Springsteen and Lennon and the Art of the Great Cover

BACKSTORY

The last time I published on this blog was about Adriana Barton’s terrific book, Wired for Music.  That was January.  Just before that, in November/22, I wrote about Jethro Tull.  My plan after Tull was to dive into the English prog rockers Yes. 

I did that and then spent too many weeks rewriting a piece on Yes.  Then I gave up.  You’ll read why in this post.  The band frustrated me.  And that frustration really pissed me off. 

But then the music angels opened a door for me.  And walking through that door led to some very positive music experiences with artists I am familiar with.

Technically, Music I Missed is about artists and music I never listened to when it was new.  But my favourite artist, Bruce Springsteen, threw me a curve a few months ago.  And, it being Bruce, I had to look into it.  That curve from Bruce caused me to think back on a similar thing another revered artist, John Lennon did in 1975.   

REACTIONS

But first, a bit about Yes. 

I really wanted to love Yes. 

Actually, I wasn’t totally new to this British prog rock band that made its name in the early 70s.  I knew their massive Top 40 hit, Roundabout, and I had heard snippets of their work over the years.  The goal with this listening experience was to take a deep dive and really get to know their work.   

My short take on Yes – these guys sure could play.  But I couldn’t latch onto any of the work I heard on their first four albums, The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge and Yessongs.  I heard the music and I kept saying, “Wow, they’re great musicians,” but none of it gave me the happy chills you get when music thrills you.  I couldn’t feel any edge or hook or soul to much of the music.  The lyrics were meaningless to me.  Occasionally, it would all catch fire, but not often enough. 

The band had – and still has – legions of fans.  If you’re in that following, I’m glad you love Yes. I respect their work.  But I don’t love it. 

But the next experience was much more thrilling. 

SPRINGSTEEN & LENNON AND THE ART OF DOING GREAT COVERS

Sometime this past winter, I heard Bruce on a radio station doing a version of Nightshift.  I loved the 1985 original by The Commodores.  I also liked Bruce’s take.  And as a long time Bruce disciple, I’ve always liked how he would cover other artists’ songs at his marathon concerts.  His take on Mitch Ryder’s Detroit Medley, for example, has become such a staple of a Bruce show (I’ve seen him 11 times) that the piece now feels as if Bruce wrote it. 

But then I learned that Nightshift was one of an entire album’s worth of covers by Bruce, called Only the Strong Survive.  I couldn’t help but wonder if The Boss had now run out of ideas.  That saddened me.  Since 1972, Bruce had been a force – of musical innovation, of songs that became anthems to millions, of characters in those songs who he describes so well that we feel we know them, of live performances that reset the very idea of what a rock concert could be. 

And with an entire album of covers, I had to wonder – has that bottomless brain of ideas been  depleted?  Is he done with composing songs and desperate to just be out there, has had to resort to doing his Bruce take on other people’s songs?   

Sure, covering other artists’ work can create great music – think of Sinatra, Ella, Elvis, Streisand and Aretha.  The Stones are notable for their covers of Chuck Berry and blues classics.  The mighty J. Geils Band built their fame on covering R&B. 

But from Bruce Springsteen – no.  What would come next – a Christmas album?

But then I read further about the album.  It was all soul and R&B songs.  And that immediately made a good kind of sense to me.  Bruce has long said that it was these two genres were hugely influential in feeding his whole canon, one that he has referred to as “rock and soul.”  My favourite of all his albums has always been his second, The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle.  That brilliant record was mostly a Jersey take on soul.  The songs, The E-Street Shuffle, Kitty’s Back, and two thirds of the second side (dating myself here as I remember music as coming from one side of a vinyl record) with Incident on 57th Street and New York City Serenade…man, those are soul and R&B songs. 

And Only the Strong Survives was getting good reviews. 

So I called it up on Spotify.  I listened once and loved the album. I’ve since listened over and over and I love it more each time. 

Bruce doesn’t really change anything about any of the 15 songs he covers.  But at the same time, he is able to impart such sincerity in each song, that he achieves the goal of doing a cover – to make it feel to the listener as if it is really is your song. 

Even at 73, Bruce’s voice is still strong and clear.  He sings boldly and is full of confidence on each piece.  Bruce has one of the most distinctive voices in rock.  There is no question of his ability to hit the notes and to use his vocal ability to tell a musical story.  But is that voice – as good as it is and as good as he is in using it – convincing on soul songs, especially when some of the songs he covers here are so famous, even iconic, as performed by the original artists?

For me, he pulls it off.  On the Supremes’ Someday We’ll Be Together, Aretha’s Don’t Play that Song for Me, the Temptations’ I Wish It Would Rain, he finds a way to make each his own, much like a talented stage actor can play Macbeth – after thousands of others have done it over many years. 

Interestingly, the E Street Band isn’t backing Bruce on this album.  He plays guitar and keyboards, but the heavy lifting on the instrumental side is by co-producer Ron Aniello, who plays bass, drums, guitar and various keys on all the tracks.  This dude can play – the drum tracks (which I always pay special attention to) are tight and creative. 

And all the songs are good for dancing.  Hey, it’s soul!  I was able to score tickets to Bruce’s upcoming November concert here in TO.  Any of these songs will go over well in front of 30,000 people at the Scotiabank Arena.  In fact, I’ve seen that Bruce has played two from the album at recent shows in Buffalo and Dublin. 

So, nice job Bruce.

And experiencing this impressive cover album by Bruce, I was reminded, pleasantly, of John Lennon’s Rock ‘n’ Roll from 1975. 

After some impressive initial solo success after the breakup of The Beatles, Lennon hit the skids in the early ‘70s.  Heavy drinking, wild carousing, all covered with lurid stories in the media.  And he and the love of his life, Yoko Ono, broke up. 

I was in Grade 11 then.  I remember reading about his wild behaviour thinking the Lennon story was over. 

But then in 1975 he released a new album, Rock ‘n’ Roll.  I can still remember seeing the cover in Sam the Record Man, with a grainy black-and-white photo of a very young Lennon standing in a doorway.  It was, as I learned later, a photo shot by Klaus Voorman back when The Beatles, before any hint of their future fame, were cutting their teeth in dive bars in Hamburg, Germany. 

It’s quite a shot – Lennon looking like the original punk rocker, with short hair, leather jacket, white t-shirt, dark jeans. 

It’s a powerful photo.  At that point in the late’50s/early ‘60s, he and the lads were hungry to play the rock they loved.  He had, of course, no idea he and this mates would revolutionize not only rock, but, well, culture.  But they charged hard, doing multiple shows a day in these grotty bars in Hamburg. 

I looked at the back of the album and could see it was Lennon covering the old gems of early rock ‘n’ roll that had shaped him.  Unlike my initial negative reaction to Bruce doing covers, the fact Lennon that  would do a cover album spoke to me – maybe this was his way of stripping away the shit he’d fallen into.  Maybe he was thinking that the pioneer rock that had snagged him as a kid would revive his spirit. 

I bought the album.  And, man, what a joyous ride that record was – and still is today.  Lennon rocks his way through 13 songs, all gems that anyone of my vintage would know well by the original artists.  Be-Bop-A-Lula, Stand By Me, Rip It up/Ready Teddy, You Can’t Catch Me, Ain’t That a Shame, Do You Want to Dance.

The sound is big and booming, but even more impressive is how Lennon and a huge band reconceived the music.  You’ll certainly recognize all those old chestnuts, but the band made some clever musical moves to put them stamp on the tunes. 

In Buddy Holly’s classic Peggy Sue, I liked how the piano became a main player and how, in the instrumental section that ends the song, the band moves from the hard rock to a twanging country-and-western steel guitar.  I like how on Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame, Lennon speeds up the tempo, keeping the New Orleans funky piano big horns that Fats used.  Fats’ version is a legit classic, one of the hallmarks of rock, but I love Lennon’s rockier version.  On Do You Want to Dance?, Lennon does the opposite, slowing down the tempo from Bobby Freeman’s original.  Clever move – by slowing down, it feels as if Lennon is the shy guy at the wall who gets the courage up to ask a girl out of his reach to take a turn on the dance floor.  He’s got this pleading tone to his request.  Nice. 

Rock ‘n’ is a heartfelt, well-played effort by Lennon.  I found his sincerity in covering these songs touching.  Here’s a guy who, in 1975, had made more money than he ever could have imagined when he and the boys got together in high school.  But he puts all of his soul into these songs. 

And it isn’t lost on me that five years later, he’d release the gorgeous Double Fantasy album, an impressive work of all original material with songs that pointed a guy who still had a deep well of creativity.  And just after releasing the record, he was dead, the victim of an unstable man with a gun.  A sad and bizarre ending, but one that was immediately preceded by a musician who had clearly found some joy and peace in music and life.