Bruce Springsteen, The River, 1980
Label: Columbia
Producers: Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, and Steven Van Zandt
Arriving in the fall of 1980, The River was Bruce Springsteen’s first and only double album and, Born to Run success notwithstanding, his first true commercial breakthrough. A prolific and wide-ranging emotional music experience, the record topped Billboard’s LP charts for an entire month and delivered the Boss’ long awaited debut in the radio top ten. While that success may accurately suggest a few commercial concessions, those victories really represented the mainstream finally catching up with the awareness of his talents that his cult following and many critics had held since the early days of his career. Springsteen had never limited himself to commercial barriers and mainstream formulas, and while that integrity remains intact here, the double album format certainly allowed him to more seamlessly marry accessibility with the unique and more artistic elements of his repertoire. This album is a tremendous tour across the expansive landscape of rock music. It’s light, quick, and frivolous one moment, and then deep, solemn, and prolific the next. Such diversity allowed the singer and his crack band to thoroughly display their wide skill set, showcasing everything from their rock radio sensibilities and classic live atmospherics, to the more astute and complicated lengths of both Springsteen’s poetic muse and the E-Street Band’s astute musicianship.
Beginning the album with an optimistic ring, “The Ties That Bind” offered one of Springsteen’s most gleefully sung tracks, backed by a hearty jangle of layered guitars that recalled the best of The Byrds. As effervescently light as it may have been on the surface, the song carried a cutting and meaty message underneath. It follows a woman hell-bent on making it on her own, while the narrator warns her not to completely abandon the inherent human need for companionship. The slightly darker “Jackson Cage” likewise effectively balances grit with glory as the singer revisits the desperate longing of “Born to Run” and other earlier staples. He sings the ever-loving fire out of it with loads of urgency and soul. Danny Federici’s hypnotic organ solos will further lock you in for good measure. Equally passionate is the classic single, “Hungry Heart”, an undeniable anthem that gloriously cues up the brassy sax riffs, a pumping piano beat, and one of Bruce’s most full throated and infectious performances of all time. It’s a plum perfect rock record and gave Springsteen a cool, confident, and long-overdue breakthrough arrival into the upper reaches of the radio waves. It again finds the singer delivering a universal message about every man’s yearning for something–be it romance, success, freedom, or something else entirely.
Conversely, not every tune in the wealth of rocking rave-ups found here offers a deeper message underneath the infectious performances. In fact, most of them don’t and that’s perfectly fine. The bulk of this album is rooted in straight-up rock and pop bliss, with Springsteen and his ensemble throwing it back to the glory days of early rock & roll, when all you needed was an engaging singer, a fun melody, and a rip-roaring band. “Sherry Darling” offers an exuberantly vintage sock-hop vibe. “Out in the Street” sizzles sensationally thanks to the incomparable piano strokes of Roy Bittan. “Crush On You” is truthfully a delirious, simple ditty, except for the fact that it’s sung with one of the most aggressive and hard-hitting vocals of the whole album, and it’s all the more entertaining thanks to such juxtaposition. “Cadillac Ranch” roars along with a blissful rockabilly bent and a roadhouse organ arrangement that served as a precursor to later hits like Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life”. “I Wanna Marry You” is a lilting waltz that came complete with the wedding-tinged organ accompaniment that recalled some of the best pop crooners of the previous generation, all the while supported by a mature rock backbone. And favorites like “Ramrod” and “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)” were addictive, rapid fire dynamos made for the live stage, where they remain staples decades later. Each of these tunes proved that the rock poet Springsteen could easily be a flat-out pop singer when he wanted to be. The thrilling, vintage 50s vestige proved incredibly refreshing during a turbulent time, as a recession loomed over the US economy at the dawn of the 80s.
But again, this is rock poet Bruce Springsteen we’re talking about her. And as expected, fleshing out the rest of The River were the type of thoughtful, personal sketches that had made him one of rock music’s top songwriters before he was ever a radio star. “Stolen Car” was a despondent ballad that followed the slow, crippling dissolution of a marriage on the brink of disaster. Similarly slicing, “The Price You Pay” was another frank look at the downbeat burdens life can offer, though it does retain a bit of the bright jangle heard earlier, as the protagonist finds himself reconciling his misfortunes in what proves to be a settled but solemn sequel to 1978’s “The Promised Land”. “Point Blank”, the tender opening track to Side 3, was gorgeously fatalistic as Springsteen observes just how far his ex-lover has fallen since their parting, and his morose but retrained delivery is perfectly accented by the soft, pensive beauty of Bittan’s piano.
Further elevating The River to classic status was a powerful trilogy of folk-rock ballads that became some of his most revered pieces, and did more to foreshadow Springsteen’s next album rather than the superstardom that would find him later in the decade. The first of these cornerstones, “Independence Day”, was a personal reflection on another dissolved relationship, but one of a parental nature rather than romantic. Blending folky guitars with a steady supporting synth, it finds the singer vowing not to let the world do the same soul damaging to him that it did to his father. Clarence Clemons’ saxophone solo here is so soulfully mournful, further elevating the tune as Springsteen once again displays the hallmark of a great songwriter; tapping into a universal truth while keeping it uniquely personal as well. The title track is another undeniable masterpiece, an epic harmonica-driven ballad very much in the Bob Dylan vein, as well as that of a three-party country song. The chorus swells tremendously with a doomed, commanding sound that pushes Bruce to deliver one of the most respectable vocals he ever recorded. Finally, “Wreck on the Highway” concludes the entire project with about as grim of a tone as possible, with a folk-styled narrative that finds the song’s character coming across a fatal auto accident that results in him witnessing the dead driver being carried away. The reflective finale that follows proves to be a fitting conclusion, with the song’s style directly bleeding into what was in store with the complete conceptual 180 that Springsteen would deliver with 1982’s Nebraska.
Overall however, The River announced a greater long-term arc in Bruce Springsteen’s forthcoming career trajectory. Combining all the essential ingredients of his artistic identity, the double record found the artist and his troops continually maturing in every way. First and foremost, his writing continued to expand in increasingly diverse and introspective directions, and everything else follows suit, from his singing to the arrangements and the E-Street Band’s musicianship. Those elements coalesced into what truly became the birthplace of the Heartland Rock movement that helped define the eighties and further fuel careers of contemporaries like John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, Steve Earle and others. Much like the material here led to a critical victory with its immediate predecessor, it also led to the commercial triumphs of 1984’s Born in the USA as well. Without The River, that record doesn’t happen, and neither do the stratospheric heights of superstardom that would ultimately seal Springsteen’s destiny as a rock & roll God. It’s a pivotal building block and a singular classic, all the same.
Track Listing:
- “The Ties That Bind” (Bruce Springsteen)
- “Sherry Darling” (Springsteen) *1981 Single Release
- “Jackson Cage” (Springsteen)
- “Two Hearts” (Springsteen)
- “Independence Day” (Springsteen)
- “Hungry Heart” (Springsteen)*1980 Single Release
- “Out in the Street” (Springsteen)
- “Crush On You” (Springsteen)
- “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)” (Springsteen)
- “I Wanna Marry You” (Springsteen) *1981 Single Release
- “The River” (Springsteen) *1981 Single Release
- “Point Blank” (Springsteen) *1981 Single Release
- “Cadillac Ranch” (Springsteen) *1981 Single Release
- “I’m A Rocker” (Springsteen)
- “Fade Away” (Springsteen) *1981 Single Release
- “Stolen Car” (Springsteen)
- “Ramrod” (Springsteen)
- “The Price You Pay” (Springsteen)
- “Drive All Night” (Springsteen)
- “The Wreck On the Highway” (Springsteen)
Previous: Darkness on the Edge of Town
Next: Nebraska
The 706 
This album is probably my favorite of his, because of its diversity, from the comical “Crush On You” and “I’m a Rocker” to the sobering “Point Blank” and “Wreck On the Highway”, and everything in between.