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

Coming in at #7: Magic

My high ranking of Magic begs the question: Is my reverence for this album attached to sentimentality? The fact that my first Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert was on this tour? The fact that this was the last album recorded in full with Clarence and Danny? The fact that this album came out while my love of Bruce was budding or that I remember listening to a leak of “Radio Nowhere” with my father in a vacation house in Wildwood when I was six? The answer to all these questions is no, despite the many things outside of the music that make this album special to me. My high ranking of Magic is attributed to it being an absolute masterpiece from top to bottom. Yeah, I said it—masterpiece. Magic arguably contains Bruce’s most inspiring songwriting streak in the 21st century, given that much of The Rising was written in the late 90s. A statement from Bruce that I always found interesting was when he said that the best performers are the ones who appear to be sorting out some internal conflict in real-time before the audience. I think this reigns true, and certainly has driven Bruce’s best writing. Bruce’s writing has become so ingrained in people’s lives because his internal conflicts are rooted not only in a common personal struggle inherent to the human condition but also in deep empathy as injustice and mistreatment of others unsettles him. Overall, as the man said himself, his goal in his work has been to measure the distance between the American Dream and American reality. Bruce achieves this in spades on Magic using the wisdom and clarity he developed through years of devoted effort and observation. It highlights maturity and a pointed refinement of craft from Bruce and the E Street Band in their middle age, which sheds another element of beauty on the album.

The lyrics are heavily rooted in criticism of the George W. Bush administration and many controversial policies such as the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and huge tax cuts for the wealthy which led to a decimation of the middle class and retraction of government programs for the poor. However, while it would be a compelling period piece, Magic is not that. The themes at the heart of the record, unfortunately, never stop rearing their ugly heads. There are always people embarking on hard times from causes out of their control leading to anger and disillusionment. Also, people are still suffering from the impact of the specific events that inspire Magic. While a lot of great work has gone into righting the ship, it cannot bring back departed loved ones, for example, and even so, all the perceived damage done by the Bush administration has not been fully repaired. Bruce’s lyrical craft is at a major peak on this album and I think it benefits from the stylistic modifications and experiments that he tried throughout his career. It has the romance, passion, and everyday working-class perspective of albums like Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River. It also has the imagery, narrative, and visualization of his more stripped-down singer-songwriter records like Nebraska, Tunnel of Love, and even The Ghost of Tom Joad. It is also infused with religious elements characteristic of Bruce’s 21st-century work up to that point and beyond.

Bruce’s musical prowess is also on full display on Magic. The lyrics are unbelievable in large because of their rhythm and musicality. The words fit in perfect cadence with the melody and it never feels like he is trying to squeeze an extra syllable in. The rhyme schemes and alliteration are that of a true poet. Then there are the song arrangements. Bruce exhibits his sharp skill for writing specifically for the E Street Band very intentionally. Throughout the tracklist, there are plenty of showcases of what we have come to identify as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s sound such as Clarence’s unmistakable saxophone, Roy and Danny’s keyboard flourishes, and Bruce’s harmonica. The Rising featured a new sound for the E Street Band with synths, drum loops, and string sections which are quite hit or miss. Magic is a dedication to the classic E Street sound, which I much prefer. It is a testament to the greatness of the band that they do not sound like they are trying to tribute to the band’s old form and the arrangements do not feel contrived. Bruce’s writing gives plenty of opportunity for the band to sound fresh, and credit to Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, Danny Federici, Steve Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Garry Tallent, and Clarence Clemons for bringing their A-game.

The main criticism of Magic is its awful production and engineering by Brendan O’Brien, which I can totally understand and agree with. Every instrument is blown-out and compressed to death detracting from the dynamics of the mix. There is no substance or texture; no heart and soul to coincide with the music. On some songs, “Radio Nowhere” being the worst offender, all the instruments bleed into one to the point where it sounds like the song is falling apart. The rhythm section is buried way too deeply to give the arrangements any structure. It truly is a head-scratcher how this was signed off on, and I cannot believe Bruce or anyone continued to use O’Brien’s services. However, the band still sounds good. The whole album is strong enough to overcome the awful production. Plus, it’s rock and roll. Plenty of my favorite albums have awful production. While I realize it is bad and disappointing, I can personally get past it and urge those who cannot to give it another go, and just listen to how good the performances and songs are.

Here’s The Rundown:

“Radio Nowhere” sets the tracklist off on an energetic note with a wall of rock guitars. Bruce utilizes his decades-long common live call-and-response phrase “Is there anybody alive out there?” as the chorus to this song. It would be corny if it did not fit, which it does. The song signifies desolation, emptiness, and screaming into an empty void for some kind of companionship in the face of struggle. “Is there anybody alive out there?” is what somebody may say if they are lost in a dark forest. That dark forest is what America began to feel like for people during this time, and it is what life can feel like to anyone at any point. Bruce cries out for this companionship in the form of rock and roll singing “I want a thousand guitars/I want pounding drums/I want a million different voices speaking in tongues” and then pleading “I just wanna feel some rhythm” until the song fades. Nils Lofgren’s contributions shine throughout “Radio Nowhere” with his licks during the intro once the drums come in and the solo underneath and after the sax solo in the middle. Bruce continues to play this song a half step up from the recorded version live, and I do not quite understand that. It sounds better in this key in the middle part of Bruce’s range.

We knew by now Bruce could set a scathing and biting set of lyrics to infectious pop melodies given the success of “Born in the USA”, but “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” is sweeter, and the lyrics are even more spiteful. This song was only performed live once and I can understand why Bruce maybe did not feel comfortable given how personal it feels, and how ugly the narrator comes across if the song is taken at face value; a song about an ex-lover. In that context alone, nothing is inherently wrong, it is just a song and story not to be judged but received and interpreted. However, given what we know about certain themes of this album and the resentment Bruce felt toward President Bush’s administration during this time, it feels like a personal attack against perhaps not singularly President Bush, but the type of people Bruce perceived him and his circle to be. As I said, songs are meant to be interpreted, so I want to make clear that this is just my interpretation. With that being said, I will break down a few lyrics that give me this notion. “You’re smiling now but you’ll find/They’ll use you up and spit you out now/Your head’s spinning in diamonds and clouds/But pretty soon it turns out you’ll be coming down now baby.” This, to me, alludes to Bush’s expensive tax cuts for the 1% and his dedication to serving the wealthy; certain people who would not stand up for him and do not care about the people these implications hurt. There are various other aspects of Bush’s presidency whose dots you can connect with the lyrics to this song.

Meanwhile, I love the lines “Smiles as thin as those dusky blue skies” and “You’ll be fine long as your pretty face holds out/Then it’s gonna get pretty cold out.” It encapsulates how a villain’s charm can con you into believing that they are empathetic; and how superficial politeness, good manners, and attractiveness can often disguise ugliness and disease. Once people lose that, it will be tough to fall into their trap. I love this song because its message has proven itself over and over to be true, and I always think of President Trump even if he has no charm, no manners, no politeness, and no attractiveness whatsoever. Years of crime, defacing American values, lying, scheming, and conducting himself in an overall disgusting manner somehow got him to the top. However, it may take a while to fully form, but it has already begun to catch up with him. People are growing tired of him, and worst of all for him, he may finally have to serve the consequences of his crimes. Someone as flagrantly narcissistic and malicious as he is; yeah I will be dancing and singing as I watch his demise.

The band sounds bright on this song as it opens with a resonant acoustic guitar layered over an electric guitar with a tambourine keeping the time sounding like a Kinks record from the 60s. Bruce’s voice is also thick and layered adding to the sweetness of the mix. There is a good amount of layering of Bruce’s voice that happens on this album which can detract from the timbre and emotion of his voice, but in this case, the apathetic sound of his singing works juxtaposed with the anger in the lyrics.

I mentioned in my Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ review how much I love a good ol’ snare shot just like the one that opens “Livin’ in the Future” on Magic. What follows is a vintage performance by the E Street Band. It sounds like it could have been on The River. It opens with a saxophone hook and then Bruce begins to sing about the betrayal of American values, once again, in the form of a relationship. “Livin’ in the Future” is about reckoning with many realities that we were once warned could exist at some point in a distant, dystopian future, but never expected to be happening right now. As Bruce said from the stage during his intro to “Livin’ in the Future”, “This song is called Livin’ in the Future, but it’s about what’s happening now. It’s kind of about how with all the things we love about our home, we’ve had to add to the American picture over the last eight years things like rendition and illegal wiretapping and the rolling back of civil liberties.” Bruce uses such colorful lyricism to illustrate this, especially on my favorite part, the bridge. The imagery of damage and bloodshed with a sea backdrop is incredibly compelling. “The Earth it gave away, the sea rose toward the sun/I opened up my heart to you/It got all damaged and undone/Ship of liberty sailed away on a bloody red horizon.” Then, the righteousness comes as Bruce sings “Housekeeper opens the gates and let the wild dogs run” and Danny Federici rips—what I do not think what be any hyperbole when I say—the best organ solo he ever put to record. It is a moment that always tears me up because it feels like his swan song as he died of cancer during the Magic Tour. It’s a fun track.

“Your Own Worst Enemy” is more pop perfection drawing from the 60s, this time The Beach Boys with a lavish string arrangement, ethereal harmonies, and Bruce’s delightful croon. The song begins with a single piano note that sets the tone for the ominousness of the rest of the song rising and falling while the narrator stews in guilt. It is yet another double entendre that can be taken as a straight-up relationship song about dealing with infidelity and the failure of oneself to live up to their principles, but there are also clear political undertones. Bruce brilliantly saves the political imagery towards the end so the lyrics play out like a mystery as the audience is trying to understand what exactly the narrator is reckoning with. What did he do? The bridges on the Magic album are so good and “Your Own Worst Enemy” is no exception. You can hear the West Coast pop influence as the pressure leaves the narrator at his breaking point. “There’s a face you know staring back from the shop window/The condition you’re in/Now you just can’t get out of this skin.” Shortly after, at the end of the final extended chorus, Bruce declares “Your flag it flew so high/It drifted into the sky.” At this point, it can be interpreted that the narrator is America and the enemy is our nationalism, which reached a peak after the attacks on 9/11. We became so blinded by what we thought was patriotism, that we let our freedoms slip away without a fight. It is a damning but sobering message, offering accountability in respect to the people shifting from the denigration of the government in the previous tracks.

“Gypsy Biker” is a blistering song that almost amplifies the anger but checks the resentment and bitterness that Bruce has spent the better part of the first half of Magic expressing. It is about a soldier who died in combat and is not coming home—to the devastation of those closest to him. Rather than offering any commentary, Bruce plainly states facts when he talks about those who have profited off of putting this soldier in the position to be killed. They profit while countless other people pay a transactionless price. Intercut by brilliant guitar solos traded by Steven Van Zandt and Bruce whose styles blend effortlessly together in power, Bruce sets the scene of the soldier’s funeral and the burning of the soldier’s bike in place of his body. This a powerful scene of sacrifice and one that signifies the finality of death; the reality that the gypsy biker is physically never coming home. Bruce’s harmonica gives the song its heartland feel and the driving acoustic guitar underneath sounds like a battlefield. One of my favorite moments of the song comes after the bridge when Bruce sings about burning the bike and punctuates it with a harmonica lick. The band cuts out for a second interrupted by another sick Max Weinberg snare shots. Bruce sings “To the dead it don’t matter much ‘bout who’s wrong or right/You asked me that question, I didn’t get it right.” It makes it clear that this a story about grief and mourning, something blame can only complicate and enhance. Ultimately, the stances and political positions people take cannot bring back the dead. It rousts the town, as Bruce describes pitting people against each other when they should come together and defend the honor and lives of their neighbors. I always felt like I identified with the setting of “Gypsy Biker.” While I was very young, I remember how the Iraq war affected my town growing up. I remember hearing about dead and wounded soldiers and struggling to wrap my head around that sacrifice. It should never be anything but honored, respected, and saluted.

Some of Bruce’s albums can carry dark themes, but he has always been good about adding an element of levity or fun into the tracklist at some point to break up the drama. “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” is a fun, light, and breezy track about wandering around town, inhaling the summer air and beauty. I enjoy the imagery of the diner, the kids playing outside, the shops and the sweet line “Love’s a fool’s dance/I ain’t go much sense but I still got my feet.” Bruce is dropping lyrical gems even on the album’s most trivial song. The string arrangement is nice too and the la la las once again harkon back to some of that 60s pop. It is a nice meditation for the audience to “go out and touch grass”, as the kids say, and allow the air to inspire hope in hard times.

“Girls in Their Summer Clothes” is a stepping stone to “I’ll Work For Your Love”, which is a real cleanse prominently featuring Roy Bittan’s gorgeous piano melodies. Within the context of the album, it presents a useful healing method; devotion and love. The narrator feels to me like a person who has been through some shit that has perhaps left him lost without a clear indication of where to go next. That is why he pledges to work for this bartender, “Theresa’s” love because a chapter has closed for him, and he is committed to a new journey. At the same time, isn’t this what love ought to be like? Not only is commitment important, but devotion; actively serving someone’s needs for no other reason other than you care. The layers of religious imagery underline devotion, but also the healing aspect. This woman is like a beacon of light to the narrator and someone who for better or for worse, he is ready to put his entire life into the hands of. For me, there is nothing dark or foreboding about this particular prospect. As I said, to me this narrator has some life experience that informs him to at least know how to make good decisions. Meanwhile, the narrator also seems like a person with no other hills left to climb other than true love—which is rare. That is why he makes a point in saying that many others may want the woman’s love for free. It is a love song that I feel can only truly be written by a man in his late 50s living a life as full of extreme highs and lows as Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce introduced “Magic” live as not being about Magic but tricks. Compositionally, it is a simple song where Bruce sings in his lower register over Max’s rigid kick and hi-hat decorated by Little Steven’s mandolin, Soozie Tyrell’s excellent violin work, and an eerie organ sound. The narrator takes two forms; he is the one performing the magic tricks but also giving his subject a warning to not be fooled by his deception. Once again, the bridge on this song is phenomenal and the most damning as Bruce sings “I got a shiny saw blade/All I need’s a volunteer/I’ll cut you in half/While your smiling ear to ear/And the freedom that you sought’s/Drifting like a ghost among the trees/This is what will be.” The song is pretty widely documented as being about how the government can spin lies into truth and truth into lies on unsuspecting Americans whose only opposition is to not trust anyone. That strays far from the American freedom we were all promised and an uncomfortable way to live life—deliberately placing mistrust in the people that are supposed to protect you so you do not end up like the sucker in the song.

Research has told me that the phrase “last to die for a mistake” is borrowed from a speech John Kerry gave in 1971 about the Vietnam War. Bruce recycles it here in “Last to Die” this time to reference the Iraq War, which of course was proven to have been started over a lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Like “Gypsy Biker”, “Last to Die” deals with death, this time the rising death toll of Iraqi civilians at the hands of American soldiers. It finds us in the mind of an American soldier who rides from Camp Arfijan into Baghdad already skeptical if he should even be there before he even fires a gun. In the second verse, it becomes clear that this soldier’s heart is not in this war and that he is merely there doing whatever is asked of him because he has to. He is trying not to think about whether it is right or wrong as evident in him “just counting the miles” and alludes to the death toll being so high in the song’s most sinister line “We don’t measure the blood we’ve drawn anymore/We just stack the bodies outside the door.” The composition by Bruce is exquisite, especially in the sort of double bridge that descends into a minor chord over half time as Bruce indicts the powers that be in the realization that “The wise men were all fools/What to do.” This is punctuated by the main string riff in the song and an extension of the bridge where Bruce croons beautifully about the sun setting on the burning city of Baghdad. At the end of the song, Bruce takes the perspective of the Iraqis watching their loved ones die and the city getting destroyed by assuring the American soldiers that their tyrants and kings fall to the same fate implying that their loyalty to the administration that sent them there is misguided and unproductive. It is just a ripper of a rock song with pounding drums and driving guitars that showcases Bruce’s knack for empathetic criticism and ability to juxtapose two opposite points of view in a single song. It is pure mature Springsteen songcraft.

“Long Walk Home” is the penultimate track on Magic and it is a late-career gem and classic. Bruce spends the song reflecting on his return to his hometown which he barely recognizes as America has changed so much since he returned. He tries to wrap his head around how it became so desolate, and even the places he remembers are unfamiliar. It is a microcosm of America, which had changed so much in the wake of 9/11 throughout the Bush administration. This is evident when Bruce sings about the flag flying over the courthouse and how certain things are “set in stone” meaning our fundamental American ideals that represent “who we are, what we’ll do, and what we won’t.” The chorus is communal and simple enough to invite everyone to sing along. “It’s gonna be a long walk home, hey pretty darling don’t wait up for me gonna be a long walk home.” Ultimately, even if the town is changed, he still feels a part of it and its true value is the strength of its neighbors. With many classic Springsteen rock songs, there is a beacon of hope: “Here everybody has a neighbor, everybody has a friend, everybody has a reason to begin again.” The E Street Band is in top form on this song as searing Bruce solos are punctuated by an empowering Clarence sax solo, cementing this song as an all-time E Street anthem. I love the shuffle of the rhythm section too as Max could have easily played a straight backbeat as many Bruce songs call for. Instead, it feels like a moving train echoing the journey that Bruce is singing about. I will never get tired of this song.

“Devils Arcade” is a cinema in and of itself with a beautiful orchestral arrangement that does just as much in telling this story as the lyrics. The narrator is a soldier lover who has come back from war with severe PTSD. She talks about how they first got together, the physical and emotional intimacy of their relationship, and how alive it felt. Then the story moves to the soldier’s presumed time in Iraq as he describes “Heroes are needed, so heroes get made, somebody made a bet and somebody paid.” Of course, it is he who paid as he lies wounded in a hospital with other veterans playing poker to pass the time. His demons are still haunting him as he dreams of his departed friends and comrades which brings him back to that moment with the “thick desert dust” on his skin. I always loved Bruce’s guitar work on this song. His claim to fame on the guitar has always been able to elicit emotion and intensity in his playing. Along with his songwriting, Bruce proves time and again that his musicianship on Magic is still at the top of its game—along with the rest of the E Street Band. This is an emotional closing track as the band drops out and for a few measures, it is just Max’s cacophonous beat. They are intense final seconds of a beautiful album.