The River (Bruce Springsteen album)
Co-produced by Springsteen, his manager Jon Landau, and bandmate Steven Van Zandt, the recording sessions lasted 18 months in New York City from March 1979 to August 1980.The lyrics expand on the themes of Springsteen's previous albums Born to Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and mainly focus on love, marriage, and family.[4] Springsteen wrote both new material[2] and had an assortment of pre-written tracks either already recorded in the studio during the Darkness sessions or performed live on the tour,[3] including "Independence Day", "Point Blank", "The Ties That Bind", "Ramrod", "Drive All Night", and "Sherry Darling".[3] According to the author Peter Ames Carlin, the new material picked up where Darkness left off, being influenced by early rock and roll and country records, with stories capturing "snapshots of the real world as viewed through the hopes, labors, fears, joys, and strugglers of the unheralded many".[8] Songs that took shape during this time included "The Ties That Bind", "Be True", "Hungry Heart", "I Wanna Be with You", "Bring on the Night",[3] and "Roulette", which was written as a response to the Three Mile Island accident and foreshadowed Springsteen's future as a politicized singer-songwriter.[17] The Power Station's resident engineer Bob Clearmountain was taken aback by Springsteen's work ethic at first but was impressed by his material and dedication to achieving perfection.[b][22] Between May and mid-June, the band recorded "Sherry Darling", "Independence Day", "I Wanna Be With You", "Ramrod", "Bring on the Night", "Jackson Cage", "Be True", and "Hungry Heart",[23] which Springsteen initially wrote for the Ramones, believing its poppy sound was out of place with the rest of the material,[24] but Landau convinced him to keep it.[24][25] Anticipating a hit single, the mixer Chuck Plotkin sped the tape up to "give the vocal a more boyish lilt", after which Clearmountain mixed the song.[24][25] In June, Springsteen attended the wedding of his lighting director Marc Brickman in Los Angeles, California,[27][28] after which he wrote "Stolen Car" and other songs with marital and parental themes, including "The Price You Pay", "Loose Ends", "I Wanna Marry You", and "Cindy".[d][32] In his 2016 autobiography Born to Run, he explained that he was inspired by artists such as Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Marvin Gaye, who "created self-aware, self-contained worlds on their albums, and then invited their fans to discover them".[32] After performing at the No Nukes benefit concerts for Musicians United for Safe Energy at Madison Square Garden with the E Street Band in mid-September,[e][39] Springsteen reconceptualized the album.[41] With The Ties That Bind scrapped, the recording sessions continued through the end of 1979 into 1980 as Springsteen kept writing new material,[42] including "Crush on You", "Where All the Bands Are", "Party Lights", "I'm a Rocker", "Living on the Edge of the World", "Take 'em as They Come", "Out in the Street", and "Two Hearts".[35] Carlin said the live performances give the songs a "barroom feel that trade the precision of 'Born to Run' and 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' with the power of the full band's instrumental wallop".The last two sides, on the other hand, describe one version of how someone bred on rock and roll dreams comes to terms with the knowledge that he has aged.The album opener, "The Ties That Bind", is an up-tempo track featuring saxophone.[57] Based on 1960s songs like the Swingin' Medallions' "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" (1966),[60] the lyrics are about a man who wants to be alone with his girlfriend in his car, but is stuck driving his rowdy mother-in-law to an unemployment agency."[82][83] Inspired by the lives of Springsteen's own sister and brother-in-law,[84][13] "The River" possesses themes of nostalgia and sadness,[85] telling the story of a young man who has settled into life by his late teens, marrying his pregnant girlfriend, Mary,[86] and getting a union construction job.[60][84] The song also describes the couple's unromantic courthouse wedding, the narrator losing his job due to the "economy",[86] and the two's memories of swimming in a local watering hole referred to as "the river".[60][89][57] "I'm a Rocker" is a humorous,[59] playful,[90] rockabilly-style[60] rock song offering "an effective sideswipe at commercialism gone wrong",[59] featuring cultural references to Batman, James Bond, Kojak, Columbo, Mission: Impossible, and more.[60][62] Margotin and Guesdon write that tracks such as "I'm a Rocker" encapsulated the energy of the live songs, while others like "Point Blank" echoed the "austerity" of Darkness.[95] In the song, the narrator recounts to a young woman on a beach the story of "the promised land", wherein the characters "crossed the desert sands" only to be turned away and "to face the price you pay".As an ambulance arrives to take the injured driver away, the narrator's emotions consume him as he thinks about the victim's significant other and her pain when she learns of the accident.[100] The album's back cover features various images, including five brides and a groom, a stack of paper cups, a bald eagle, and an American flag.[129] During a filmed show in Tempe, Arizona in early November,[128] Springsteen made a rare political statement about the election of Ronald Reagan that occurred the day before.[59] In the Los Angeles Times, Steve Pond said The River has as strong a "cumulative impact" as Born to Run, and commended the record for successfully capturing the "gut-level punch and immediacy" of Springsteen's live performances.In an accompanying essay, the poll's supervisor Robert Christgau wrote: "All the standard objections apply—his beat is still clunky, his singing overwrought...but his writing is at a peak, and he's grown into a bitter empathy.[146] In the context of Springsteen's career, The River was a stepping stone between Darkness on the Edge of Town and Nebraska,[54] a minimalist, folk-inspired solo effort released in September 1982.[147][148] The album chronicled dark hardships felt by everyday blue-collar workers, as well as bleak tales of criminals, law enforcement officers, and gang wars.[164][165] Mark Guarino of The Guardian wrote that although the album examines themes Springsteen had touched on before and since its release, The River is unique in that "it takes its time to explore the highs and lows of growing pains, as adolescence wrestles its way into adulthood".[61] Billboard's Kenneth Partridge argued that the album would have been "more consistent" as a single LP, but as it stands, The River is "a summation of everywhere [Springsteen] had been and an indication he wasn't content to spin his wheels".The fourth CD collects 22 outtakes from The River sessions, including 12 previously-unreleased ones and ones that had appeared on Tracks in 1998 and the bonus disc of The Essential Bruce Springsteen in 2003.
Studio albumBruce SpringsteenPower StationHeartland rockrock and rollcountryColumbiaProducerJon LandauSteven Van ZandtDarkness on the Edge of TownNebraskaE Street BandBorn in the U.S.A.SinglesHungry HeartFade AwaySherry DarlingThe RiverCadillac RanchPoint Blankdouble albumColumbia RecordsouttakesB-sidescompilation albumsBorn to RunFlannery O'ConnorFrank StefankoBillboard Top LPs & TapeThe River TourDarkness TourRoy BittanClarence ClemonsDanny FedericiGarry TallentMax WeinbergHolmdel, New JerseyIndependence DayThe Ties That BindRamrodthe ByrdsPeter Ames CarlinBe TrueThree Mile Island accidentIan HunterYou're Never Alone with a SchizophrenicperfectionismBob Clearmountainchord structuresoverdubsWarren ZevonRamonesFlo & EddieHoward KaylanMark Volmanthe TurtlessingleChuck Plotkinlead singleStolen CarVan MorrisonBob DylanMarvin GayeMusicians United for Safe EnergyMadison Square GardenOut in the StreetNeil DorfsmanWreck on the HighwayTracksFrom Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)Dave EdmundsGary U.S. BondsMixingToby ScottMasteringCapitol StudiosHollywoodpunk rocknew waveBillboardAllMusicgarage bandbarroomDave Marshthe Swingin' MedallionsDouble Shot of My Baby's Lovethe Four SeasonsDawn (Go Away)Rolling Stonesslide guitarwaitressbank tellerRockefeller familyEddie CochranDuane EddyMy Bucket's Got a Hole in ItHank WilliamsAmericanaharmonicaChuck Berrytitular ranchAmarillo, TexasJunior JohnsonJames DeanBurt ReynoldsBatmanJames BondColumboPink Cadillac1932 FordThe Promised LandRoy Acuffcountry song of the same nameblack-and-whiteJimmy Wachtelbald eagleRobert PalmerThe New York Timescertified quintuple platinumRecording Industry Association of AmericaBillboard Hot 100Best Rock Vocal Performance24th Annual Grammy AwardsTempe, Arizonaelection