Album Review: Springsteen's Dream

Yet to use the phrase “us-against-the-world” implies almost too much agency and struggle. He paints love - monogamous love - as the eye of the storm, a retreat from circumstance and time and the pains of daily existence and all the other stuff he couldn’t get enough of in the 1970’s.

The language, though, isn’t as kinetic as the “Jungleland” days. His words are relatively dry and undistinguished - as if those songs on the album’s fringe soaked up all the metaphors and folklore Springsteen could muster on this go-around. Ironically, he builds no dream worlds on Dream - the stories are static, intimate, and only ethereal in their lack of palpable language. It often feels as though his goal was to use the words “love,” “you,” “darkness” and “stars” in as many different combinations as possible.

But a sparse palette doesn’t prove to be a necessarily bad thing. The first five songs to follow “Outlaw Pete” all recall “Two Hearts” in their simple effectiveness and how quickly the band storms to the chorus. “Working On A Dream” is probably a nauseating title to even President Obama, but the songwriting is lean and propulsive: “Out here the nights are long,” it begins, “The days are lonely / I think of you / I’m working on a dream.” To match, the band plays like a fast-and-loose three-piece, and Brendan O’Brien effectively streamlines the dozen parts per song without getting carried away, as he was wont to do on Magic.

Around the halfway point, the set dips with a few tepid genre excursions, aided by O’Brien’s lapse into over-production. “Good Eye” and “Life Itself” lack the execution necessary to keep the lyrics afloat, and as a result the thematic repetition starts to wear down the album. It begs the question: For an artist who is so historically willing to tango with the zeitgeist, why is The Boss writing an album about hiding away in love’s fleeting moments in such a hyper-topical time?

There are some easy, likely correct answers: he wanted to, this album wasn’t as premeditated as Magic or The Rising, he’s getting old, he loves Patti Scialfa. “Kingdom of Days” suggests a more involved answer, as The Boss recapitulates the us-against-the-world theme. In “Kingdom,” we see a Springsteen who is not necessarily apathetic to the world around him, as it first seems on Dream; he merely accepts his impermanence and thus values his relationships above all else. Like most of the album, “Kingdom” is less about working on a dream and more about enjoying one that is already actualized.

Though noticeably un-topical, Springsteen still stands on his soapbox for the duration of Working on a Dream, with a sermon reminiscent of bygone days - value your lover, hug your brother, teach your children well, etc. While the tenderness and the small scope wear thin on occasion, the strong points are all the better for their intimacy, like the closing lines of the colossal juke-box song “This Life”: “I finger the hem of your dress / My universe at rest.” It’s proof of his prowess that Springsteen made a mostly thrilling album about indulging in his satisfaction.

Of course, some would say that rock and roll dies when you’re satisfied; but we all know the real death these days is the Super Bowl Halftime Show.