Happy 15th Anniversary to Bruce Springsteen’s fifteenth studio album Magic, originally released September 25, 2007.
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To truly love Magic (2007), we have to start with Working on a Dream (2009): the much-maligned first album of Bruce Springsteen’s Obama era output, which rode that wave of electoral optimism straight into saying…not much at all. Dream’s follow-up, Wrecking Ball (2012), shows us that the world did not magically become better and brighter after the 2008 election, and finds Springsteen fighting for the working man with anger and bluster, just like we were used to seeing in his early career with Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978).
But there is no fight in Magic. This is late Bush-era, a dark hour in US history as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan toppled over the cliff of intractability. Springsteen is pictured alone on the cover, evoking a post-apocalyptic maverick, someone who’s given up on it all. When you compare this position to the one he would find himself in two years later, or even five years later, when building a better future seemed at least worth fighting for, the depths of despair on Magic reveal themselves.
The record opens with “Radio Nowhere,” a searing indictment of the American public, which Springsteen paints as having lost all of its vigor. He asks, “is there anybody alive out there,” a line he usually uses at concerts to get the crowd on its feet, but this time he seems to literally be asking. It’s final confirmation that he is in fact alone before proceeding with the rest of the album. The E Street band is with him, of course, with Max Weinberg thundering away spectacularly, making the kind of righteous ruckus that would surely rouse any remaining believers. If there are any.
He doesn’t seem convinced that there are. “Last to Die” recalls John Kerry’s 1971 plea against the Vietnam War, asking who will be “the last to die for a mistake,” (and, of course, silently asking what would have happened if Kerry had been president), while “Long Walk Home” paints a picture of an America that is unrecognizable to a soldier returning home from the war. In “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” the aforementioned girls pass the narrator by, off to bigger and better things. There’s an air of loneliness, being left behind, that pervades the LP.
The abandonment is not the result of happenstance: “Devil’s Arcade,” with its brilliantly sinister cello part, places the blame firmly at President Bush’s feet (ostensibly the devil) for bringing the song’s protagonist, a young soldier, away from his safe home and into an evil game. For Bush, of course, there are no physical consequences, but for the guy in the song, and for everyone else at home, they’re deeply serious. The anger in “Devil’s Arcade” is not quite rousing, though; the slow beat of the kickdrum implies an inevitability to the injustice, as if there is nothing to be done.
The record’s narrative is driven home by “Terry’s Song,” a last-minute addition and tribute to Terry Magovern, who had worked with Springsteen for twenty years before passing away. Closing with this vivid portrait of grief lets us zero in on what the characters on the rest of the album are dealing with: as they lose friends and loved ones in the war, they are feeling what “Terry’s Song” makes us feel.
In spite of all of this, the album’s lyrics aren’t what gives us the strongest clue into Springsteen’s sense of despair: careful attention to his career trajectory tells us that the heart of the record’s sadness is in its sound.
In its instrumentation and production style, Magic’s closest predecessor is Tunnel of Love (1987), Springsteen’s divorce album and first record made without the E Street Band. While Magic does feature the E Streeters, the slick production and focus on straightforward rock and roll evokes the beginning of Springsteen’s wilderness period. Compare, for instance, the clean spaciousness of “Brilliant Disguise” or “Tougher than the Rest” with the likes of “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” or “Livin’ in the Future.” While Springsteen’s voice on Tunnel of Love is brighter, there is much more open space, and distance, on these records than his regular output.
The Rising (2002), the most recent E Street album before Magic, was sprawling in its sound and scope as Springsteen dealt with the ramifications of the September 11 attacks. When Springsteen feels like he has something to say, he branches out and spins magnificent yarns and explores new sonic territory—but when his relationship falls apart on Tunnel of Love, or when his country falls apart on Magic, he gets as insular as he can.
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We never got another record like Magic: the political undercurrents tacked in a different direction. Maybe that’s for the better; this record sees Springsteen using his songwriting powers for a purpose they maybe weren’t meant for. The question “is there anybody alive out there?” is meant to be genuine, and you’re supposed to respond. Now, fifteen years later, Magic is a clear portrait of what happens if we don’t.
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