A FAN’S NOTES

Hey! Ho! Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Little text and even less insight, but lots of pictures. The grocery store magazine rack 40-year history of rock ‘n’ roll gorgeously laid out in Life magazine’s December 1, 1992 issue ($3.95). The editors credited the birth of this as yet nameless jumpy hybrid of blues, country and electricity to a 1952 Cleveland teen-centric and radio-sponsored public event, the Moondog Coronation Ball.

In the spirit of pinpointing exactly what can never be exactly pinpointed, it follows that the Holy Trinity of this once uniquely American genre in the Life universe is Elvis, Dylan and Springsteen. These men do not crack camera lenses. The somewhat surprising successes of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man, biopics of extravagant Brits, prompted Hollywood to zoom in on a trio of earthier local heroes.

Elvis traced the King’s career arc from discovery to the tragedy of unrealized salvation. Presley was ultimately trying to recapture the magic of Sun Studio again, those unforgettable sounds recorded at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. You want to believe this speculative truth even though your back begins ache, as it will, on a long-haul economy flight about 130 minutes in. A Complete Unknown is a slice of His Bobness. New York City to Newport, Woody Guthrie to Les Paul, a vapour trail of precious folk scene pretensions shredded in his wake. Headed for Sun, in his way.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a sliver. Nebraska is that dark space between The River and Born in the USA. A spare and haunting album with echoes of that room on Union Avenue. The phrase “deliver me from nowhere” is sung twice on the record, in “State Trooper” and “Open All Night” – a stream of consciousness song which presages “Radio Nowhere” from Magic. The title track and opening lyric, I saw her standing on her front lawn/Just a-twirlin’ her baton evokes Mary on her front porch in “Thunder Road”. In this instance though, the outcome, the promise, is a headlong drive into the American Nightmare.

The film opens with the finale of “Born to Run”, the last song of the last encore on the last date of a tour. “Hungry Heart” is all over the radio, Top Ten. We know what’s happened, we know where he’s been. The context of Nebraska is further clarified by a full E Street Band studio run-through of “Born in the USA”. We know what’s coming next and CBS is intent on riding that rocket.

Nebraska (number 226 on Rolling Stone’s list of the top 500 albums originally published in 2012 and since boosted to 150 in the 2020 revisionist update) was a Z-28 skid into left field and viewed by the corporate skyscraper powers that be in 1982 as commercial suicide. If you’re intent on ending something, best be sensible and choose career over life. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is not a raucous feel-good flick. It runs like a two-hour public service announcement detailing the crippling toll of clinical depression. But it rocks better than any official disease marketing awareness campaign.

People are wired differently. Brain chemistry is a factor. Emotional triggers and experience are something else. Why “Independence Day” from The River was not used in the film is a mystery, but there’s the source pretty much laid bare: Well, Papa, go to bed now, it’s getting late/Nothing we can do is gonna change anything now…

The near-tragedy depicted is not without humour. At one point a CBS executive says of Nebraska (paraphrasing): “It sounds like outtakes. Bruce would never release outtakes.” Snort! There’s an entire (and expensive) parallel career out there in record store land. The fun with films like Elvis, A Complete Unknown and this one is spotting the homage. You know a shot will be set up and framed just like an album cover or an overly familiar image from the music press. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere delivers.      

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is out now in multiple formats. Visit my revitalized companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still available.