Okay, first off, it’s not exactly a state secret that Bruce Springsteen is one of my top three Rock & Roll Heroes of all time, the other two being – for those of you scoring at home – Elliott Murphy and Pete Townshend. (And Townshend has been useless to me from pretty much 1973 on, right after Quadrophenia, and all of The Who’s successive letdowns, including this year’s 5,237th Farewell Tour.)

But I digress………

Even though Bruce is my hero, there are always letdowns lurking on the winding path of rock & roll, and Springsteen’s Western Stars record is certainly one of them. I fully admit I couldn’t possibly have heard the album for the first time under worse circumstances, on the Sirius/XM radio E Street channel during a long car ride. Dave Marsh and some other Sirius stiff played the record all the way through with commentary every three songs or so, the commentary running largely to, “Oh, those songs were SO wonderful, showing the influence of Jimmy Webb while retaining Bruce’s genius for lyric writing; Oh, THAT set of songs was SO magnificent, evoking the mysteries of the landscape of the Southwest, mirrored through Bruce’s genius;” and, finally, “Oh, that closing group of songs were THE BEST songs ever written in the Sunshine Pop style of 1960’s California, only these were better because they grew from the mind & soul of Bruce’s genius.”

Truthfully, all I heard on that first car radio listen – and subsequent listening’s at home – was a fairly melodically boring record and not ONE great line of Springsteen lyrics. And don’t get me wrong, I FULLY appreciate and love that Bruce tried something different with this album – a unified set of songs, a sort of meditation on stalled stardom & The Southwest – I just think he pretty much dropped the ball on the TUNES, ya know?

Which brings us to the movie that premiered a coupla Friday’s ago: My thought was, “GREAT, I can see Bruce and some musicians with an accompanying string section play the songs LIVE, live is always the best way to experience Springsteen music.” But by halfway through the film (and believe me boys & girls, it’s a FILM, not a MOVIE; important distinction, MOVIES are oftentimes fun, films are almost uniformly boring) I found myself dozing off in my comfy Gateway Film Center seat. The songs – and, problematically, the Bruce commentary accompanying the songs – were just as boring live as they were on record. And all of those stock cinematic shots of horses running majestically through Southwest desert landscapes didn’t exactly liven things up.

Then, at the end, as a coup de grace, Bruce & the band undercut the entire premise of the Western Stars concept by essaying a cover of “Rhinestone Cowboy,” the Glen Campbell hit from 1975. THAT was when it hit me, “Damn, this lightweight Larry Weiss middle-of-the-road pap-pop tune from the mid-70’s is BETTER IN EVERY WAY than ANY of the songs from Western Stars: WAY more melodically memorable; sharper – if not exactly BETTER – lyrics; and far more FUN than anything else Bruce had trotted out in the previous 60 minutes.” And “Rhinestone Cowboy” is a TERRIBLE song that I turn off every time it comes on any of the oldie radio stations I have programmed in my car (and there are – I fully admit – a LOT of oldie radio stations programmed in my car).

One of the first – and, retrospectively, best – rock & roll lessons Willie Phoenix taught me when we met way back in 1978 was, “Never end a set of original songs with a cover, because then you’re just admitting you couldn’t come up with anything better than something that already existed.” I wish Springsteen had honored that sentiment in Western Stars.

Bruce, I’m eagerly lookin’ forward to What’s Next. – Ricki C. / November 1st, 2019.

a couple of videos to illustrate my point…….

I really believe either one of the GREAT 1960’s Jimmy Webb/Glen Campbell collaborations “Galveston” or “By The Time I Get to Phoenix” would have illustrated the “Sunshine Pop” connections to Western Stars better than this easy-listening pop song, and still would have kept the Western theme going.

Look ‘em up, cats & kittens.