Bruce Springsteen

Western Stars (2019)

	

  1. Hitch Hikin'
  2. The Wayfarer
  3. Tuscon Train
  4. Western Stars
  5. Sleepy Joe's Cafe
  6. Drive Fast (The Stuntman)
  7. Chasin' Wild Horses
  8. Sundown
  9. Somewhere North of Nashville
  10.Stones
  11.There Goes My Miracle
  12.Hello Sunshine
  13.Moonlight Motel
  


  
  

What a pleasant, beautiful surprise album this is.

It has now long been a given that when an announcement is made of a forthcoming Bruce Springsteen album, one can't immediately detect just what kind of album it will be. The days of only recording arena rockers with the legendary E Street Band have now long since passed. There have been several acoustic story-telling sparse efforts from The Boss over the years that usually invoked more travails and misery than comfort, yet even those were mostly well received.

This one is unique in many ways. First, musically Springsteen is stretching the expectations a bit. These songs are lush, highly arranged, complete with strings and other effects that make these songs more appropriate for an introspective blockbuster film as opposed to a stadium filled rockfest. It's simply flat out pleasant. We then just might be a tad surprised here to find that these stories within the songs are quite happy ones. We really don’t hear about unemployment, criminals on the run, or immigrants trying to cross the border illegally. What we mostly do hear are make-believe tales of a man in the fourth quarter of his life looking back and reflecting of years gone by.

As the title (and album cover) suggest, all of these tales have a western flair. Not as in the old "west" of cowboys and saloons, but modern day dusty places such as Tucson, Albuquerque, and Amarillo. Our settings take place in old cafes, rusty cross-country trains, and in less-than well kept bars where gritty old men like to meet and share tales of yore over beers and whiskey.

Like a lot of Springsteen's work, this album is best enjoyed when absorbing the lyrics as well as the music. Whereas the music is well welcomed on tracks such as Sleepy Joes Cafe, Drive Fast (The Stuntman), and the beautiful closer Moonlight Motel, one really earns a far better appreciation when the stories that accompany these tunes can be slowly absorbed.

It really is also a nice change of pace to hear Bruce sing about the simple pleasures of life instead of his tendency to mainly write about the sewers of life and our country's politics etc. Even if most of the happiness we hear is in retrospect.