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By: David Van Nostrand
Editor's Note: This review focuses on the lyrical content of Springsteen's latest album. Next week we'll have a second look at this release that focuses on the music and the evolution of the E Street Band.
22 years ago, on tour in the U.S.A, Bruce Springsteen issued a warning. Before leading the E Street Band through a bold rendition of Edwin Starr's perennial indictment of violence, "War," he paused. "I want to play this song for all the young people out there," he said, "Because in 1985 blind faith in your government will get you killed."
Magic (Sony), Springsteen's latest studio release with the E Street Band, is every bit as ominous as that Reagan inspired caveat. Like most Springsteen albums, Magic is a movie, and it opens on with a lone driver fighting the static of his radio dial. Something terrible has happened, but he has no recollection of the event. Now he wants answers.
As the record unfolds, we meet the rest of the characters - a pair of lovers that refuse to worry about a deployment letter in "Livin in the Future;" the friend of the gypsy biker polishing the motorcycle of someone he knows will never ride again; a disillusioned vet, a crippled, impotent soldier, a father robbed of his son, a child robbed of his youth and, midway through the album, the magician appears. He uses slight of hand to deceive and illusions to distract. Only after the smoke clears, when the show is over, does he reveal his final trick: bodies hung in a tree.
As a songwriter, Springsteen has always been interested in what it means to be an American, and on Magic his plaintive vocal delivery offers personal insight into the mood of the nation. There is suffering without anger, disbelief without outrage. There is no reaction, no rejoinder.
On the record's lead single, "Radio Nowhere," Springsteen asks, "Is there anybody alive out there?" He is addressing the question to his country. When he calls for "A thousand guitars" and "pounding drums," it is a call to arms. He urgently needs a response from the people, a response to four years of war predicated on lies and subterfuge, a response to a government so corrupt that is condones torture and subsidizes war profiteers. He wants anger and outrage because he knows a public that fails to hold its leaders accountable is complicit.
The tragedy of Magic is how powerless Americans feel. In "The Last to Die," Springsteen sings, "We don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore/We just stack the bodies outside our door." The America Bruce Springsteen presents is paralyzed by loss and guilt and overwhelmed by apathy. In this America, it is easier to ignore the bodies than to admit partial responsibility for them. The righteous idealism that used to sustain Americans has corroded, leaving our national character in crisis. When Springsteen writes, "It's going to be a long walk home," he's right.
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