Talk About a Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen (52 page)

But Patti and Lisa and Soozie sang together, busking in New York City, when they were in their late teens and early 20s, so they’ve sung and played together for a
really
long time.

I’m glad you didn’t put a number to it [
both laugh
]—save us both a lot of grief!

So it’s nice to have the three of them together. And the horn section, obviously, with Southside from 1975.

And your bass player, your drummer, and Sam Bardfeld, the one fiddle player, those guys play together all the time. So it’s interlocking circles
.

Yeah, exactly. It’s a circle that slips over the edge of another circle, that slips over the edge of another circle … and it really, I believe, has something to do with why they play so well together. Because it’s all a bunch of people who’ve played really well together for a really long time, slipping one over another. The horn guys have played together, so I can just say, “I want something that feels like this.” “I want these kinds of harmonies.”

And everything that’s on the record happened while the music was being played; I may have sung a little riff or something.

And then you’ve got Cindy Mizelle and Curtis King. And they sing together in the studio all the time, don’t they?

Yeah. It’s interesting because it wasn’t a group of disparate musicians who then had to learn how to play together. It’s people who knew how to play together when they walked into my house. And the shocking thing was, I didn’t know anything about them other than I liked how they sounded playing at my bash.

Well, they were probably playing outdoors, right?

Yeah, it was just an old squeaky sound system. So the guys came ’round, and the level of musicianship once we started—of course, Charlie Giordano, incredible accordionist and keyboard player—once we got into it, things really started to happen.

And the other thing was, they were experienced musicians; they understood the whole art of listening while the music is being played. And that’s why I said, in the record, that people get a chance to hear music being made as it’s happening, as it’s occurring. Everything you’re hearing on the record is something—it is probably the livest live record I’ve ever made. It had the things that I’ve done with the E Street Band that are similar, like “Born in the U.S.A.” The same things: there’s a riff, there’s a count-off, and it’s the second take, and that’s it—it’s done.

That’s pretty much the way the guys describe it. And that’s why it feels like, I think, like it’s in continuity with your other records, because the energy level is up there
.

And as we went session to session, things started to change and happen. By the time we got to the second session….

Well, had you been in touch with those guys in that whole intervening period?

No [
laughs
]. So we played, and like seven years went by, and I don’t know, maybe they played at my house again a few times, I’m not sure! [
Laughs
] But for the most part, not really. And so 2005 comes along, and after one of my listenings, I said gee, that was a lot of fun, I think I’ll do another session of that. Because if I do another session, I’ll have enough for an actual album. And I don’t know if I’ll ever put it out or what I’ll do with it, but I’ll have enough songs. And so the second session comes along—and where’s our cover here?—and I think we did “Mrs. McGrath,” “John Henry,” “Erie Canal,” “Shenandoah,” “Pay Me My Money Down,” maybe “Froggie.” A lot of things came out of that second session.

So for that second session, were you going back to Pete records? Where were you going for material that time?

At some point, I said I’m going to do this drawing off of Pete’s records, because I’ve said in a few interviews that as far as a library of music and just the sheer archival size of it, it’s unmatched. I don’t know any other single performer who has put his hands on so many disparate kinds of music.

People think of Pete as this “folk singer” but they have no idea what that means, musically
.

Yeah, and so everything that happens on our record is implied in something that Pete was doing. The band, there’s a great banjo player, there’s a great 12-string player—they’re all things that I heard after hearing those records and hearing the things that those musicians brought.

So that was a big session. Once again, the session would last an afternoon, and then we would, sing in the early evening. So the record was cut in two-and-a-half days—shortest record I ever made. That was a big session, because I started to move away from [
strums “Jesse James” opening riff
]. That’s where I started, and “We Shall Overcome.” And I
said well, geez, there’s a lot of other—[
plays “Erie Canal” riff
] “Erie Canal,” that minor thing, it feels very ’20s or ’30s to me. There’s a lot of ragtime elements in it, you know? And early jazz elements.

Now, there’s a case where—I’ve got the horns on “Erie Canal,” and they’re playing in sort of that very “brass band” style, and so okay, the solo is coming up, and I’m going, well, our horns … you may even hear me say it on the record, because if you listen to the record, there’s a lot of me going: “Horns!’ “Intro!” “Sam!” You know, I’m yelling out people’s names, and calling solos.

That feels appropriate to the genre somehow. I mean, that’s how it happens
.

Yeah, that’s actually how it’s supposed to be played [
laughs
]. So the horns come along, and all of a sudden, bang, they burst into that Dixieland thing, New Orleans/Dixieland, which is the first time it actually occurs during the sessions. So we’ve got the trumpet, we’ve got the three-piece horn section, and people are really playing. And I’m going, wow, that sounded really great. And so now, all of a sudden, we’ve moved into some other … we’ve pulled in this other genre that feels like it’s fitting very naturally, and it happened on the spot.

So when we came back for the following session and we’re doing “Eyes on the Prize,” now I’ve got in my mind: okay, well, this is gospel, and jazz, and we’re getting the church, and we’re getting sort of the gutter, and that’s the kind of ground I want the music to cover. So on “Jacob’s Ladder,” the gospel thing bursts into that real dirty horn, and same thing with “Eyes on the Prize.” So once again, as we played together more, things just started to happen.

And the New Orleans thing, you can hear it happen on “Pay Me My Money Down.” [
Plays and sings
]:
I thought I heard the captain say / Pay me my money down / Tomorrow
… That’s your basic folk rhythm. The song starts, and that’s what I’m thinking—that’s where the thing is sitting. But then Larry comes in on the drums, and somewhere, I don’t know exactly what verse it happens, but it starts to pick up that “jump” [
demonstrates rhythm
] that’s sort of zydeco and Cajun. That starts to happen, and all of a sudden we’ve gone there. And I don’t know if it’s a quarter of the way through the song or halfway through, but you can feel it. You can feel the rhythm shift slightly, and all of a sudden we’re there. Now we’re someplace else—we’ve gone to some other part of the country.

The process is fascinating, because that song, which began in the Sea Islands off Georgia, ends up being done quite often by West Indians in sort of the Calypso rhythm that you were just doing
.

Really? So you know, that was something that these guys just—it was there, and it had to come out! So all of a sudden I’m hearing that, and Charlie’s got the accordion going, and they play that stuff real, real well. When they came down and played for us, that’s the kind of grooves and feels they were playing. And so now we’re there, and now we have this whole other place to go, you know?

Yeah, you sort of moved your music from the one to the two and the four
.

It just moves, so we’re kind of taking a trip around the country itself, geographically, as the sessions are going along. We’re visiting different places: Appalachian places, and we’re moving down south …

One of the things about your singing on this record, and “Pay Me My Money Down” is one of the places, is you sound more New Jersey than ever. I noticed this on the last tour …

[
Laughs
] I’m not sure that’s something I’m aspiring to! But go ahead.

Well, no [
laughs
], it was a little bit on the last tour I noticed it, too. There’s a very distinct accent in central and southern New Jersey
.

And see, not being in central and southern New Jersey, I do not know what that might be!

But being married to somebody whose whole family is from Trenton, I hear it
.

I know there’s a north Jersey accent …

Nope, this is different. Yours is more … it’s almost Elizabethan in some strange way. It’s nasal …

Nasal, that I got covered! [
Both laugh
] That’s one of my specialties!

But I hear it, anyway. We’ll see if anybody else does
.

I don’t know, I mean, your voice shifts in response to the music you’re playing and singing instinctively, and the only thing I knew when I went in to sing on these things is, well, I’m going to sing a way I haven’t sung before, I thought. Which I thought is what I was doing! [
Laughs
]

Well, it may be as simple as that—that you just felt comfortable with other intonations
.

And I’m singing from a different place in my throat. If you go from, say, the early music—
Born to Run
is a lot of chest. And as I’ve gone along over the years, I’ve found a falsetto, and I also move my voice up very often into a somewhat higher place. And then on this particular music I think I might have moved it up even higher into my throat. I was looking for something that was frayed, really just ragged around the edges. Because that’s what all these characters are.

On stuff like—very different tracks, but “Old Dan Tucker” and “My Oklahoma Home,” that kind of thing?

Even “Eyes on the Prize.” I found I wanted to sing it … they didn’t want to be
sung
out, and I don’t know why, but the way I approached the freedom songs particularly was: it’s surreptitious. There are secrets being told at the beginning of all those songs. And so the idea was, yeah, I’m gonna start out, there’s a secret being told. That you’re not supposed to know about, really. But that you
need
to know about. You
need
to know about.

And so the singer starts off, well, he’s whispering. [
Plays and sings
]:
Paul and Silas bound in jail / Had no money to go their bail / Keep your eyes on the prize / Hold on
. So this guy he’s in the shadows. You’re walking down the street, and you’re thinking everything is fine, and it’s not too early in the evening but not too late, either, and all of a sudden somebody collars you and pulls you into the alley and says, “Wait a minute.” [
Laughs
] “You don’t know what’s happening here, my friend.” And starts to tell you that story. And he starts to: “Man, you better keep your eyes on the prize, because it’s coming down.” And so that was the way I approached that.

The line you really brought out in that song for me, which I hadn’t really thought about, I guess, is “I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.” Which felt very personal
.

Well, you’re making all those connections. To do it right, you are understanding the journey the song’s taking, and you’re acknowledging its history; but you’re acknowledging your own history, too. That’s what makes things work, creatively. Those are the two things that I try to connect together. [
Plays and sings first verse again
.] And now it opens up with
Hold on, hold on
… a few more people are in on the secret
now …
Keep your eyes on the prize / Hold on
. … That’s a personal statement, or a political one. And this guy’s thinking, how am I gonna save my ass, right now? [
Laughs
]

I got my hand on the gospel plow / Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now
—and then it opens up again—
Hold on
. I continue sort of telling this secret story, right up through
Only chain that a man can stand / Is that chain o’ hand on hand / Keep your eyes on the prize … I’m gonna board that big Greyhound / Carry the love from town to town
—that sounds sinister, and it’s supposed to. It’s a threat [
laughs
]. That’s a threat, you know? It’s meant to be read as both a promise and a threat. So
Hold on
…

And the guy keeps telling his story:
The only thing I did was wrong / Stayed in the wilderness too long
… He’s just talking about himself. Then, it moves, and the background singers enter:
The only thing we
—bang! the song expands and opens up—
we did was right / Was the day we started to fight
. Suddenly the guy in the alley is in the street. He’s in the street, and he’s not alone, he’s not by himself. He’s surrounded by other people. And other people are picking this secret up, and it’s turning into not such a secret anymore. That bursts wide open after the next chorus, after the horns hit and play a real guttural Dixieland, and all the singers [
intensely
]:
The only thing we did was wrong / Stayed in the wilderness too long
.…

Now you’re singing out.

And you’re testifying
.

Right. And you’re shoutin’ at somebody, and it’s a promise, and it’s a threat, and now the guy’s not in the alley, now everybody—people are out there. And that’s where the song moves, right up to its very end [
softly
]:
Ain’t been to heaven, but /I been told / Streets up there are paved with gold
. And you get a little refrain of your original singer again.

So that’s the way I approached those songs particularly, was they had to go from the deeply, deeply personal, to the political, to the gospel.

From the frightened, isolated man to the empowered? Is that the idea?