He responds to his time away with two new albums, “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town,” both due in stores this week. He recorded “Human Touch” first, then went looking for one more song to complete it. When that song emerged as the resoundingly affirming “Living Proof” (box), he realized he was onto a new theme, grist for a new album. Working mostly alone in his home studio, he, wrote and recorded the rest of what became “Lucky Town.”
Roughly speaking, “Human Touch” is a volume of unmade connections, “Lucky Town” of made ones. “We switched’round and ‘round till half past dawn,” he sings on the former, “There was 57 channels and nothin’ on.” Lost in a cable system, he could be adrift in Woody Guthrie’s barren Dust Bowl: the dirt he hacks up, the wasted pixels, are all the same. Springsteen has found Guthrie’s resilient black humor. When his character shoots up the TV in the name of Elvis, pop culture liberates a man from despair, rather than choking him in it. But still, he wanders through most of the album, looking for connection, for a human touch: “I wanna find some answers, I wanna ask for some help.” On “Lucky Town,” he finds it. The album hits its stride with the refrain, “These are better days, baby,” and only goes up from there. And though this world may hold no subject more tedious than the joy of upwardly mobile paternity, Springsteen makes it work as deliverance. There’s enough cleansing rain in these songs to flood Oklahoma.
Five years is a long time to be away, both for performer and audience. During Springsteen’s absence, the white working class he has so warmly painted for the last two decades has spun out in the public eye. Once a romantic conceit, it has devolved into a liberal scapegoat, blamed for racism, sexism, David Duke, what have you. The world Springsteen left in 1987, and the place he held in it, no longer exist for him. His characters’ old trips to “Jungle land” can no longer play as romantic, innocent rides. The current voices of the back streets–Guns N’ Roses, N.W.A, Metallica, Depeche Mode-all confront this new suburban order, offering pathology rather than romance. In their wake, Springsteen’s notion of a darkness lurking on the edge of town is almost quaint.
At moments on both new albums, Springsteen seems unsure of who he’s supposed to be. More than that, it’s unclear in 1992 what he’s supposed to mean. His identity, which has always been bedrock, wavers, shivering behind a suspect accent or a forced lyric. His vision is sure and fresh as long as he’s in his home; outside of it, he sometimes appears to be serving plums from someone else’s imagination. “01’ catfish in the lake, we called him Big Jim,” he sings, a funny notion for a guy who can no longer even play suburban sophisticate without slumming.
But at their best, the new songs seem to tumble whole from our own lives: they’re so open and universal that even a solid presence like Springsteen’s can’t cramp them. The domestic salvation he describes-and the religious language is correct-almost defies individuality. Pop music doesn’t get any more straightforward: “I’ll wait for you,” he sings, “And should I fall behind / Wait for me.” Though the new rockers are celebratory-all chorus and rushing momentum-“Human Touch” and “Lucky Town” work more like good country music, celebrating permanence rather than dramatic conflict or change. If they lack some of Springsteen’s brilliant, cathartic heights, they make it up in the soft, steady strength that comes with his new material. They’re worth the wait.
