Bruce Springsteen
Human Touch and Lucky Town
Columbia

For those about to rock - without any inclination as to why they’re doing so - think again. Springsteen’s back (and he’s not armed with the stars and stripes).

Human Touch and Lucky Town are, if anything, a true blue representation of everything Springsteenesque. That’s fun, freedom and truth verses grief, loneliness and (self) deception. As well as deliberating upon semi-isolation and the quest for some kind of connection: ‘’I just want someone to talk to/And a little of that human touch;’’ the two albums are an amalgamation of all things put forward on the The River.

The difference being, Springsteen is now married and a father. Hence, the lack of frolics.

Kicking off with the aforementioned title track, Human Touch contains fourteen songs and was the first of the two to be recorded. It’s also the rockier, which the generic ‘Roll Of The Dice’ and optimistic ‘Soul Driver’ exemplify. The latter of which contains some luscious background vocals from Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), and a colloquial Hammond organ solo from that of original E Streeter, David Sancious.

But it’s the (quite possibly) Elvis inspired ’57 Channels ‘ which rocks the house dowen. As well as containing some naughty nifty bass playing by Bruce himself, it’s an honest portrayal of bourgeois boredom – as heralded by the Reagan administration: ‘’Well now home entertainment was my baby’s wish/So I hopped into town for a satellite dish/I tied it to the top of my Japanese car/I came home and pointed it out to the stars/A message came back from the great beyond/There’s 57 channels and nothin’ on.’’

‘With Every Wish’ harks back to the excellence of ‘Meeting Across The River,’ muted trumpet solo notwithstanding; whilst ‘I Wish I Were Blind’ is quite possibly Springsteen’s ‘Jealous Guy.’

Moving on from a lust that kills, it’s the admirable ‘Real World’ which offers an inspiringly lucid vision of love; a love which diverts fantasy by clarifying dignity in a world that is (finally) real. A world inexorably sought by Springsteen for years.

However, it’s ‘Cross My Heart’ that is the album’s most opulent piece. It’s everything that equates Springsteen with his own iconoclastic vision, especially on the lines: ‘’Well you may think the world’s black and white/And you’re dirty or you’re clean/You better watch out you don’t slip/Through them spaces in between,’’

So all in all, Human Touch is the up-tempo, happy-go-lucky album that’ll most probably (and paradoxically) appeal to all the fist clenching, hot dog munching, Pat Buchanan types. I still think ‘All Or Nothin’ At All’ with its contagious chorus would have made a better single, but there you go.

When it comes to Lucky Town, the rousing opening ‘Better Days’ sets the tone, and to some degree, the album’s pace almost immediately. It’s an anti-nostalgic number that asserts ‘’These are better days baby,’’ and one that’s riddled with an onslaught of guitars ands financial candour: ‘’A life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure/Don’t make much for tragedy.’’ That said, the song also tackles enough Springsteen myth, to satisfy even his most ardent of opponents (‘’It’s a sad funny ending to find yourself pretending/A rich man in a poor man’s shirt’’).

Where ‘Better Days’ is optimistic, the title track ‘Lucky Town’ is simplistic. Simplistic in a way that is (most) effective. An art which the artist has spent years mastering, i.e. ‘Stolen Car,’ ‘Bobby Jean’ and ‘Valentine’s Day.’

However, if you want to know where Springsteen’s head’s currently at, have a listen to such revelations as ‘Leap Of Faith,’ ‘Living Proof’ and ‘Book Of Dreams.’ Basically, the guy’s in love. In love with his new found freedom, his wife and his children. In other words, his family. The kind of family which George Bush is currently promoting, yet simultaneously threatening.

‘’And in your love I’m born again,’’ sings Bruce on ‘Leap Of Faith.’ An honesty most people don’t have the intelligence (nor the faith) of realising. The reason being, that the Freehold native appears to have cleansed himself of all, or at least most, of his previous demons. So if Lucky Town isn’t an album of true baptism (and I don’t mean baptism as in Hollywood), then I don’t know what is: ‘’Now you were the Red Sea and I was Moses/I kissed you and slipped into a bed of roses/The waters parted and Love rushed inside/I was Jesus’ son sanctified.’’

So, amid a plethora of water, rebirth and realisation, it would appear that Springsteen has rediscovered faith. A faith he may have lost somewhere around the time of Born In The USA. The cool thing being, he’s done it quietly and succinctly. The sad thing being, that most people won’t get it, or even care to get it.

Moreover, amongst the aforementioned biblical references, emerges a man who’s discovered freedom: ‘’You shot through my anger and rage/To show me my prison was an open cage/There were no keys no guards/Just one frightened man and some old shadow’s for bars.’’

If ‘If I Should Fall Behind’ is one of the album’s (all round) strongest songs, and one which is comparable to ‘I’m On Fire;’ then ‘Souls Of The Departed’ is one of the most socio-political by being comparable to ‘My Hometown.’ But where ‘Hometown’ portrayed the songwriter as an unemployed father, ‘Departed’ depicts him as one of ‘’the self made men’’ amid the Hollywood Hills - whilst violence erupts in the Middle East: ‘’Tonight as I tuck my own son in bed/All I can think of is what if it would’ve been him instead.’’

Finally, where ‘The Big Muddy’ investigates infidelity, greed and moral compromise, the closing track ‘My Beautiful Reward,’ inadvertently dissects everything that has gone before it. As a result of this and its folkish quality, it ends the album on a note of (dare I say) uncertainty. A trait which unfortunately for Springsteen the man, is partly responsible for his brilliance.

Still, I can’t imagine him complaining, because with every album he makes, he gets a little closer to the truth. A facet which once again, sets him apart from all the hype, crap and stupidity, and one which places him way beyond the futility of the charts, the reviews, MTV and comparison.

He may not be the messiah, but…