THE BOSS IS BACK
“The Boss” and I have been friends for years.
Not that we really know each other. We’ve been friends in the sense that I’ve been intimately acquainted with his music, as with that of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones ever since I can remember. When I hear certain songs it immediately reminds me of events, people and places in this, and in previous lives.
Previous lives, for me, are not about reincarnation or a karmic concept. We all live many lives in one lifetime whether we recognize it or not. My lives can be broadly defined as the years before the desert, the desert years (don’t go there I won’t tell) and the years with ♥ girl. Dylan, Springsteen, The Stones and later on U2 and Nick Cave prominently feature on the soundtracks of all these lives.
Recently the “Killers” frontman Brandon Flowers commented that U2 should move over as “they’re getting old” and “It feels like its time for a newer younger band to take over” Like hell it is. Yes, there is a void in modern rock but none of the current generation is worthy of the mantle of the true great rock legends.
I watched “Shine a Light”, the Martin Scorsese documentary last year and although Keef Richards looks like some demented pirate and Mick Jagger like an ageing camp-queen there is no denying the energy and craftsmanship of the Stones. Flowers is not worthy of even being a roadie for these grandfathers of rock I swear.
Back to The Boss, he’s releasing a new album in January 2009; “Working on a Dream”. It’s great and “The Wrester” that features on this album has already won the Golden Globe for best original song from the Mickey Rourke movie with the same title.
“The Wrestler” is a nice song but I like the opening track, “Outlaw Pete”, much more. I’m listening this to death at the moment.
I’m not a music critic. Richard William of “The Guardian” is and he reviews “Working on a Dream" as follows;
“The album begins and ends with portraits of outsiders. The opener, Outlaw Pete, is an eight-minute narrative epic of frontier lore and justice, evoking the works of Frederick Remington, Cormac McCarthy and Sergio Leone as it gallops through a world of stick-ups, Navajo maidens and vengeful rivals, accompanied by the plaintive harmonica, twangy guitar and tolling mission bell of a Morricone soundtrack. Forty minutes later we are in the company of The Wrestler, written to complement Mickey Rourke's cinematic portrayal of an all-round loser: the pensive first-person ballad is notable for a fine, resonant lyric and for a line of melody ….”
Springsteen, like Dylan, has got the genius ability to tell a story in a song. Love, loss, loneliness, hope and despair, the whole shebang, that creates a canvass of imagination that, in my opinion as a literary philistine, ranks with the stanzas of the classical poets;
Let me introduce you to Outlaw Pete:
He was born a little baby on the Appalachian Trail
At six months old he'd done three months in jail
He robbed a bank in his diapers and his little bare baby feet
All he said was "Folks, my name is Outlaw Pete."
At twenty-five a Mustang pony he did steal
And he rode her around and 'round on heaven's wheel
Father Jesus, I'm an outlaw killer and a thief
And I slow down only to sow my grief
He cut his trail of tears across the countryside
And where he went, women wept and men died
One night he woke from a vision of his own death
Saddled his pony and rode her deep into the West
Married a Navajo girl and settled down on the res
And as the snow fell he held that beautiful daughter to his chest
Out of the East on an Irish stallion came Bounty Hunter Dan
His heart quickened and burned by the need to get his man
He found Pete peacefully fishing by the river, pulled his gun and got the drop
He said, "Pete, you think you've changed, but you have not."
He cocked his pistol, pulled the trigger and shouted "let it start"
Pete drew a knife from his boot, threw it, and pierced Dan through the heart
Dan smiled as he laid in his own blood dying in the sun
And whispered in Pete's ear, "We cannot undo these things we've done."
For forty days and nights Pete rode and did not stop
Till he sat high upon an icy mountain top
He watched the hawk on a desert updraft slip and slide
Moved to the edge and dug his spurs deep into his pony side
Some say Pete and his pony vanished over the edge
Some say they remain frozen high upon that icy ledge
The young Navajo girl washes in the river, skin so fair
And braids a piece of Pete's buckskin chaps into her hair
I'm Outlaw Pete!
I'm Outlaw Pete!
Can you hear me?
Great lyrics. Great song.
From the soundtrack of the desert years (don’t go there I won’t tell) - “Thunder Road”
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
Darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me
You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a saviour to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now ?
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow
Back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting on down the tracks
Oh-oh come take my hand
We're riding out tonight to case the promised land
There’s many version of this song but I like the stripped down one of Springsteen on piano the best.
Sorry Brandon, “The Killers” don’t even feature on the radar.
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