Bruce Springsteen - Working on a Dream

1. Outlaw Pete
2. My Lucky Day
3. Working On A Dream
4. Queen Of The Supermarket
5. What Love Can Do
6. This Life
7. Good Eye
8. Tomorrow Never Knows
9. Life Itself
10. Kingdom Of Days
11. Surprise, Surprise
12. The Last Carnival
13. The Wrestler (Bonus Track)
As billed, this is a pop album. Which means it’s chock-full of the kind of tuneful, concise, ’60s Brill Building, heart-on-sleeve songs that Bruce Springsteen has always been able to write rather effortlessly but that, usually, he gives away to other artists because his own albums have to be, like, you know, Statements. Working on a Dream isn’t quite Magic 2.0, however, in that it lacks the Iraq War subtext — although there is something of a theme here, namely, “It may not be such a drag getting old, but this mortality thing is giving me pause nonetheless.” Exhibit A: “This Life,” an absolutely gorgeous folk-rock love song with the tag lines “This life and then the next / With you, I have been blessed.” Exhibit B: the seraphically rueful “The Last Carnival,” an elegy for recently departed E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici that’s as moving as anything in Springsteen’s catalog. That said, there are a couple of terrific departures, as well as a couple of epics. Among the latter, “Outlaw Pete” is a tongue-in-cheek (or is it?) production number with swooping strings and an anthemic chorus that sounds like Bruce channeling Ennio/Sergio. And the quite astounding “Queen of the Supermarket” is the niftiest bit of rock & roll trompe l’oeil since the Police convinced the world that “Every Breath You Take” is a romantic love song instead of a creepy treatise from a stalker; hearing Bruce drop the F-word in the song’s last chorus is pretty much worth the price of admission all by itself. The departures? “Good Eye” is a mutant-blues/field-holler number that’s close to R. L. Burnside territory, and (my personal favorite) “Life Itself” is a spooky, midtempo psychedelic rocker with Revolver-era backwards guitar and somebody doing a convincing impersonation of Roger McGuinn’s sheetsof- sound 12-string solos from “Eight Miles High.” Everything is burnished quite beautifully by Brendan O’Brien’s production. If Working on a Dream falls short of Magic’s highs, it’s a lot more consistently listenable. And “The Wrestler,” the bonus track from the Mickey Rourke movie, is beyond remarkable. Springsteen may have won an Oscar for “Streets of Philadelphia,” but that song was the work of a pro doing a job. This one gets to the existential nub of its film in absolutely heartbreaking fashion. The Limited Edition Deluxe Package has a 40-minute DVD with a documentary and a bonus video, “A Night with the Jersey Devil.” Bedeviled by the economy? Opt for the CD only. The doc is interesting but only up to a point, and you’d never watch it more than once.