Re: Black 'Magic' -- This is a dark ride

On Sep 9, 7:18 pm, Donnieb78 <donnie...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I don't know or care much how many copies Magic will sell. I don't see
it as a 'Born in the USA"-sized hit, simply because I don't think
there are still millions of Springsteen fans out there waiting for
this album.

But if it is a success, it's because - as with BITUSA -- large numbers
of listeners hear the bright melodies, the shiny hooks and the old-
school E Street sound and ignore this album's dark heart and
challenging lyrics.

Springsteen said "The Rising" wasn't about Sept. 11, it was about the
aftermath and the feelings left floating out there. That's the case
with "Magic" - it's not about the Iraq war, it's about what it has
done to us, how it has sapped our trust and corroded our sense of
community.

To Springsteen's way of thinking, Iraq has poisoned the American
spirit in ways that Sept. 11 never could.

We're paranoid, disconnected and distrustful, adrift and alone in a
world that gets more dangerous every day. The wise men are fools and
"things fall apart" (because, like in T.S. Eliot's Wasteland, "the
center cannot hold.")

Fifteen years ago, Springsteen begged for a bit of that human touch.
Now, he just wants to know if there's anybody alive out there, looking
for a sound, a radio signal, something, anything.
How did it happen?

We've been beguiled by a con man with card tricks and coin tricks, who
has exploited our fears and convinced us to ignore our better
instincts and the evidence of our senses.

"Magic" is all about the human impact, and the body count comes in
dead soldiers and dead eyes and dead souls.

A gypsy biker comes home - in a body bag, I am sure -- to a town
that's been divided, corrupted and depressed. (Where does a gypsy
biker go without his bike? Two places, I think: to prison and to war.
This song is about a brother's body being returned home.)

Another man returns home and tries to pick up his life where it left
off. But he's gotten older, the world has moved on, life has changed
and the girls in their summer clothes pass on by.

(By the way, I keep hearing the Beach Boys/Pet Sounds comparison, but
for me, the sound is pure Phil Spector, the most gorgeous wall of
sound Springsteen has ever erected. Those classic Ronettes/Crystals
hits were all about puppy love and a world of youthful possibilities,
but for one man, that world is dead.)

Even in the album's sunniest song, a man gets by on romantic dreams of
days yet to come, perhaps because the present is so unbearable.

But it wouldn't be a Springsteen album without hope. One man surveys
the wreckage that is his hometown - the shuttered dairy, the empty
veterans hall, the "rank strangers" - and remembers the old-school
values his father taught him. They sound an awful lot like the
American values that Springsteen cherishes, where nobody wins unless
everybody wins.

He's going to walk home and try to figure it all out. Like the man
climbing the hill at the end of Darkness, he knows that the journey is
what's important.

At first listen, "Magic" may sound like a collection of disposable hit
singles, but it's not. Like Darkness and Nebraska and Tunnel of Love
and (insert your favorite here), it's a story that will reveal itself
gradually over weeks and months and maybe years. It's got the musical
variety of some of Springsteen's most popular albums and the lyrical
meat of some of his least popular, most respected ones.

It's a fascinating mix, and this one will stay in the CD player for a
long time to come.

*now* I'm excited to hear Magic. :o) thanks Donnieb for shining your
light on this place.

(btw-the quote about the center not holding is e.e.cummings)

.