Matamoros Banks, another folk masterpiece, alongside The Hitter: here, themes from The Ghost of Tom Joad return, speaking of Mexican immigrants losing their lives crossing rivers; "for two days the river keeps you down, then you rise to the light"... for two days the river keeps you down, then you rise to the light without any noise: starting like this, in two verses of incredible beauty, it has already said everything; Springsteen's performance is beautiful, showcasing, in my opinion, his best vocal performance ever in this album.

It is not a simple album, not musically able to quickly capture attention; it is folk precisely for this, for its non-commerciality.

I recommend accompanying the listening with a careful reading of the lyrics, which are the poetic pinnacle of Springsteen's work.