Word: springsteen
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These are two wonderful records about the light at the end of the tunnel of love. Forget all you have heard and read since Bruce Springsteen's two advance singles were released three weeks ago -- unless, of course, you listened to the songs, in which case you could ignore all the Charley Inside show-biz reporting about how radio stations were a little skeptical and record stores a little uncertain, and was Bruce, at 42, a family man with two kids, a little too settled and a little too wealthy and a little too out of touch to burn...
Well, the house is on fire. The singles sang for themselves: the plaintiveness of Human Touch; the explosive emotional release of Better Days, one of the best tunes Springsteen has ever written. The albums -- Human Touch and Lucky Town -- are a twin testament to the power of redemptive love, to the resilience of Springsteen's gifts and to the restless spirit...
That tune comes midpoint on Human Touch and catches Springsteen in full cry as a "thief in the house of love," doing one of those 40-megaton rave-ups that can bring stadium crowds to their feet. Human Touch was the first of the two albums to be completed, and, with the backing of some heavy-duty Los Angeles session players and such soulful voices as Bobby King and Sam Moore, it has a real diamond-cut luster and precision. It also has plenty of nerve. Two tunes, Man's Job and Real Man, trash all the stereotypes of rock...
...While Springsteen was trying to decide whether his Human Touch album was actually finished, he returned to the studio and emerged, only about eight weeks later, with the 10 songs on Lucky Town. The sound is somewhat sparer here, the lyrics rougher around the edges and maybe even better for that. Better Days, which kicks the record off, has already attracted some comment for the lines, "Now a life of leisure and a pirate's treasure don't make much for tragedy." It's as if Springsteen were taking a long, hard look at himself, but the key lines...
...measure of sadness suffuses these records. But there is also an urgent hope, a rush of spirit, a Leap of Faith, in which Springsteen combines sexual and sacramental imagery in a great erotic epiphany. And there is a new kind of sorcery too. Springsteen ends Lucky Town with the eerie spirituality of My Beautiful Reward, which is a unique combination of a Van Morrison religious song and a Native American peyote dream. It's a step into the mystic, a new direction. Springsteen's reborn and running again...