These days you don't wait on Romeos you wait on those BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN POLL RESULTS

I like 60s Manfred Mann, but yeah...70s onward is just garbage.

So far almost every track on here is one I did not vote for, and yet just about all of them so far make me feel like I should have voted for them instead. Love Bruce.

I'm sad to see "Independence Day" so low, but at least it made it. "Cover Me" was hard for me to cut so I'm happy to see it.

there are many days when "meeting across the river" is my fave bruce song, period. it's easily top 10 for me on any other day. it's very much of a piece with a lot of other songs on born to run, in which nothing actually happens but the singer describes in compellingly mysterious detail about what might possibly happen if you just come along for the ride.

also, that trumpet.

zachlyon otm re Blinded -- I grew up only knowing and HATING the Manfred Mann version and when I heard Bruce's version I was like THANK GOD YESS it's so much better and more poetic and understated

I mean, fucking CHOPSTICKS in the bridge? And deliberately eliding the deuce so it sounds like DOUCHE. 70's Manfred Mann are jerks, imo

"downbound train" def falls into the clunker category for me. "the car wash, where all it ever does is rain." ugh.

and yeah Downbound Train owns, wtf 'clunker' gtfo

:)

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, February 26, 2013 4:53 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, I dig it; it's not my favorite, but I dig it. I just remember reading a few reviews that singled it out for clunkerhood.

Also woo-hoo! at "Meeting." Same bassist (Richard Davis) played on Astral Weeks and with Albert Ayler at John Coltrane's funeral.

i'm surprised to see 'meeting', glad. a while ago there was some dumb av club list that said it was pointless or unnecessary or something, which is literally dumb

I've never understood why people single out that carwash/rain line as being particularly bad.

I like the carwash/rain line. Like you've got a job but you dont' get to work because even the weather is fucking with you

It's perfect

zachlyon otm re Blinded -- I grew up only knowing and HATING the Manfred Mann version and when I heard Bruce's version I was like THANK GOD YESS it's so much better and more poetic and understated

I mean, fucking CHOPSTICKS in the bridge? And deliberately eliding the deuce so it sounds like DOUCHE. 70's Manfred Mann are jerks, imo

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, February 26, 2013 5:08 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as a formal introduction to baby brooce it's perfect. and i really like the sounds of mann's fancy production obv but he destroys those vocals and throws out everything good about them and the lyrics all end up stuck in some half-chopped purgatory of nothingness

maybe the problem is that bruce's lyrics were already arbitrary and pointless but mann actually made them SOUND that way. completely misses the tone. and i'm bitter about 'douche', won't lie

While Bruce obvs shits on Manfredd Mann from a great height, there is something 70s-AM radio glorious about "And little Early-Pearly came in by her curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a RIIIIIIIIIIDE (doodle doo doo doodle doodle synth bit)."

also: q for everyone but jamie - will that be the highest wrecking ball nebraksa song

phil don't even

I'm gonna have chopsticks in my head all fucking day now jfc

xxpost atlantic city

Where's your Boss now, Moses?

Once audited a guitar class taught by Steve Earle. There were four sessions, the first on Hank Williams, the second on Dylan, the third on Bruce and then the fourth on himself, each building on the last. For "Blinded By the Light," he hilariously showed what a blatant rip of "My Back Pages" it was.

I like the carwash/rain line. Like you've got a job but you dont' get to work because even the weather is fucking with you

and sad organ

"Meeting Across The Water" is so great, was one of those songs i absolutely knew had to be on my ballot.

i like the Manfred Mann "Blinded," i'm a sucker for those kinds of '70s AOR jams that are really goofy and catchy but have a bunch of proggy tangets as well.

"Downbound Train" is a very haunting song imo. all those old Bruce songs about recession and pennilessness and desperation have become really special to me these last few years of being broke and/or unemployed/underemployed all the time.

lol Alfred 'sad organ' made me lol for all the wrong reasons

xxpost some dude: yeah I feel the same way about his small town songs, being bored, nothing to do, dying to get out...that was my upbringing and as cliched as it seems he really nails that constant itch, that yearning. I feel. I always picture my own hometown in the songs he sings

lol Alfred 'sad organ' made me lol for all the wrong reasons

make it rain

lol

I like that lots of the River ballads have placed.

i've been saving this for the moment "blinded" came up in the countdown
it's hanging on the bathroom door -- i'll take a closeup of the ad if you really want to see it
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8518/8510628975_b8ab632762_z.jpg

Man, record ads were wordy as shit in the 70s.

ooh that's awesome

I want to come use your bathroom asap.

everyone who uses it comments on bruce!

i gotta take a closeup of the copy -- it's hilarious

lol you seem very ecstatic about taking that picture

another version (think same copy/different layout). glad dude found a sturdier muse. zero love for the "me and zimmerman down by the schoolyard" period.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnsj8euwXW1qirk1ao1_500.jpg

Awesome mirror face!

mom said my face would stick this way and guess what
i think it looks like i am ghost-tickling bruce's pit

there are EIGHT MORE SONGS on this album
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8371/8511765910_e44bccd1c9_m.jpg

If anyone knows anything about Peter Knobler (cf. Asbury Park ad), please head to a general rock critics thread and fill me in--I swear I've never seen that name before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Knobler

yeah LL your cute face in the reflection makes me love it 1000 times more than I already did :)

i'm trying to work out why a bruce springsteen ad in 1973 would direct people to tune in to the grammy awards.

cross-marketing! Columbia Records (CBS) was actually related to Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

yeah i guess that makes sense. it's just weird to see on an ad for an artist who the grammys aren't going to notice for another decade or so.

best new artist winner that year, by the way, was america (over the eagles and john prine). best new artist the following year, when springsteen presumably would have been eligible, was bette midler (over barry white).

i dunno why that plastic frame is so reflective -- i couldn't get a picture without me in it, so i figured i should try to smile

these results are satisfactory so far btw. i thought maybe i had stopped caring, but nope.

bruce is a mirror... to your face

LL's expression in the picture is hilarious

gonna wait to talk about "Downbound Train" until it places but yeah that's one of the best on the album! & the car wash line is one of the reasons why, so fucking clever

I didn't vote for any River ballads but I'm glad they're placing, feel like they're the next phase in my Bruce fandom

Of these so far, I only voted for "Wreck on the Highway," which I love for how it strips down the Roy Acuff song to (almost literal) bare bones. The closing verse is just crushing. But very happy to see "Highway Patrolman" and "Independence Day" in particular, both also crushing in their own way.

voted for Stolen Car and Blinded by the Light. I was debating between Stolen Car and The River, but the line about Bruce being afraid he'll disappear clinched it for the former. Maybe the eeriest of his blue collar regret ballads

LL's ad - it's kind of weird how modest the tagline is. Shouldn't it be something like: '...packs more genius into every second than Albert Einstein managed in his whole life'?