A Bruce album

The other night, the rock icon Bruce Springsteen released a new collection of songs. My connection to his music goes back a long time, more than 45 years, and so sure, I listened right away.

I had read some of the pre-release hype noting that Springsteen and his band had recorded the whole thing "live," that is, without overdubbing and a lot of processing, at his house in less than a week. Other than that, I didn't know what to expect.

Musically, the first listen didn't bowl me over. Not much new ground is broken there. But lyrically, it was interesting. I thought that some of the songs sounded like the earliest days of Springsteen's career. Wordy, but in a good way, and piling on the images too fast for you to catch them all the first time through.

And there seemed to be a fair amount of religion in some of the other songs. That's to be expected, as I've noted in all his records since The Rising in 2002. Bruce is trying to figure out the Big Picture. And he hears his clock ticking.

A reader who knows of my interest in all things Bruce sent me a link to this nice interview about the album on NPR. It confirms a lot of what I was thinking during that early listen.

I don't know how much of the surrounding hoopla I'll take in. There's a movie about the making of the album, and the record company will pump out all sorts of related merch between now and Christmas. I get the emails hawking the stuff, and I just have to roll my eyes at some of it. How much money does The Boss need?

But I will go back and listen to the album again. I may also give a more serious listen to some of Springsteen's other recent records, too. He's a few years older than I am, but just a few. At this stage in life, you need to stay in touch.