Stoakes’ Song of the Week

Well, here’s another one! This week, ending the 29th June 2019 I’m feeling like a little dose of The Boss. I’m talking, of course, about Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce is still writing songs that are just as pertinent and relevant as ever. He has just released his nineteenth studio album, Western Stars, but I would like to go back a little, if I may, to 1980 and the release of ‘The River’.

The River was the title track of Springsteen’s fifth album and was released on October 17, 1980. It was his only double album and his first to go to number 1 on the Billboard 200 and the song was nominated for the ‘Best Rock Vocal Performance’ at the 1982 Grammy’s.

Written about Bruce’s sister and his brother in law the song is, according to Bruce’s sister, Ginny, a precise description of her early life with her husband Mickey, to whom she is still married today.

The River makes use of a haunting harmonica and in some ways is
a foreshadowing of the style of his next album, ‘Nebraska’. It has been described by writer and critic Robert Hilburn as
“a classic outline of someone who has to re-adjust his dreams quickly, facing life as it is, not a world of his imagination. The chorus imagery was inspired by Hank Williams’ song ‘Long Gone Lonesome Blues’.
Throughout the song the river is viewed as a symbol for the dreams of the future even though those dreams are realistically beginning to fail.

The River marks a new direction in Springsteen’s song writing; It really acts as a precursor to his next album, Nebraska.

Live, ‘The River’ has become a centrepiece of shows on many of Springsteen’s tours, having been performed over 600 times.