Decades of Darkness, Illuminated
Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town turns 40. It remains one of his most evocative musical triumphs. It matters more now than ever.
To fully understand Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 masterpiece that turned 40 years old this weekend, you need to listen to a song that isn’t on the album.
The Promise was written and recorded during the Darkness years — the time between 1975’s opus Born to Run and the 1978 release , but released on a special box set in 2010. It had been a live show favorite for some time, a sought-after trinket from Springsteen’s expansive treasure trove of deep cuts. It assumes new meaning, though, when held up to the songs that actually did make the album. Broken promises and tortured hearts aren’t what you associate with Bruce Springsteen.
It’s sad and sparse and poses more questions than it answers.
The promise is broken, you go on living
It steals something from down in your soul
When the truth is spoken, it don’t make no difference
Something in your heart goes cold
There’s a stark, dizzying contrast between Springsteen’s joyous live performances and the obvious anxiety that goes into creating his albums. When asked about this during a 1978 profile in Rolling Stone, Bruce was uneasy.
“…I put in the first few seconds of ‘Badlands,’ those lines about “I believe in the love and the hope and the faith.’ It’s there on all four corners of the album.”
The “four corners” he is referring to are the first and last tracks on each side of the album; Badlands and Racing in the Street, on side A, and The Promised Land and the title track, on the B-side. The author noted that Bruce was “clearly distressed: he meant Darkness to be ‘relentless,’ not grim.”
The Promise, lyrically, is the literal response to the call of Thunder Road, a still-glittering gem from the Born to Run album. If Thunder Road, and really all of Born to Run, is about “pulling out of here to win,” The Promise is, in part, about the failure to realize that escapism. Darkness on the Edge of Town’s ten tracks carefully make that case. Springsteen’s youthful optimism remains, but it is caked in frustration and real-world weight.
Springsteen explained in 1978:
“It’s hard to explain without getting too heavy. What it is, it’s the characters’ commitment. In the face of all the betrayals, in the face of all the imperfections that surround you, it’s the characters’ refusal to let go of their own humanity, to let go of their belief in the other side. It’s a certain loss of innocence — more so than in the other albums.”
The album is Springsteen’s first truly adult statement. In Born to Run, he croons about drinking warm beer in a soft summer rain. In Darkness, that rain is reserved to fall on the head of the silent man, trudging through factory gates on the way to a job that allows him to make a living, at the expense of his own life. Springsteen looks at the working man, defines the prison bars that man lives within, and paints pictures in unforgiving gray scale.
Springsteen fans can discuss and rank their favorite songs and albums ad infinitum, and perhaps ad nauseum. His catalog is so extensive, and so diverse, that some of his greatest hits tumble down the list. Good luck finding a Springsteen fan who puts Dancing in the Dark or Glory Days in their top ten. His albums, in particular, are a fascinating case study in perception. Born to Run is a truly transcendent work of musical achievement, but isn’t necessarily his most important work. Looking at the long arc of his catalog, the nuanced strife of Darkness is more instructive of who Bruce is. There’s a struggle — hopes and dreams always bubbling up through the cracks — but an increasingly critical eye towards the powers that be and the shackles of everyday life. Fans can debate Born to Run’s placement against other albums like The Rising or The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. But Darkness? Darkness remains. It persists. It just keeps comin’.
It stomps and snarls. It rages in defiance of expectations from fans, critics and the songwriter himself. Prove it all Night. Adam Raised a Cain. Streets of Fire. Something in the Night. Bruce is all gristle and sinew, calling all the shots, even if the world wasn’t quite listening yet. If Born to Run was the flexing of all his sonic muscle, Darkness was the flashing of his sharpened, electrified teeth.
He described it as his “samurai album. All stripped down and ready for fighting.”
There are plenty of stories about the insane recording process for this record. It took Bruce months to be satisfied with the sound of the drums, the correct selection of songs, the right conversation he was trying to have. He was fanatical in his pursuit of a record that exhibited his coming of age.
I recently celebrated my 28th birthday. It’s been about eight years since I really began to understand Bruce Springsteen. It was the release of The Promise that first roped me in. I saw him perform Because the Night, a song that somehow didn’t make the album cut, in promotion of the box set, and I was stunned.
The songs of Darkness are different. Restless songs from a restless young man, making his first adult assessment of the world. Even the album cover was captivating. A scraggly guy who was on the cusp of super-stardom in a beat up old house. Out of place. Haunted. Fighting back.
With each passing birthday, more and more truths come into focus. The joyful noise of youth, unencumbered by the facts of life, begin to shift and conform. You can hear it in Bruce’s music. His first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, is eager and rambling street poetry. It’s an exhibition of his prodigious lyrical talent. A young man with gifts but unsure of exactly how to display them. His next entry, the E Street Shuffle album, was fledgling, but an approach towards the stadium rock star he would become. Born to Run was a grand statement. A man asking the question, “I want to know if love is real.” Darkness was brooding and meaningful. The recognition of all his prior incarnations staring upward at the uncertain horizon. It’s real life.
Not everyone escapes. Most people settle down, become products of their environment, whether they want to or not. To me, this album felt like an acknowledgement that its okay to keep searching, to keep struggling, and to keep proving it to no one but yourself.
The album is a tortured love letter to perseverance, penned with a quill dipped in gasoline instead of ink. Every night on stage, Bruce lit the match. He still does. He just keeps comin’.
I’m not sure if Darkness is my favorite Bruce album. I know I still go wild if he plays Badlands or The Promised Land in concert. I know that I still stop and listen to the wistful piano of Racing in the Street, no matter what I’m doing. All I know for certain is that Darkness is his most necessary album. At its gnawing heart, it is a call to arms. Ask questions about the world you inhabit and the decisions you make. Run down everything that came after. From the River to the Rising, Bruce is searching, and unsettled. He is looking for the answers to questions he asked in those years of toil, when he crafted Darkness as his own personal mission statement.
In Bruce’s autobiography, he goes into great detail about those three years between Born to Run and Darkness. He knew the stories being told about him. He was a road warrior, knowing his only recourse was to do the only thing he knew — the only thing he believed in.
“After years of reading ‘flash in the pan,’ ‘Whatever happened to . . .’ articles, I began to read reviews in city after city about how we delivered. No, you can’t tell people anything, you’ve got to show ’em.”
40 years ago, Bruce Springsteen was hungry and restless. 40 years later, I have no idea if he’s satisfied. But he’s not alone.
.
.
.
Everybody’s got a hunger, a hunger they can’t resist
There’s so much that you want, you deserve much more than this
But if dreams came true, oh, wouldn’t that be nice
But this ain’t no dream we’re living through tonight
Girl, you want it, you take it, you pay the price
Prove It All Night
I’ve done my best to live the right way
I get up every morning and go to work each day
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold
Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode
Explode and tear this whole town apart
Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart
Find somebody itching for something to start
The Promised Land
Everybody’s got a secret, Sonny,
Something that they just can’t face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step that they take.
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag ’em down,
Where no one asks any questions,
or looks too long in your face,
In the darkness on the edge of town.
Darkness on the Edge of Town
