Five Small Things That Make Tunnel of Love Unforgettable

Bruce Springsteen’s 1987 Tunnel of Love, which turns 25 this year, is a masterpiece of an album with very, very few peers. As has been documented in many places, including Scott’s awesome Left of the Dial site, it is—along with Blood on the Tracks—the definitive album about the perils and pitfalls of adult relationships. Scott wonderfully described it as “an album by an adult for adults.” And that’s what it is, and one of the many reasons why it is sui generis.

Another reason, obviously, is the music. It is strongly in the running for the most melodic album Bruce ever put together, and certainly held that title at the time. The lyrics are sparse and spot on; Bruce knew what he had to say when making this record, and he says it perfectly. It just works so well musically—the lyrical splendor of “Brilliant Disguise,” the ethereal beauty of “Walk Like a Man,” the blistering and stunning solo from Nils Lofgren at the apex of the title track, and the earnest, heart-on-the-sleeve romance of “Tougher Than the Rest.” Those are just a few examples.

It is not a “depressing” record as some have described it. In fact, it very well may contain more optimism than the sprawling and raucous Born in the U.S.A. that preceded it. No, what it is is realism—at times cold, hard, bitter realism, but realism nonetheless. It has plenty of anger and sadness, but makes it clear that both are well-earned and understood. It also has slight touches of happiness and relief, and again makes it clear that those too come hard-earned. And it is rife with betrayal and resignation and self-loathing and self-realization, yet there isn’t a drop of self-pity to be found anywhere. So, depressing? No. Realistic and unflinching? You bet. And magnificent in how it pulls that off.

And here’s one more reason why it is such a triumph—it had the nearly impossible task of following up Born in the U.S.A., the album that launched Bruce from superstar to icon. He couldn’t possibly build on the oversized tones of the 1984 record, and he knew it would be folly to try. So once more, just as he did in following up that other definitive masterpiece of his, 1975’s Born To Run, Bruce turned inward.

When he did that in 1978 with Darkness on the Edge of Town, he scored a near-flawless record that damn near equaled Born to Run. It was so very different, as it had to be. But it was amazing.

And when he did it in 1987 with Tunnel of Love, he set the bar even higher and at a greater degree of difficulty. And not only did he succeed, but he even surpassed the mighty Born in the U.S.A. in quality. His ability to come through at that moment—when his personal life was falling down around him (as is evidenced by the content of the album) and with a seemingly impossible task of outdoing the record that made him a legend…well, in a career of amazing feats, this one is very close to unsurpassed.

So given all we know about Tunnel of Love, where it came from, and what a brilliant success it was, it's essential to still remember the smaller picture(s). We know the big things that made it great. We know the songs and the themes. But how about some of those littler things, the kinds we can always find on the finest of albums?

Does Tunnel of Love have its own unique touches? Its own “inner groove,” its own train whistle, its own toy police siren? Yes it does. Plenty of ‘em.

Some subtle, some not so much. Things that maybe go unnoticed or even unappreciated now, 25 years later. Various surprises sprinkled throughout the 12 songs that all serve to enhance the overall effort.

Here are five that come to mind.

The Bookends—Starting with an a capella Bo Diddley beat and closing with a waltz. As unique and, frankly, oddball a choice to start and finish an album as one can find in rock's realm, specifically when it comes to an artist who so clearly invested so much in track placement. Yet it works to a tee. The opening shuffle of "Ain't Got You" is never repeated or even hinted at again, and the 3/4 time of the understated "Valentine's Day" that brilliantly closes the book is a rarity for Bruce. Two strange and rare choices that work sublimely.

The harmonies on "Tougher Than the Rest"—Bruce had invested plenty of time harmonizing up to this point—he and Steve made an artform out of it for years—but this was new. Very seldom did he ever lend harmonies to his slower songs, and even more seldom were the harmonies the featured portion of the song. On "Tougher Than the Rest" the harmonies, while used only at certain times, evoke the very core of the folk sound and lend rich, deep layers to this head-over-heels track. Yet they remain so decidedly rock-n-roll in nature. Certainly not the first thing you think about on the album, or maybe even the 10th, but it's there. And it's remarkable.

The harmonica on "Spare Parts"—Certainly Bruce had used the harmonica before many times; to evoke triumph and/or defiance ("The Promised Land"), to paint a picture of sadness and despair ("The River," "Nebraska") or perhaps just to lay out the epic landscape he was getting ready to spotlight ("Thunder Road"). Never quite like this, starting with the fact that it's not even him—James Woods had one thing to do on this record and one thing only, and he did it with the most distorted, menacing, angry harmonica we could have imagined. The fuzzed up sounds he throws behind the melody on this, one of themost ferocious and terrifying songs in Bruce's vast canon, add a layer of seething, unquenchable rage to "Spare Parts" that very few have ever attained.

Danny’s Solo at the end of “Two Faces”—Ah, Danny. Bruce’s oldest friend in the band, and often times the most unsung. (Well, he and Garry, anyway). But it seemed fitting that as Bruce began to walk away from the E Street Band in 1987, he leaned on Danny and his organ more than any other bandmates other than Max. Danny’s playing added to the mournful feel that permeated Tunnel of Love. But then, out of the blue, on the bleak and seemingly innocuous Side Two track “Two Faces,” Danny flies in at the song’s coda with a positively bouncing, carnival-like organ that’s practically uproarious, damn near inspiring the listener to get up and dance. It’s not the first time Bruce juxtaposed upbeat music with downbeat lyrics, and it sure wasn’t the last, but it’s one of the starkest and most surprising examples that Bruce ever drew up.

Patti's appearance on "One Step Up"—It is no secret now, 25 years later, what was going on in Bruce’s personal life when he recorded Tunnel of Love. According to his most recent bio by Marc Dolan as well as others, his marriage to Julianne Phillips was all but over at this point. When Tunnel of Love finally gets around to the drawn-out, inevitable breakup, following the doubt (“Tunnel of Love”), the fighting (“Two Faces”) and the resignation that it’s falling apart (“Brilliant Disguise”), the hammer drops in the form of the finest song on the record, the heartbreakingly lovely “One Step Up.” When Bruce sings, “When I look at myself I don’t see the man I wanted to be,” we see it all in Technicolor; the man who had nothing and gained everything, even love, only it wasn’t enough. But again, it’s not a “woes me” line. It accepts the pain and the sadness, acknowledges it, and makes it part of who the singer now is. And then, as the song reaches its peak with an image of a couple dancing their lives away, though only in a rose-colored dream, Patti Scialfa emerges for the first time since the title track, practically beckoning the singer away to something new. When she responds “One step up and two steps back” to his identical line, she appears as a comely specter, a vision of what else might be out there. Given what happened with Bruce and Patti’s lives not long after the record came out, and where they are together now, the song and her gorgeous backing vocals are steeped in irony and foreshadowing. Her voice takes us all—not just the narrator, but all of us—to a different place, giving the first clue on the record that the “tunnel” may have a different way out than the singer ever envisioned.

So. Anyway. Celebrate Tunnel of Love at 25, if you get the chance. Listen to it and experience its splendor all over again. You’re likely to find even more hidden little gems inside of it.

"Pepper? No, Pepper."

It was during one of the summers we were both home from college, 1990 or so. I called Scott at his parents’ house one day, looking for him, and one of his older brothers answered. Here is the conversation as he heard it.

“Hi, is Scott there please?”

“No, he’s not home. Can I take a message?”

“Sure. Just tell him Dan Pepper called.” (NOTE: I said Dan Tapper, my actual name. That is not what he heard.)

“Dan Pepper?”

“No. Dan Pepper.”

“Dan Pepper?”

“No. Dan Pepper.”

“Pepper?”

“No. Pepper.”

(pause) "I’ll just tell him Dan called, OK?”

“That’s great. Thanks.”

Thus, I have been referred to as Dan Pepper by a small, concentrated part of the population ever since.

My point to all this? There is some musical tie-in, no? This is kind of a music-based blog, not a quirky story-based blog, right? RIGHT?

Right.

I want to talk briefly about an album called Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. By the Beatles. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

So nearly every “Best Of” list ever produced regarding rock-n-roll albums has this 1967 opus at the very top, literally looking down on every other album ever released in rock-n-roll history. Sgt. Pepper is as widely accepted as the Greatest Album Ever as Wayne Gretzky is as the Greatest Hockey Player Ever.

Only…no. Not here it isn’t, anyway.

(Cue dramatic organ music and haunted house laughter)

Oh, sure, it’s in the Top 10 of all time. But it’s not as good as Revolver, which is the greatest album ever released by anyone. And it’s not as good as Abbey Road, and it may even come in behind Rubber Soul and The Beatles (The White Album). That’s not to say it’s not a great, great record, an absolute masterpiece of the highest order, in the most select of classes in modern music history. It’s Ted Williams. It’s Larry Bird. It’s Mario Lemieux. It’s just not, you know, Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan or the Great Gretzky.

It very well, however, may be the most important album ever released, changing the face of music forever. In production, in grand form, in concept, in cover art and in every element of staging and presentation it stands alone. Not to mention that no record of the past century has been more discussed, dissected, analyzed or broken down to its very marrow than Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It remains a cultural touchstone 45 years later, and will still be one 50 years from now.

So after all this, you could say it is virtually impossible to make the claim that any part of this album is underrated, right? Nothing this talked about and this explored can possibly be underrated. Can it?

It can.

This part, right here.



Seventy-nine seconds is all it takes to remind the listener that you  never, ever underestimate The Beatles, or predict what may come next. Tucked near the end of an album that redefined studio production and gloss, "Reprise" is instead raw and jagged. George’s raunchy, blistering guitar carries the day immediately after Paul’s count-in (which no doubt evokes memories of “I Saw Her Standing There” from four years earlier.) The band is loose and fast and having a ball—if the Beatles were ever a jam band, this is what they might have sounded like. (And three years later, on “The End,” did sound like).Which is to say, great.

And what we get is a reprise that outdoes the estimable original title track that opens the album. The rare key change that comes right in the middle is startling. Paul’s pumped up bass and Ringo’s drumming lends it a joyous, raucous edge. And then there are all the little touches—from John’s cheeky “Bye” during the count-in to Paul’s celebratory “Woooo!” at the end—that make this seeming afterthought one more little unpolished gem. Finally, that it leads seamlessly into “A Day in the Life”—the single greatest album closer in rock history—is the cherry on top. Or mayhap, appropo of the subject matter, the final dash of pepper.

Pepper? Yes indeed, Pepper.

The Genius of the Kinks

Remember the 1980s TV show thirtysomething? It was one of the first and the most successful of those early “dramedies,” and a precursor to the many shows that would follow more in the 90s – comedies and dramedies both – that focused more on character and less on plot. From Friends to Ally McBeal to many others, thirtysomething played a role in spawning many popular TV shows that were more about the talk and less about the action.

This isn’t a post about thirtysomething. (For the record, the show could be incredibly whiny and infuriatingly tried too hard to be hip, though it did make for some great television when it was done right.) But this post is more based on one line that came from the show.

The “single” character, Melissa, wants a baby, yet she has no one at the moment to give her one. She complains about this for awhile and a friend suggests a sperm bank. “Even better,” one friend says, “there’s that one in Califorinia that produces all those genius babies!”

“Yeah, but my definition of genius might be different than theirs,” Melissa counters. “What if I wind up with Neil Diamond’s baby?”

(No, this post isn’t about Neil Diamond either. You think I’d do that to you?)

It’s about genius, and the pliable, mercurial definition that can be applied to it. Especially in music. I’ve heard people call Axl Rose a genius and I’ve had to bite my tongue. I have heard Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder and Prince labeled as such and I haven’t argued. I’ve heard Jonathan Richman called one, I’ve even heard Weird Al Yankovic called one. I’ve offered no response to such claims.

Many of my favorite artists, yes, I do believe have achieved a level of musical genius, at least at times. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, R.E.M., The Who, certainly the Beatles, probably many others could have that argument made for at least portions of their careers.

But here’s one more, not usually brought up right away when talking about musical genius. The Kinks.

This was a brilliant band when at its best, and it had a brilliant and quirky and wholly unique individdle, Ray Davies, leading them. And Ray without question was someone indeed touched by madcap genius at least a few times in his life.

The Kinks burst onto the scene during the first British Invasion in the mid-60s with a sound all their own. Harder, crunchier, more dangerous than anything else coming from the U.K. – not even the Rolling Stones could get nastier in those early years than “You Really Got Me” or “All Day and All of the Night.” The writing was bare and deliberate, and the music was intoxicating. It could also be ridiculously sweet, evocative and funny – “Waterloo Sunset,” “Sunny Afternoon,” “Death of a Clown” and “Til the End of the Day” were just a few examples of what they could do. By 1967 their two most recent albums, Face to Face and Something Else, showed the band firing on all cylinders.

But then they tried something new, and entered into a six-year period where there were few bands, if any, operating with as much consistent innovation and daring as they were. (The Beatles did, sure, until they broke up, and the Rolling Stones did until 1972. But that may be about it.) The Kinks went the way of the concept album.

The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society
Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) 
Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround Part One
Muswell Hillbillies
Everybody’s In Show-Biz
Preservation Acts I and II.

Yes, those were actual album titles. And they all came in a row from 1968 to 1974. And yes, to varying degrees they all worked. And the ones that worked the best (the first four, which along with Face to Face and Something Else stand as the best the band ever did) created some of the era’s greatest music.

They were also all "concept albums," built around common themes that drove the music. Meaning there was a higher degree of difficulty and that the chance of failure—of the concept not working and therefore the project falling apart—was that much greater.

Now, the Kinks didn’t invent the concept album, or even do it the best. The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is a decent candidate, as is The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But what the Kinks did more than anyone, even The Who (who became known for the concept album with their triple-shot offering of The Who Sell Out, Tommy, and Quadrophenia—and, ironically, Who's Next was the eventual result of an abandoned concept), was refine the idea. They viewed is as an actual means to producing music, rather than just a novel attempt to frame it in a different way. To wit, the Kinks did not simply create a concept and pop in songs that loosely fit it, but rather created great music and built a conceptual skin around it.

And yes, the concepts were at times loose in nature. Village Green is sort of about nostalgia for yesteryear England. Lola is sort of a nasty look at the industry. Muswell Hillbillies is sort of about technology and plasticity getting us away from who we really are. The best concept albums aren’t just, “Here’s 14 songs about why the Vietnam War was wrong.” Rather they have themes that hint at certain points, that drives the listening mind to certain edges and into certain neighborhoods to direct their focus.

(As a matter of fact, on their best-known album, The Who actually showed the danger of wrapping an entire album into one "concept." Tommy's theme boxed them into a corner on good-sized chunks of he music, because they found themselves having to advance a very specific plot about a deaf, dumb and blind boy rather than make the music come first. )

After all, it was the overall feel of the album that mattered the most. As Jon Landau wrote about Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding in 1967, there wasn’t one song there specifically about the Vietnam War, “but an awareness of the Vietnam War could be felt all through.”

That’s what the Kinks did on their series of concept albums, and that’s what they did on what I consider their greatest achievement, 1969’s Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire).

Arthur is an anti-war album in concept, though no, not every song is about the Vietnam War, which at the time was at its height. Nor is every song about post-World War II England, though that period plays a rol as well. In fact, none of them spefically are. What we have instead are tales of nationalistic reverence (“Victoria”), battlefield dreams (“Some Mother’s Son”), blind faith in our leaders (“Yes Sir No Sir,” “Brainwashed,” “Mr. Churchill Says,” and, yes, "Victoria" too) and longing for days of peace (“Young and Innocent Days,” “Shangri-La”). It all adds up to a meditation on the waste and disillusionment that war of any kind can cause.

Best yet, at least to me, is the closing and title track, “Arthur.”

The song was written for Ray and Dave Davies’ much-older brother-in-law, or at least with him in mind. A great rock-n-roll number with a slight country hint and some of Dave Davies’ finest guitar work, “Arthur” tells the story of a man who has seen a lifetime of war and struggle without the fruits of personal victory once promised, whose life got away from him just as the world he knew got away from him. And what’s worse, he saw this coming and yet could do nothing about it. (“Arthur, it seems you were right all along, don’t you know it?”)

Again, there is nothing in this song about any war specifically, or about anyone dying or being killed for a political or governmental cause. But the personal level of destruction one can feel from a war that won’t end, and from the idea that the world cannot promise you what you once thought it can promise, is everywhere. It’s embodied in a little man named Arthur, a “plain simple man in a plain simple working class position.” Who the world has now passed by. Who once had dreams, but for whom all “hope and glory” are now gone.

Arthur is the genius of Ray Davies and The Kinks operating full throttle, a dissertation on the very nature of destruction and the lessening of those who once believed. The album may fade out amidst rocking, celebratory whoops and hollers, but it’s the empty shell left behind that really tells the story.