(Single from album, “The River”)
Well, there you have it - 18 reviews in, and I've finally decided to tell you all about my favourite song. Surprised? I sure as hell was when I remembered the track again, for the first time in a while...
This is a brilliant coming-of-age song...growing up, rushing into a relationship, being unemployed, everything falling apart - but still, after all that, being able to remember a happy place, and go there, even when the chips are down, and forget your troubles. Accompanied by some of the best production and sound engineering from Bruce Springsteen's early career, the track, for me, rivals the entire album, "Born To Run", and even it's epic 9 minute finale "Jungleland", another of my favourite tracks ever, just doesn't quite make me feel the way this song does.
Firstly, the instrumentation is second to none. Opening with the emotive scream of Springsteen's harmonica, the most raw and powerful sound on the track, the lyrics instantly dive into the tortured life of the protagonist, and the pace setting drums, set brilliantly alongside the distinctive E-Street Band style piano playing, really add to the atmosphere of the song.
Those words are phenomenal. They explore the normal tragedies of a teenage life and of course, the struggles of becoming a man. Everything from stealing his brother's car, to his getting his girlfriend pregnant, is so real, and so true in the expression of the lyrics, that you almost feel the conbviction, guilt and sadness as though you had comitted these acts yourself. The expression is amazing and unlike anything I have ever encountered in music before.
At just a second over 5 minutes in length, the song is the absolute highlight of the album, and perhaps the best song of 1980. It's very good. But it's not this that is my favourite song ever...
This song is just one of those rare tracks where the studio version has been made completely inferior by a superb live performance, captured at a moment in time, and preserved forever. Clocking in at just over 11 and half minutes, the version to be found on Springsteen's 1985 live album, "Live/1975-85" is inexplicably wonderful. Imagine the best feeling you've ever had, and imagine something better at approximately 100 times better. Then you've got it.
The incredibly emotional story of Springsteen's relationship with his father as a young man opens the track, a melancholic but well composed acoustic track looping behind. The story goes everywhere - Springsteen's almost joining the army and heading to Vietnam, and of course the infamous incident of his hair getting cut off whilst unconscious. It's beautiful, funny, evocative, brilliant and charming. Then, 6 minutes in, at a heart breaking moment, the harmonica explodes and the stadium rock anthem of 'The River' bounds into the ear canals, raging like a fiery inferno of American semi-acoustic stadium rock. The atmosphere is like no other track you will ever hear, and there's something to be gained from hearing such a fantastic song played so beautifully and with such skill and emotion. I am in love with this recording.
Seriously give it a listen, you might find you love it too.
Maybe I'm just kind because of Springsteen's husky vocal, warming the listener in a very special and unique way.
Maybe it's because my own father was the one listening with me when I first heard this song.
Or maybe, perhaps most truthfully, its because everybody has a 'river', and like for the singer of this song, it can sometimes be something hard to reach, but all the same, something beautiful and incredibly dear to us that we never, ever want to let go of, for as long as we live...
★★★★★
Versions of "The River"
Album/Single Version - 5:01
Live at The Los Angeles Coliseum, CA, USA, 30/09/1985 ("Live/1975-85" Version) - 11:38
Live at Madison Square Garden, NY, USA, 20/06/2000 ("Live In New York City" Version) - 9:25