50 Years Burning Down the Road: Reviewing Every Springsteen Album From Worst to Best

Coming in at #12: Devils and Dust

The ranking of each album is not so important. Its objective is to give me the order to write these reviews. However, it is fun and it has been interesting to see people’s reactions to my rankings. Many were mad at me for ranking Western Stars so low. I did not realize there was a Western Stars mafia and I am sorry that I poked the bear. Anyway, I do firmly stand by my rankings so far which is a bit surprising to me considering I ranked these albums based on how I felt about them at that moment without any preparation. Let me be honest and say that, I don’t know, The Ghost of Tom Joad has not historically been in my rotation. It was all off the dome.

Devils and Dust is the first album that I got wrong. I think that I should have ranked it lower after listening a few times to prepare for this review. It is not because I think the record is bad, it is more that I do not feel much about it at all. Indifference is the word. It is an album anchored by legitimate masterpieces, which I will discuss, but at times, those few tracks can only carry so much weight. Those masterpieces and the brilliant tour in support of the album made me look back on this album a lot more fondly. I feel the album is all over the place and littered with tracks that are okay and somewhat enjoyable but could have stayed in the vault. It leaves Devils and Dust as a hodgepodge, especially knowing that some of these recordings came out of a session nearly ten years prior to the album’s release. Many of the tracks seem like outtakes and I think many of them actually were outtakes from other projects. It’s a big pile of meh with some sublime moments.

Here’s the Rundown:

“Devils and Dust” is sublime. It almost should not be the first track to the album because it is such an ingenious song that there is immediately a drop-off. No song is going to hit you in the chest this hard for the remainder of the record. That is not to say that the rest of the album is poor, but it is almost like a comedian telling his or her best joke first. It is one of Bruce's masterpieces that I almost feel needs no lyrical commentary. If you listen, you know what it is about; a soldier in Iraq who is confused about why he is there and begins to confront the blind faith he had in his country. His fear and disillusion are close to turning into the monster he vehemently opposes. I feel even that lyrical unpacking is too much. Just listen to the song because it is a masterclass of songwriting. I do want to pick out my favorite line: “We’re a long long way from home Bobby/And home is a long long way from us.” It is a line that at first glance is a throwaway. The soldiers are physically far from home, but the second half of the couplet, “home’s a long long way from us”, boils down to the simplest form the skepticism of the war and the consistent mistreatment of soldiers and veterans across decades by Washington DC and many American civilians.

I like the instrumentation of “Devils and Dust” as well. The song is driven by Bruce’s acoustic guitar, but as the song builds, so does the arrangement. Synthesizer pads and strings begin to swell beneath the vocal, drums come in midway through the song, and all of it reaches a crescendo with Bruce’s harmonica at the end.

The transition between “Devils and Dust” and “All the Way Home” is seamless as a rung-out synth modulates and bridges the two songs together without any silence or fade-out. It is one of the coolest moments of the album, yet “All the Way Home” is so clearly swept off the cutting room floor. It is not a bad song, but it does not feel finished or typically inspired despite its bluesy-ness which I am usually partial to. The vocal is in a spot within Bruce’s range that sounds monotone, yelpy, and omissive of his signature passion. The lyrical theme is in line with “Tougher Than The Rest” and “Human Touch” and both of those are much better, more profound songs. “Crashing like a drunk on a barroom floor” is a great line, but we heard it 13 years prior in “My Beautiful Reward”, even though “All the Way Home” was written before or during the same period. This is one of several instances where older lines are recycled on this record. Meanwhile, Bruce had given this set of lyrics with an entirely different melody to Southside Johnny in 1990. That version is great, and better than this one.

“Reno” brings the solicitation and sodomy to this fine record. I still have no idea what to make of this song. I get it. The character in the song is yearning for something that feels like true connection and meaningful intimacy, but hiring a prostitute is as close as he can get for the night to replicate a failed relationship. We are beaten over the head with imagery that makes my skin crawl. Not to be a prude, but I feel this theme could have been illustrated without a full, in-detail, description of the act. The beautiful music is asking for something more meaningful to leave the listener with something to chew on. The bed of gorgeous synthesizers and strings along with the slide guitar provide some of the loveliest music on the album. Oh, and Starbucks banned Devils and Dust from its retail stores because of this song. Yes, Starbucks used to sell CDs, I guess. 2005 was a weird time.

Track 4 is essential Bruce Springsteen. “Long Time Comin’” was included in Springsteen on Broadway as a key element to Bruce’s life’s narrative. The song was written in the mid-90s as Bruce played it on The Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, but no studio recording was ever released until the Devils and Dust album came out about ten years later. It has some lyrical characteristics of The Ghost of Tom Joad with nature and starry imagery, but is a confessional and a warning at its core. Bruce writes about coming to grips with the demons his father passed down to him and the damage it has done throughout his life. I am not sure this song would have been written if it were not for the announced trip Bruce’s father took to visit Bruce to confront the faults of his parenting and warn Bruce not to make the same mistakes with his kids. Even though this song is mainly about fatherhood, I think it has more to offer. The truth is that we do not want to impart our shortcomings to other people or subject them to misery or unbridled character flaws. The song is about living intentionally; reaching deep within yourself to reflect and steering yourself onto the path toward the person you want to be. I find that inspiring. If we do not make an effort to do that, we may grow blind to our own behavioral patterns and practices without ever improving. The instrumental is great too. I like the compressed drums smacking along. Shoutout to legendary and prolific musician, Steve Jordan for some great drumming on this thing.

The stunning “Black Cowboys” follows “Long Time Comin’” and keeps the theme of parenthood. This is another track where you just have to listen to the song. It is a narrative story told in the third person and informed by the style of writing Bruce was doing on The Ghost of Tom Joad. I think I summarized the songs on Joad a little too much, but many of the stories were cryptic and allowed much room for audience interpretation. “Black Cowboys” is a lot more straightforward story. It is difficult for me to spotlight particular lines because the narrative is quite cut and dry. I will provide a summary. It is about a mother and child living in a poor town in the Bronx where the streets are littered with drugs and gang violence. The mother shelters her son inside, worried that he son would get sucked into the environment and end up dead. With all that being said, this song is a major highlight of the album. The story is bittersweet, and like “Long Time Comin’”, it is about going off script and forging a path that is uniquely your own. It is one of those Bruce songs where the story is so complete and thought-provoking that it could be adapted into an Oscar-winning picture.

Maria’s Bed is a nice tune. There is not a whole lot to it and it feels like it was definitely picked up from the cutting room floor like “All the Way Home.” It has some recycled lines from “Further On Up the Road”, so it was likely written around 2000. Maria’s bed is a solace for the stereotypical Springsteen working man in this song. It is kind of fun. I love the keyboards, especially that organ that Bruce played himself as I see from glancing at the credits. Good work Brucey. However, this track marks a series of songs on the second half of the album that are vocally…like…bad. Typically, I am not as angered by the “twang” that many fans complain about from 1996 to 2005, but it gets egregious on this song and many of the next. I feel that current Bruce would probably tell you the same thing. I do not know what this was.

“Silver Palomino” is again marred by this distasteful vocal style. I like the song though. The melody is nice and so are the violins in the pocket. The story is sweet too as a young teenager grieves the passing of his mother and projects her spirit onto a lively wild horse who serves as his companion in his mother’s absence. As I said though, it is a bit difficult to get past the singing. Not only is the twang distracting, but Bruce also cuts off parts of words and vowels.

“Jesus Was an Only Son” is a nice song about Jesus as a son. It is another comment on parenthood and what the loss must have felt like for Mary. Bruce has employed religious and biblical allegory throughout his career, and it always winds up fitting snugly with the message that he is trying to get across. The theme is usually parenthood, as Bruce laments the generational trauma and demons passed on by his father in “Adam Raised a Cain.” “Jesus Was an Only Son” describes how precious children are and how sometimes they are the only reason some parents get out of bed in the morning. The death of a child is a parent’s worst nightmare and leaves an impenetrable void and an eternal missing piece. Bruce’s connection between this theme and a widely-known religious story gets to the heart of the listener and allows them to see themselves in Jesus and Mary as a parent-child dynamic.

The biblical elements continue with the next track, “Leah”. It is not a story I am as familiar with, and Bruce elegantly and concisely puts what the song is about, so I will drop in his introduction to the song from the Devils and Dust Tour: "We all carry with us the seeds of our destruction, a great joke played on us by God, it comes along with free will, or semi-free will, we also carry with us the seeds to bring good things into it all, so this is a song about a man who finally figures out how to come down on just the right side of that equation.” Supposedly, it invokes the story of Jacob and Leah and how Leah’s faith and love were never diminished by rejection or unrequitedness. I like the song. Bruce’s vocal is a bit odd again. He has trouble annunciating the lyrics and drops syllables and words. Again, I think 2024 Bruce would probably be as unsatisfied with this vocal as I am. The song also sounds a lot like “Maria’s Bed”, and I think for that reason, it kind of gets lost in the scope of the album, especially coming only a few tracks after “Maria’s Bed”. The instrumentation is a bit softer. Bruce’s strumming is the backbone of the rhythm and only includes shakers and tambourines as percussion as opposed to “Maria’s Bed’s” full drumkit. It sits on a bed of lush keyboards. Personally, I think it should have been between “Leah” and “Maria’s Bed”to make it on the album with “Leah” as the victor.

“The Hitter” fits the washed-up, beaten-down, down-and-out fighter archetype that, while derivative, never ceases to pull me in. Plus, Bruce digs deeper into that archetype and crafts a beautiful anti-hero. The parenthood theme shows up loosely as the setting is the fighter at his estranged mother’s door after she abandoned him early in his childhood. It is almost like “Jesus Was An Only Son” in reverse, with the child carrying the emptiness caused by an absent parent. This void leads the fighter down a dark path because he lacks the humanistic mercy and will to ever stop throwing punches. It poses an interesting question of nurture vs. nature. I think that there is a little of both at play. I think we are all born with certain demons, but it is up to our parents to nurture us and teach us what is right and wrong. The demons may not go away, but they are treatable with love and care before they can cause destructive damage. Fighting is what makes the protagonist feel alive, and the women and money that come with boxing corrupt him as he encounters shady characters, scandals, fixes a match, skips town, and ends up where we first meet him at his mother’s house. He does not crave her love as he tells her there is nothing she has to do or say, but he craves her presence and the safety that she and her home provide for him.

Many fans think Devils and Dusts’s penultimate track, “All I’m Thinkin’ Bout”, is one of Bruce’s worst songs. I get it. I don’t agree though. I like the song. I think it is a pretty love song with gorgeous imagery—a great example of Bruce painting pictures with words. I can clearly see the first scene he describes: “Blind man wavin' by the side of the road/I'm in a flat bed Ford carrying a heavy load/With a sweet thing sippin' on a blueberry wine/On a flat black highway down in Carolina/Blackbird slippin' in a sky of blue.” I like the soft 12-bar blues of the song; a rock and roll song at its core. I admire the subtlety. Bruce’s falsetto is why most fans have a problem with it. Once again, I get it. It is definitely weird and there is a reason he never really sang like this again. However, even if it does not sound great, I do not mind it. It sweetens the melody, and I am never averse to a bit of quirk whether it hits me right or not.

“Matamoros Banks” is a strange cap to this album. It sounds like an outtake from The Ghost of Tom Joad because of the southern border setting. Bruce sings about struggling people crossing the border for a better life in many Joad songs. This song sees a man dying in a river along Matamoros, leaving his family behind. The story is a bit boring, even if I do appreciate the stark empathy that Bruce displays for the characters in the song and all the people who risk their lives while migrating to improve them. There are not any songs with the same setting or circumstances on this album, which I usually do not mind, but introducing this recycled arc as a closing statement provides for an awkward ending, and dark at that. I would have enjoyed a closer with more hope and adhesive to the themes of companionship, love, and parenthood that round out the rest of the album.

Overall, there is not enough here to warrant the #12 spot. All Bruce albums are good, this one included, but I do not think I will listen to Devils and Dust again for a long time. It was nice to revisit though just as it is been nice to revisit all the albums that I have reviewed. We are getting closer to the top 10 and I am interested to see how my reviews revolve as I approach the real classics, the real essentials, the real cream of the crop.