ALBUM REVIEW
I’m Working On A Dream
And the dream is that everyone recognises this Springsteen album as a misunderstood classic
Springsteen’s 16th studio album, Working On A Dream, received mixed reviews when it was released in 2009.
Although the UK’s Guardian newspaper gave it four stars, it made the claim that “3 or 4 tracks were a disappointment.” Slant Magazine called it “Toothless” and PopMatters said the album was enjoyable but, “is enjoyable really a worthy goal?”
Only Rolling Stone got it right — “Working on a Dream is the richest of the three great rock albums Springsteen has made this decade with the E Street Band.”
Music lovers were with Rolling Stone — it made №1 in 20 album charts around the world.
But the doubts continue
The critics’ views of the album have persisted. Even today, few people put Working On A Dream among their top Springsteen studio albums. The UK’s NME listed it as 17th out of 20 in their best Bruce album list¹. It doesn’t even make Rolling Stone’s readers’ poll of the 10 best².
There is a serious misunderstanding of the album’s worth. Working On A Dream is possibly in the top 5 of Springsteen’s best albums, you just need to scratch beneath the surface and the first couple of listens.
Here’s why.
Hope & change
Working On A Dream was written and recorded hot on the heels of Magic. Many consider it Magic’s little brother and Working On A Dream fell under its shadow.
Working On A Dream is not Magic’s little brother, it’s its own man. Springsteen made a change of direction for the album and delved into his affection for sixties pop; something he’d touched on in Magic with Girls In Their Summer Clothes.
Like all great artists, Springsteen mixes things up, showing his musical and lyrical depths. If all his albums had sounded like Born To Run or Magic, his career would have washed up long ago. You need to keep it fresh and push boundaries.
We also need to consider that the album was made at the end of eight years of the Bush Administration; Springsteen was actively campaigning for Obama. The album’s messages of moving on from the past and of hope for the future reflect his beliefs and give the album its unique optimistic feel.
Hope and the Sixties
Springsteen sings many of the tracks in a higher register than usual. We find his love of British ‘60s pop (albeit sung Orbison-like) in Queen of The Supermarket, Surprise Surprise, The Last Carnival and the beautiful Kingdom of Days, this one with a Spector-like ’60s arrangement.
He shifts to California ’60s pop for Life Itself and This Life, adding Beatle-like sitars to the former.
He delves further back in time to Southern US blues for Good Eye with a distorted vocal simulating an old recording and a humming blues harmonica riff. And we get a couple of more traditional style Bruce tunes such as What Love Can Do and Tomorrow Never Knows.
It all finishes off with a ‘bonus’ track, The Wrestler, a folk style song he wrote for the film of the same name. I guess it was called a bonus as it doesn’t fit the rest of the album’s feel and they wanted a home for such a beautiful and meaningful song. Works for me.
But, I’m going to pick out three specific tracks for deeper analysis as these ones have consistently been wrongly singled out for criticism.
Outlaw Pete
The album opens with something different — a driving riff of massed strings in a minor key. Outlaw Pete is exactly eight minutes long. Eight minutes. Eight years? Geddit?
This track has come in for a lot of misplaced criticism. Reviewers should look up ‘metaphor’, ‘euphemism’ and ‘analogy’ and understand what ‘figurative expression’ means then listen again.
Although clearly influenced by Springsteen’s love of Westerns, Outlaw Pete is not a simple Wild West child’s story but a scathing commentary on escaping the past — eight minutes, eight years.
And Outlaw Pete? A cowboy, the Sergio Leone harmonicas, the clippety-cloppety bits. Might this not be a euphemism for somebody in particular?
The song’s catchphrase is actually, “Can you hear me?”, a comment on those in society who go unheard.
And the song is in a minor key. There’s a good reason why songs are written in minor keys — think of Chopin’s Funeral March.
Clever. Very, very clever. He even turned it into an illustrated book.
Working On A Dream
The first single from the album. A song dismissed as light and catchy is, in fact, about the difficulties faced by blue-collar workers. It ends in the hope they fulfil their dreams despite the hardships being faced. Optimism.
But you take what you want from The Main Man’s lyrics, his messages apply to us all. And we like optimism.
Queen Of The Supermarket
This is a track that has received more than its fair share of criticism. Pitchfork.com claimed the song demonstrates [Springsteen] “can’t persuade listeners that he does his own grocery shopping,” and then wrote it’s “Maybe the worst thing he’s ever written.³”
And yet the man himself explained in an interview in the music section of The Guardian in 2009⁴, that he wrote the song after visiting his local supermarket in New Jersey to do his grocery shopping. Springsteen is the real deal. Critics really should check their facts.
The song is a pastiche of Orbison’s singing style and British ’60s pop. It’s an upbeat comment on the supermarket representing a kind of wonder for many. The supermarket represents a safe haven of plenty, and of course, it has The Queen of the Supermarket waiting for him at the checkout. Er, metaphor? Analogy?
We get backing singers, string accompaniments and a soaring melody straight from heaven. We’re right back in 1963 and it’s a wonderful place full of bright colours and bags of hope.
Reconnecting with Working On A Dream
It’s difficult to rate Springsteen albums on the standard metric of stars out of 5; he operates at a different level to mortal artists. If we give those great classic albums, such as Rumours or Graceland, 5 stars out of 5, we need to find a new scale for Bruce.
What I’ve had to do is to add another 7 stars above the standard top ranking of 5; Springsteen’s albums can go up to 12 stars out of 5. With The River at 12 out of 5, Born To Run at 11 and Magic at 8, I rate Working On A Dream as (drumroll). 10 stars out of 5.
I suggest everyone listens to the album anew on my playlist below with new ears on.
I added two tracks left off the original release. A Night With The Jersey Devil was first released as a download-only single and a later B-side to What Love Can Do. Frankie Fell In Love ended up on the next album, High Hopes (6 stars /5).
Do you agree with my revision of this album as a classic? Let me know in the comments.
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¹ https://www.nme.com/features/bruce-springsteen-albums-ranked-2808825
³ https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12614-working-on-a-dream/
⁴ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/jan/18/bruce-springsteen-interview
More Springsteen? There’s never too much Springsteen.
