"Madman drummers, bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat, in the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat...."
So begins Blinded By The Light, the very first track on the very first album by Bruce Springsteen. What had we here? A "new Dylan", some of the music media, not too convincingly, proclaimed.
To be honest, this is a somewhat strange, but undoubtedly unique, album of folky (sort of) rock, with a muffled drum sound and those verbose, overblown lyrics that gave only a few hints as to the megastar that Bruce Springsteen would become. Released in 1973, after several years playing small venues in his home town of Asbury Park, New Jersey, this album gained little serious attention, either in the US or in the UK. The world was interested in Led Zeppelin and David Bowie.
As I said earlier, Blinded By The Light was a verbose beginning, rhythmic and catchy too. It was brought to my attention by Manfred Mann's 1977 cover of it. It has become a bit forgotten about over the years, but, thinking about it, it was one hell of a first track.
Growin' Up was a mini-street anthem here that I have always loved. Performed live it was often drawn out spectacularly, with an entertaining mid-song performance from Bruce and saxophonist Clarence Clemons about the mythical formation of the band. It was also surprisingly covered by David Bowie for possible inclusion on his late 1973 Pin-Ups album. Now, as much as I love Bowie, the song functions much more convincingly in Springsteen's hands.
Mary Queen Of Arkansas was a strange, acoustic, folky number that many fans do not go for. I have always quite liked it, though, loving descriptive lines like "your soft hulk is reviving".
Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street? was a comparatively short, vaguely Latin-influenced and gently piano-enhanced number that occasionally still gets played live, to the delight of fans. I'm not quite sure why, however, as it's pretty inconsequential.
A dramatic song, Lost In The Flood is chock full of the type of the semi-criminal, semi-heroic street characters that populated many of Springsteen's 1973-75 songs. It is this side's big, cinematic number and features a fine, strong vocal from Springsteen.
Piano and vocal only, we had another motorcycle-riding street hero here in the next song's main character, The Angel. It is brim-full of atmosphere and pathos. Next we get an upbeat rocking song, but surprisingly about an attempted suicide.
The seemingly ever-popular with fans but increasingly unheard live, For You showed a considerable maturity and sensitivity impressive in one so young. It has never been one of my favourites, though, not sure why, particularly.
Spirit In The Night was a very typical early Springsteen song in that it featured a cast of nick-named characters - "Crazy Janey", "The Mission Man", "Wild Billy", "G-Man", "Hazy Davy" and "Killer Joe" and a captivating jazzy rock atmosphere about fun and drinking down at "Greasy Lake". The links some have made to W.B. Yeats' "Crazy Jane" poem are coincidence in my view. I am sure the young Springsteen didn't spend his time reading Yeats on the Asbury Park boardwalk. Van Morrison is a different matter, of course.
A short but gritty number, It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City had a hard edged vaguely jazzy funk to it and was also covered, surprisingly acceptably, given their differences in style, by David Bowie, in 1975.
It is pretty much impossible to categorise this album by the so-called “new Dylan”. Was it folk? Was it rock? Lots of saxophone and piano here and there gave a hint to what would become trademark E Street Band sound.
Overall though, nobody really knew. It all, therefore, slipped under the radar somewhat in 1973, which was, after all, a year of some titanic albums. What was acknowledged, though, was that there was something in the songs of this scrawny, bearded somewhat shy, introspective young lad. He just needed to find some wings for his wheels....
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