Side One
Side Two
So let's kick off, then, with Bruce's biblical epic, which starts, not in 'The Promised Land', as you might expect (that is the first track of side two), but in the 'Badlands' - this album describes an American dystopia.
Our hero is 'Everyman' who throws down a challenge to the American establishment: a fight to the death. Everyman speaks in the traditional rock-and-roll voice of the adolescent, and, using the simplest language of the common working man, he addresses his outcry, his howl, to his woman: 'Baby' or 'Honey'.
The discordant imagery of the opening lines ('trouble', 'collision', 'smashing') sets the scene of the bad lands, but on the other side of the scale is Everyman's simple human belief in fairness and the hope of an honest reward; man's essential optimism leads him to naturally trust in love, hope and faith that may raise us above the bad lands. There are many memorable lines:
Spend your life waiting for a moment that just don't come.
Well don't waste your time waiting...
We'll keep pushing till it's understood
that these badlands start treating us good..
The text of this album draws explicitly on the stories and teaching of Christian religion, and in the same way that in the Middle Ages the Reformation in Europe overthrew the empty and hollow Latin teaching of an outdated roman Catholicism, Springsteen's 'Everyman', armed with the knowledge gained from bitter experience (which, to keep on the biblical theme, one might describe as the forbidden fruits of the garden of Eden), rejects the tradition of the empty and hollow American Dream which is offered by the Protestant Work Ethic:
Working 'neath the wheel till you get your facts learned
Baby I got my facts learned real good right now
... that it ain't no sin to be glad your alive...
The strength, conviction and energy of the song (Badlands) is overwhelming. The logic of the argument is irrefutable. The animal anger and outrage in this, the first act of this classical tragedy, immediately wins our sympathy and admiration. We wait for the drama to unfold...
From the very beginning, there is a sense of inevitability about this challenge to society: in this second song of the album, Springsteen casts his hero in the role of Cain the biblical murderer. He is making it clear that our hero Everyman is prepared to go outside the law, even to death to fight the tyranny of the Badlands.
The father-son relationship is of course a powerful image in American culture and here we see that Cain is also fighting for his father who has also suffered in the badlands - see also Factory below.
With Springsteen, the performance is of course a large part of the music. His live performances from this era have become legendary, but even here in the studio, one can only describe the climax of this song as an impassioned scream - this album comes from the heart:
Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames.
There is an unshakeable bond with the father and fire is driving his quest for revenge. (Shakespeare - Hamlet - avenging the father.)
This song slips into the present tense ("I'm driving down King Street") and gives us immediate, first-hand experience of life in the Badlands. The song hints at the cultural trappings of the American Dream: youth, the car, the road, escape, but the reality is disappointment:
When we found the things we loved,
They were crushed and
dying in the dirt
So the decision is taken - it is time for action:
Nothing is forgotten or forgiven
...I got stuff running round
my head
that I just can't live down.
Candy's Room / Racing in the Street
Baby, honey, candy: the inspiration. The girl he would do anything for.
Racing in the Street - a beautiful reflective moment in the drama shows Springsteen's ability to change the tempo, tell a great story, create an extraordinary atmosphere with the simplest words.
Candy inspires his libido. Cars inspire his masculine need for thrill and action. And in spite of the fact that he has both girls and cars the mood at the end of the first side of the album is of the utmost melancholy and sadness with the realization that in this so-called promised land we are born dirty.
...Rumbling through this promised land
Tonight my baby and
me, we're gonna ride to the sea and wash these sins off our hands.
And what are you going to do about it?
We imagine that we are in the theatre and we come back to our seats after the break and the closing words of the last act (side one) - Promised Land - get the piece swiftly back on track with this more up-beat song which quickly restates the plot so far.
We hear again the natural human optimism - but by the end of the song the dark clouds dominate. There is going to be a storm which will sweep away the false promise which has been offered:
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the
lies that leave you nothing but lost and broken-hearted.
The simplest of songs puts life and death side-by-side in the context of this de-humanizing institution, the factory, which provides a livelihood but takes away a life.
This is also about betrayal - in the bible we have been promised a house: "In my father's house there are many mansions". But here there are only mansions of fear and pain. This is the earthly reality.
This song is the calm before the storm and there is an ominously quiet but threatening tone: "Somebody's gonna get hurt tonight." This is the point of no return...we anticipate revolution...
...and it comes in this, the big scene: the realization in the darkness of the night:
I'm dying, but girl I can't go back
'Cause in the darkness
I hear somebody call my name
And when you realize how they tricked you this
time
And it's all lies but I'm strung out on the wire
In these streets of fire...
In classical Greek tragedy there is a moment of revelation where the hero suddenly realises the truth which leads to the inevitable fateful conclusion. Instinctively, Springsteen is following in this tradition; the album is paced to reach this dramatic climax.
He's already described the family unit in Adam Raised a Cain, but by the end of this song our Everyman (maybe we could just call him Cain) is living with strangers; he is the outsider cast out of town into the darkness ('East of Eden') with the sound of his mother's voice echoing in his ears calling him to follow his true self - whatever it might lead to:
In the darkness of your room
Your mother calls you by your true name.
(Adam Raised a Cain)
And so he crosses the line and takes his place with the fallen angels - whose only place is streets of fire.
Parallels with King Lear: 'Bound to a wheel of fire' - no escape from life, identity, who you are: your name. John Proctor in Arthur Miller's Crucible : "because it is my name". Result: alienation, death.
On the first hearing, this sounds like a classic boy-meets-girl pop song about making love in a romantic dream with a gold ring and a pretty blue dress; but:
But this ain't no dream we're living through tonight
Girl,
you want it, you take it, you pay the price...
This is not an ordinary date, this is more like making a pact with the devil. There is a reward, and there is a price to pay:
You hear the voices telling you not to go
They made their
choices and they'll never know
What it means to steal, to cheat, to lie,
What it's like to live and die...
This song is an invitation to go with him, to reject the myth of the American Dream, leave the rat race - whatever it may cost, and to go into the Darkness on the Edge of Town.
We imagine that the girlfriend declines his invitation. In the final song 'she' lives in a fine house up on Fairview, he, the loser, is outside town beneath Abraham' Bridge and he is facing death up on a different kind of hill:
Tonight I'll be on the hill 'cause I can't stop
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.
Tragedy requires a death, and there are clearly parallels with the Christ figure who gives up his own life 'on the hill' to redeem mankind. The death in this case, however, is just symbolic: giving up on one life, turning away from the offer of a promised land and paying the price. But most importantly, the album is an identification with the loser or the underdog. It shows an understanding for those who decide that life at any cost is not the ultimate goal - when maybe life without dignity is simply not worth living.
This is not the only album of Springsteen's which asks the question: 'What happens when the American Dream goes wrong?' His Nebraska album has a very bleak outlook. But at least here in Darkness there is some sense of elation: he loses the fight, but he's god-damned right.