Darkness on the Edge of Town

If you are a Bruce Springsteen fan this interview of the Boss by Ed Norton can't be missed. Who were Springsteen's influences when he wrote the songs for Darkness on the Edge of Town? Dylan, yes. Ginsberg, no. Terrence Malick, yes.

In 1975, the album Born to Run catapulted Bruce Springsteen from a regional critical favorite to a worldwide megastar.

But after Born to Run's release, a legal battle with his former manager, Mike Appel, kept Springsteen from making a follow-up album for nearly two years. Springsteen spent his time touring extensively across the U.S. with the E Street Band. When he returned to the studio, in 1977, he brought with him dozens of songs that he had written during his exile.

Those studio sessions produced Springsteen's fourth album, 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town. It was musically very different from Born to Run — and drew thematically from the punk-rock movement, the Vietnam War and Springsteen's own reflections about wanting to stay connected to his roots. ...

Some lyrics from Badlands, the first track of Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Poor men wanna be rich, rich men wanna be kings,
And a king aint satisfied till he rules everything.
I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got.
Now I believe in the love that you gave me.
I believe in the faith that could save me.
I believe in the hope and I pray that some day it
Will raise me above these

Badlands...

For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it aint no sin to be glad you're alive.
I wanna find one face that aint looking through me
I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these

Badlands...

The Promised Land

Bruce Springsteen

“A lot of the core of our songs is the American idea: What is it? What does it mean? ‘Promised Land,’ ‘Badlands,’ I’ve seen people singing those songs back to me all over the world. I’d seen that country on a grass-roots level through the ’80s, since I was a teenager. And I met people who were always working toward the country being that kind of place. But on a national level it always seemed very far away.

“And so on election night it showed its face, for maybe, probably, one of the first times in my adult life,” he said. “I sat there on the couch, and my jaw dropped, and I went, ‘Oh my God, it exists.’ Not just dreaming it. It exists, it’s there, and if this much of it is there, the rest of it’s there. Let’s go get that. Let’s go get it. Just that is enough to keep you going for the rest of your life. All the songs you wrote are a little truer today than they were a month or two ago.”


Refrain from The Promised Land:

The dogs on main street howl,
'cause they understand,
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister, I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man,
And I believe in a promised land.

If you like the Boss, there's an amazing amount of live footage from over the years on YouTube. My favorites are The River on the street in Copenhagen in the 80s and Thunder Road live in 1976.