BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Only The Strong Survive

“Soul man”. These are the only two words Bruce Springsteen would want written on his tombstone. It's not (only) a matter of music: “It refers to life, to work, and to the way you approach both.” Putting your soul into it, we might say. A vocation Springsteen learned from his soul heroes: from the way they gave voice to emotions, from the way they held nothing back.

It's hardly surprising, then, to find him today tackling a collection of soul and r&b covers. If anything, one wonders why it didn't happen sooner, given how many classics of the genre have been dug up on stage during his torrential live sets (just listen to any live version of “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher” to believe it...). After all, as Martin Scorsese once said, the artist's job is to make the audience care about their obsessions. And Springsteen's obsession with soul is an integral part of his story.

In Freehold, New Jersey, in the heart of the Sixties, that was the only music capable of bringing everyone together on the dance floor. To tell the story of the kids of that era, Springsteen recalls in his autobiography, “you needed a mix of doo-wop's dark, violent romanticism, soul's vigorous realism, and the vague promise of social ascent offered by Motown.”

These are precisely the roots the American songwriter chose to dive back into on “Only The Strong Survive”, holing up after hours in his studio during lockdown to record a collection of covers (well-known and obscure alike) together with the producer of his last few albums, Ron Aniello. “My purpose is to have the audience of today experience the beauty and the joy of that music,” he explains, “just as happened to me from the very first time I heard it.” It's no coincidence, then, that the opening words of “Only The Strong Survive” have to do with memory itself: “I remember...”, a female choir repeats over a bed of strings; “I remember my first love...”, Springsteen's spoken intro begins after a drum hit. And Jerry Butler's old hit leaves nostalgia behind to launch into a shimmering piece of pop vintage.

No E Street Band this time, apart from the horn section and Soozie Tyrell among the backing vocalists. Springsteen chooses to shift the spotlight onto his voice: “I wanted to make a record where I just sang. And what better music to work with than the great American songbook of the Sixties and Seventies?” He once believed his voice was his weak point; now, instead, he shows off all his confidence as a singer, navigating a highly personal karaoke session (of which this album, as the “Vol. 1” on the cover seems to suggest, may be only the beginning). The sense of spontaneity and fun is the strength of “Only The Strong Survive”: an approach that inevitably recalls that of the “Seeger Sessions”, even if a certain excess of fidelity to the originals (and a certain composed restraint in his delivery) makes the result less brilliant.

On two tracks, Springsteen also brings in one of those “soul men” he has always professed to be a devoted disciple of, Sam Moore: on “I Forgot To Be Your Lover” he helps him soothe broken hearts, on “Soul Days” he accompanies him through a kind of pantheon of Black music (Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke and more, all name-checked in full). An explicit tribute that pairs with that of “Nightshift” (sung in the Eighties by the Commodores and reinterpreted by Springsteen almost like an apocryphal “Human Touch” outtake), which pays moving homage to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson.

The record works best when the mood turns more festive, as on the choruses of "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)," already primed to light up the next tour's shows, or on the Stax-style horns of "Any Other Way." It's less successful when the tone turns more sentimental, from "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" to "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted." But most of the tracks on "Only The Strong Survive" flow with ease, moving between the bright doo-wop touches of Ben E. King's "Don't Play That Song" and the supple groove of Tyrone Davis's "Turn Back The Hands Of Time."

On one thing, though, Springsteen seems convinced from start to finish: that he's taken to heart the lesson of never giving up. "I can't picture myself retired," he confessed to legendary radio host Howard Stern. And so, past the age of seventy, here he is, ready to set off on another world tour, which will also bring him to Italy next summer. With the same indomitable spirit (and the same contempt for rhetoric...) as the song he chose for the title: "There's gonna be a whole lot of trouble in your life/ So listen to me, get up off your knees 'cause only the strong survive."

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15/11/2022