Bruce Springsteen's prog leanings

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "Jungleland" — wherein Bruce Springsteen goes prog.

That’s right, I said it. Bruce Springsteen, blue-collar hero of meat and potatoes rock and roll, comes up with one of his most beloved songs, featuring multiple distinct sections, abrupt tempo shifts, long instrumental passages, unexpected modulations and an overtly melodramatic storyline. In other words, prog.

Oh, sure, it wouldn’t seem to have a lot in common with ELP or King Crimson, musically. And lyrically it’s got nothing in common with Yes since the lyrics are, you know, comprehensible. ("Mountains come out  of the sky and they stand there" — and that ain't cherrypicking, that's from their most popular song.)

But it’s not far off from what Genesis was doing its last few years with Peter Gabriel—in fact, given the radically different backgrounds of its creators, it really is like the American cousin of Selling England by the Pound’s “Battle of Epping Forest.”

Both take scenarios thoroughly steeped in their own local mythologies—Robin Hood’s old stomping grounds as a setting for a gang war versus the New Jersey Turnpike and a more mundane urban street scene—and craft a relatively straightforward narrative around them, both shot through with violence and ending in death. (SPOILERS!)

There are more than a few differences, of course: for one thing, Peter Gabriel’s lyrics play up the absurdity for comedic effect, and the variety of voices he utilizes only emphasizes that. Springsteen, in contrast, is aiming for high tragedy, complete with heartbreaking catharsis.

But even the names—the Magic Rat and the Maximum Lawman, Liquid Len and Bob the Nob—are of a piece. Both feature slower, softer instrumental intros which burst into uptempo rock and roll. (Well…something kind of approaching some sort of rock and rollian, rock and rollesque approximation, in the case of Genesis.) Both feature prominent keyboard parts as the dominant instrument overall, but “Jungleland” makes outstanding use of Clarence Clemons’ saxophone for its long, arduously composed and recorded solo, the most memorable part of the song—no small feat, given the gorgeous piano and violin intro, or the fine guitar solo, whereas ace Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett was, as all too often, relegated to textures (at which he was exceptional) and mixed too low.

And coincidence that the only time Springsteen released a song like this was in 1975, during the height of prog, when it was pretty much the most popular genre going at the time? And he wouldn’t do anything even remotely approaching it for 35 more years? Nay, I say—I say thee nay.

Which isn’t to say "Jungleland"'s not great, of course. ‘cuz it is, and I say that as someone who admits he’s got a fondness for prog. In fact, one of the big differences between the two songs is their relative quality: "Jungleland" succeeds in everything it tries to do, whereas "Epping Forest" is, as almost all the musicians involved admit, more than a bit of a mess: musically overly busy, even by prog standards, and massively overstuffed lyrically; comparing it to the same albums "Cinema Show" or "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" make clear how powerful these ingredients can be when mixed in the proper proportions...which they aren't here.

“Jungleland” is epic and sprawling and gorgeous and ambitious and moving and sums up the entire Born to Run album perfectly. It’s the last gasp of a tenacious young kid willing, happy, desperate to try anything, to toss the kitchen sink and anything else he can find into the pot, hoping to discover the ideal medium for his message. He’d find it when recording his next album, and things would pretty much forever be far more stripped down and direct. So enjoy this last gasp of Bruce Springsteen figuring out who he is.  Once he figures that out for sure, things might get even better, maybe, but there’s nothing quite like the rush of a young artist exploding into full promise.

Follow You, Follow Me

I was reading a discussion the other day about who the greatest prog keyboardist of the 70s was: Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman? And what about Patrick Moraz? Where does he fit in?

I don't nearly enough about keyboards or Emerson to have any kind of an educated opinion. I know I certain prefer both Wakeman's and Moraz's playing, given that Close to the Edge is absolutely one of my favorite albums ever, and Fragile's not far behind, and for that matter, I have recently come to appreciate Relayer despite the fact that Bill Bruford doesn't play on it, but he didn't play on the two albums he made with Moraz and I like those too. Meanwhile, I've never had much desire to hear any ELP beyond what was frequently on the radio and didn't even enjoy that handful of tunes all that much.

Still, there's no question that when it comes to technique, Wakeman, Emerson and Moraz stand head and shoulders above the other most famous prog keyboardists, Tony Banks and Rick Wright, and that's assuming you even consider Pink Floyd a prog band. (You should.) Both are certainly fine players, but neither come close to the kind of technical excellence so freely displayed by Wakeman and Emerson.

And yet. For all their unquestioned chops, and for all I adore Close to the Edge and it and Fragile have enriched my life, I have never heard Rick Wakeman play anything as lovely, as melodious, as absolutely perfect for its setting as the solo Banks plays from 2:49-3:10, never mind Keith Emerson.

And we haven't even touched about the stuff he wrote with Genesis—which is to say, most of Genesis' output. (That's at least a slight exaggeration. Sometimes he only co-wrote stuff.) But, I mean, "Cinema Show"? "Apocalypse in 9/8"? "After the Ordeal"? I mean.

So. Best keyboardist? By most criteria, Banks isn't even close to being in the running. But I would surely pick just about anything he ever wrote with Genesis over not only just about anything ever written by Wakeman or Emerson, I'd pick just about anything he's ever written over just about everything written by those guys.

(Full disclosure: Rick Wakeman seems like he's been pretty much one of the coolest guys on the planet since at least Hunky Dory.)

In Your Eyes

Here's my argument:

Peter Gabriel was with Genesis for roughly nine years. In that time he wrote or co-wrote a few dozen songs, many of which range from okay to very, very good. In the forty plus years since then he has written several dozen more, which range from good to transcendent.

Sting was with the Police for roughly six years (with another three tacked on where they weren't really a band in any meaningful sense but hadn't officially broken up either). In that time, he wrote several dozen songs, which range from okay to phenomenal. In the thirty-three or so years since then, he's written many dozen more songs, which range from good to very good.

What I'm saying is that Gabriel needed to break free from Genesis in order to become the artist he is, and we're all the better off for it. Sting, on the other hand, broke free from both the constraints of the Police and the full flowering of his abilities. Because he's been without the Police for nearly six times as long as he was with them, and in that time he hasn't created a single song as good as his half-dozen best Police songs, nevermind one which approaches this:

And while comparing another song to "In Your Eyes" would normally be unfair, in this case, it really isn't, since if Sting never wrote a song better than this slice of brilliance, he's certainly written several—"Message in a Bottle," "Every Breath You Take," "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and so on—that are very comfortable peers, at the very least. For a few years there, he seemed to turn them out on a yearly basis. And then....not.

One for the Vine

This makes me unreasonably happy.

Follow You, Follow Me

Someone asked me not too long ago what my all-time favorite Genesis song was. After running down a few dozen candidates, I was shocked to realize this just may be it. Probably not–more likely "Ripples" or "Turn It On Again" or "Cinema Show" or one of their instrumentals. No, wait, maybe it's "Blood on the Rootops." Or maybe "Dancing with the Moonlight Knight." Whatever. "Follow You, Follow Me" is a strong contender and there have certainly been times it was it.

And this cover more than lives up to the original. Mike Rutherford's oddly syncopated guitar works wonderfully on the original, and is absolutely absent here. Instead, it's got a plainly strummed guitar, an interestingly building Enossification of the backing tracks, and of course, Mark Kozelek's warm, hushed vocal, which manage to convey a delicate tenderness, and a haunted gravitas at the same time. Something about his voice makes it hard not to suspect that he's singing this to someone who's already left him. Which makes the opening words all the more effective.

Horizons

I fell in love with this song the very first time I heard it—in fact, it may have been the first Peter Gabriel-era Genesis song I loved unreservedly. I've heard it hundreds of times since and if anything that's only grown stronger.

But watching Steve Hackett play it now, I don't understand how it was written. How do you write something like this? I honestly don't understand. I get how "Hey Jude" was written, or "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or even "So What" but this is just beyond me.

Lovely little trolling of his erstwhile bandmates at the very beginning too.

(And, yes, I know its genesis, if you will, in the prelude to Bach's first cello suite. I still don't get it.)

Ålesund

Mark Kozelek has said that he recorded the Sun Kil Moon album Admiral Fell Promises after listening to a lot of Andrés Segovia. That's as may be but boy howdy but it sounds like he'd listened to a lot of Steve Hackett in his day as well. (The fact that he's covered both Peter Gabriel-era Genesis and post-PG Genesis also makes me suspect this.)

Victim of Love v Squonk

So I recently took Don Henley to task for being a pedestrian drummer. DT astutely pointed out that a perfect illustration of Henley's flaws as a drummer can be found in "Victim of Love," off their Hotel California LP.

The song starts off well—very, very well, in fact—with some snaky, funky, dirty guitar, accentuated by Henley hitting the crash cymbal and bass and snare drums. It's good. It works. But then, at 0:21, Henley does a small roll to introduce the first verse and it's...it's okay. It's a bit tasteful, a bit restrained, where the guitar intro had been nasty. But it's okay.

And then we're into the verse and it all just plods. Where the song is supposed to stalk menacingly or stomp furiously, it lumbers lugubriously. And it's not just the guitar that the drums let down, it's the lyrics, which are (unfortunately) also nasty, even bitter. But the drums, meanwhile, are just...kinda bored. They're collecting a paycheck. Henley drops in fills here and there but they're all so sparse. They're clearly attempting to be funky...but they're not. No, they're not. They're going for Soulful. They achieve Empty.

Check out the guitar solo, starting at 2:40. Now, that's nasty while still being tasteful. And it spurs the drums to...just kinda trod down the stairs slowly, despondently, when the solo's over. "Hm? Solo's done? Time for the chorus again? Oh...oh...oh...okay."

It's not just easy but instructive to compare and contrast with some of the other drummers of the time were doing, and we don't even need to bring up John Bonham, despite the fact that Henley himself compared the Eagles to Led Zeppelin (and, indeed, in terms of commercial success, they were absolutely peers).

Take a look at Steely Dan, very much peers of the Eagles, in many ways, down to the fact that the bands mentioned each other in lyrics; after Steely Dan included the lyric, "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening," in their song "Everything You Did," the Eagles returned the favor with the slightly more obscure (but pointed) line, "they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast," in "Hotel California."

So check out the title track to their Aja album, released the year after Hotel California. Note how restrained and tasteful Steve Gadd's drums are at the beginning. Frankly, in a different context, they wouldn't be out of place for a Holiday Inn lounge out by the airport. After a bit the vocals enter, and then after two minutes, the vocals are more or less done. At the 3:10 mark, the guitar solo starts, and other than some nice cymbal accents, Gadd's still laying back, for the most part, commenting on the proceedings, but biding his time. Until 4:40, and the sax solo, when it's time to let loose, which he does with a series of fills so full of complex asskickery that professional drummers isolate them and burst into spontaneous applause as they listen to them over and over all by themselves.

If Henley had dropped just one fill anything like that into "Victim of Love," it would have elevated the song substantially. He's never possessed that kind of technique, of course—few have—but if even if he'd just gone for something in that 'hood, just made some sort of an effort, it'd have made all the difference.

Now, honestly, even though the bands were peers, it's a little unfair to compare Henley or, really, almost anyone to Steve Gadd, given that he may be the single greatest drummer of his generation, a master of rock, jazz and pop, inventive, tasteful and with the technique of a dozen great drummers. What's more, "Aja" is jazzy where "Victim of Love" is not even remotely. So something kickin' but more straightforward might have been called for.

So let's compare Don Henley, instead, to another drummer/vocalist, one who understands restraint (so much so that a few years later he'd begin to use drum machines more extensively than just about anyone outside of hip-hop) and who recorded a song with almost exactly the same tempo just a few months earlier. I speak, obviously, of none other than Phil Collins.

As with Henley, Collins goes, at least initially, for a minimalist approach, his fills being sparing (by his standards)—even his intro roll isn't dissimilar to Henley's verse intro.

But speaking of John Bonham, Collins has called this his Bonham song, his attempt at a Bonzo-like feel, ala (presumably) "Kashmir." He doesn't quite get there, both because stylistically, they were just too different, but also because the song's a light year away, harmonically and in terms of mood. Maybe most of all, the production doesn't give his drums anything like the heft Jimmy Page was able to give Bonham's—there's a reason the drums on "When the Levee Breaks" is one of the most sampled ever, as it's the perfect match of drummer and production. Still, you can see where Collins was coming from. And if it's not Bonzo—and it ain't—his playing's certainly quite a bit heavier than he was just a year earlier, on something like "Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist."

But more to the point, listen to the way he allows the entire thing to build. His fills at 0:32 and 0:56 aren't far from something Henley might do. But at 1:16 and 1:27, his toms play off the vocals in a way Henley virtually never imagined, and at 1:30 he's got the kind of simple yet thunderous roll around the kit that the song calls for—and, unlike Henley, Collins hears the call and answers it. And from then on, he just keeps going, with fills that are by his standards (Collins was remarkably fluent in complex time signatures, and was able to imbue compound times with a swing that even some other perhaps more technically advanced drummers couldn't begin to approach) simple yet insistent. One thing they are not is "bored."

"Squonk" is far from the best drumming Phil Collins would ever do, but he's clearly not afraid to drive the band and the song. Don Henley on "Victim of Love," on the other hand, sits back and calmly watches the proceedings with a lofty reserve. Which is one of the main reasons the Eagles could never have been The Great American Rock Band they so dearly wished to be. To be truly great in rock and roll, you have to take chances. Always playing it safe just ain't gonna cut it.

Most of all, there has never been a great rock and roll band without a great drummer. Which means the Eagles were never, ever going to be that which they most desperately wanted to be. They were going to be popular and rich (the 3rd and 2nd things they most wanted), but great was always destined to remain just beyond their reach.