Searchin' for a Mystery Train

I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues
--Bruce Springsteen "Radio Nowhere"

Another year, another Bruce Springsteen album on the horizon. We're in a bit of a Boss renaissance right now -- three studio albums and a two live albums in three years. His latest, this time back with the E Street Band, arrives on October 2 with the odd title Magic. It's been described as rock-oriented and "guitar driven," and the first single "Radio Nowhere" bears out those descriptions.

Guitars play chiming distorted arpeggios. Guitars play riffs. Guitars play lead lines and solos. Guitars, guitars, guitars, and more glorious guitars. Drums and bass and a little bit of The Big Man's sax show up, and some keyboards might be in there somewhere, but even guitar-heavy albums like Darkness on the Edge of Town, Lucky Town, and The Rising don't have this many guitars. More to the point, musically, this is a different kind of Springsteen song with shades of garage and British Invasion bands, the three minutes and change of guitars sucking you in with their melody.

As for the words (because with Springsteen, the words always come up), on first listen, they don't seem to rank with his best, certainly not the detailed story songs I tend to love or even the spare but detailed beauty of a song like "You're Missing" from The Rising. Yet in those three minutes, he sums up the spirit of his concerts through a singer who's longing for what Springsteen tries to provide at those concerts, music that makes you feel alive. The singer, another Springsteen character driving home (I imagine at night), finds himself "spinnin' 'round a dead dial" and "searchin' for a world with soul," which mirrors the singer in "Leah" from Devils and Dust, who wants to "find a world where love's the only sound." The song also echoes these classic lines from "Open All Night": "Radio's jammed up with gospel stations lost souls callin' long distance salvation/Hey, mister deejay, woncha hear my last prayer/hey, ho, rock'n'roll, deliver me from nowhere."

The singer also longs for "a thousand guitars" and "a mystery train," alluding to Elvis' touchstone song "Mystery Train," and most importantly he's "Tryin' to make a connection to you." At this point, the singer could be talking about a single person, or he could be Springsteen himself talking to a bigger "you," the audience. He could be lamenting the current state of radio in America, but the repeated phrases "Is there anybody alive out there?" (one of Springsteen's in-concert exhortations) and "I want to feel your rhythm" suggest more. It all comes back to that word "connection," whether through the right song on the radio, the communal spirit of a concert, or "a little of that human touch." Connection or the lack of it is at the heart of every great Springsteen song.

Springsteen has often spoken about his songs mixing the blues and gospel -- the verses are the blues, the choruses gospel -- and it's a pretty good way to address his contradictions, the utter bleakness of a lot of his songs coupled with the almost exuberant hope of others. Songs like "Born to Run" and "Badlands" rail against the darkness through an angry, defiant hope, the lyrics spelling out the despair while the music pounds it into submission. Like those songs, the music to "Radio Nowhere" thunders ahead relentlessly. Meanwhile, the interplay between the emptiness in the verses, that question "Is there anybody alive out there?" and the final repeated "I want to feel your rhythm" expresses this clash of the blues and gospel. Ultimately, the song is a mission statement, Springsteen throwing down the gauntlet and saying he's ready to make Radio Somewhere, even if it takes a thousand guitars.