Song of the Week- 'It's a Long way Home' - Bruce Springsteen
| Last night I stood at your doorstep Trying to figure out what went wrong You just slipped somethin' into my palm Then you were gone I could smell the same deep green of summer Above me the same night sky was glowin' In the distance I could see the town where I was born It's gonna be a long walk home Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me Gonna be a long walk home A long walk home In town I passed Sal's grocery The barbershop on South Street I looked into their faces They were all rank strangers to me The veterans' hall high up on the hill Stood silent and alone The diner was shuttered and boarded With a sign that just said "gone" It's gonna be a long walk home Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me Gonna be a long walk home Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me Gonna be a long walk home It's gonna be a long walk home Here everybody has a neighbor Everybody has a friend Everybody has a reason to begin again My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town It's a beautiful place to be born It just wraps its arms around you Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone. That you know flag flying over the courthouse Means certain things are set in stone Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't." Its gonna be a long walk home Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me Gonna be a long walk home Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me Gonna be a long walk home It's gonna be a long walk home Its gonna be a long walk home Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me Gonna be a long walk home Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me Gonna be a long walk home It's gonna be a long walk home It's gonna be a long walk home | ||
Copyright © 2007 Bruce Springsteen (ASCA |
From the Album titled 'Magic', released by the man they call 'The Boss' in 2007, with the able support of the over loaded with talent, E Street Band, this is one song of twelve stand out tunes that grabs my attention and holds it. 'It's a Long Walk Home' starts with a powerful verse about a love that is no more and that is followed by a journey back through a young man's life. When love goes bad I guess men look for something to hang onto. The town where they grew up, traditional values, ideals that meant something. The chorus will infect you and stay with you all day. And even if your voice is as average as mine is, in the car with full volume on the stereo, I guarantee that you will sound awesome.
But what is the song all about? I haven't researched it because I think it is more fun sometimes to try and work things out for myself. What did she slip into his palm? Was it a note, a photo, a ring? Or was the smell of that same sweet summer coming through in that last moment before death, as this guy bled out his life on some wasteland battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan? Was that the long walk home? Those fleeting memories flashing before his mind after an explosion or a bullet, with all those things that were so important now reduced to a moment before they bring the body back. 'Hey pretty darlin' don't wait up for me, it's gonna be a long walk home'. I've got no idea, but the song has charm and grunt.
The first time I listened to this album I wasn't too sure about it. I played it a second time, then again. For a couple of years after that initial listen, the Magic album was always one of the first to go into the car CD player and one I always looked for on my ipod. There isn't a track on the album that I would ever skip over. I start at the beginning and take it to the end. Radio Nowhere, Girls in Their Summer Clothes, Your Own Worst Enemy (sounds like 9/11), I'll Work For You and the title track Magic. I dig them all.
Springsteen first grabbed hold of my wayward heart and soul in back in 1976 when I heard the 'Manfred Mann's Earth Band' cover of his original song Blinded by the Light. This song was released on his first album ' Greetings from Ashbury Park, N.J.'. I was blinded by the lyrics and had no idea what this song was about, due to the fact that Google hadn't been invented then. After that initial intro, Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska, Born in the USA and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, along with Magic and Working on a Dream found their way into my collection of songs that I frequently inhabit when I need to make sense of this world.
So sample it on Amazon or itunes. It might be one that you missed in the torrent called life while you were busy looking for other things.
p.s. For those who might be interested in knowing what 'Blinded by the Life' meant for Bruce I've cut and pasted some of an interview (and other random thoughts) with him about it.
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