2019 Contenders: Western Stars

Western Stars is the best Bruce Springsteen album since Tunnel Of Love.

There, I said it.

Of course, Bruce was (in theory, at least) onto a winner with me when he decided to channel the sound of Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell on his first album in 5 years... 7 years if you discount the hodge-podge contract-filler of 2014's High Hopes as many commentators appear to be doing. But it could also have gone so wrong - I mean, this is unfamiliar territory for the Boss, shouldn't he play it safe and stick to what he knows?

Actually, history has shown us that when Springsteen doesn't play it safe, he produces his best records. Born To Run succeeded because Bruce aimed high and tried to channel Phil Spector. Nebraska succeeded because he released the demos he recorded in his bedroom when he realised they were more powerful than full band arrangements would be. Tunnel Of Love succeeded because he refused to make Born In The USA II, kicked the E Street band into touch, and released instead the most personal album of his career - the ultimate break-up record (or guilt-tinged new romance record, depending on how you look at it). Those, in my opinion are the Holy Trinity of Springsteen albums, and while Western Stars might not make #4 on my list, it certainly comes a lot higher than anything else he's recorded in the last 32 years.

Don't get me wrong, there have been many good songs on the albums released since ToL, but the records themselves have always felt late-career, past-your-prime efforts. We loved them because we loved Bruce. He even managed to tap into the zeitgeist on occasion, most notably on The Rising and Wrecking Ball, but the glory days were seemingly over.

Western Stars isn't a record that seeks to change that. Instead, it's a record that embraces it. It's a record about growing old, and looking back on your better days with regret, but also acceptance. It's been compared by some reviewers to Nebraska (or later, sub-Nebraska efforts such as The Ghost of Tom Joad or Devils & Dust), yet to me it's the closest Bruce has ever come to recapturing the spirit of Tunnel of Love. The music might even be better, because it evokes the wide open spaces of 70s Americana rather than being smitten to 80s synth-based production. (That doesn't make it a better record though... records we love are about much more than just music.)

Western Stars begins in the past with a song about freedom, youth and hope. Hitch-hikin' romanticises the freedom of the road just like Gentle On My Mind once did, and it's packed with classic Springsteen character detail. Then comes The Wayfarer, looking at the same subject with more sadness and much less romanticism. There's touches of Steinbeck or even Ray Bradbury in the lyrical detail here.

After this, age and regret creep in. Tuscon Train contains that recurring Springsteen theme of laying awake in the middle of the night with an unquiet mind. And then come the songs about old men looking back on their lives through wistful eyes, the central theme of the album, realised through Western Stars, Drive Fast (The Stuntman) and others, bringing us some of the Boss's best character writing since... well, since Tunnel of Love. Clearly writing his autobiography and then performing it every night on Broadway has reinvigorated The Boss and given his creativity a new lease of life.

It all culminates in the penultimate track (and first single), Hello Sunshine - a bright and beezy slice of California Americana on the surface, though lyrically it's a tune all about staying one step ahead of the blues. It took me a while to truly appreciate its meaning, but once I did...

You know I always loved a lonely town
Those empty streets, no one around
You fall in love with lonely, you end up that way
Hello sunshine, won't you stay?

I've read a lot of reviews of Western Stars. Some I agreed with, one I threw out of the window. Ironically, the one person who nailed it was the man who Bruce took his inspiration from: God himself, Jimmy Webb. Although typically, God was full of humility in his response...

“I had heard these rumours and thought, ‘Is it possible that this is true? This guy needs us like a migraine!’

"I think it’s a very bold and admirable step, and it certainly shows that he’s connected with the ground. He’s planted down here with all of us. It shows there’s no snobbery in him.”

"I was amazed at how he locked on to the sensual pleasure that can be derived from loneliness. From what Warren Zevon used to call ‘splendid isolation.'"

"And yet, at the same time, he’s recognizing there’s a danger there. There’s a dark side. That lonely road has its appeal, but at the same time he’s cautioning you: Don’t get too far out there, as you might not be able to get back. That’s so intense and personal. The largesse of the artist in revealing that to the listener is amazing.”

The album's postscript then is Moonlight Motel, a song that almost seems to revisit the young lovers of Born To Run and find out where they ended up. The highway only takes you so far, that's what I take from it. For all those of us who grew up with Bruce (even those of us who are a good twenty years his junior), it's a fitting end to that story.