Have You Ever Seen a One-Legged Man Trying to Dance His Way Free?

Just when you thought Obama inspired music couldn’t stoop any lower than Ashford and Simpson reworking their classic to go Solid as Barack, Bruce Springsteen, voice of a the working class writes the worst song of his career, the overtly sappy Working on a Dream in honor of the man who would be president. Here is a guy that once sang, “Wherever somebody's strugglin’ to be free, look in their eyes Mom you'll see me,” and now he palling around with the machine instead of raging against it.

At least I thought Working on a Dream was the worst song Springsteen ever record, and then I listen to the whole album of the same name and found Queen of the Supermarket which is as cheesy as the title of the song would suggest and sounds like The Boss was trying to make a more serious verion of Lunchlady Land. And the explicitly cheery tone of the title track overspills into My Lucky Day (which is almost saved by a Clarence Clemmons sax solo) This Life, Tomorrow Never Knows, and Surprise, Surprise.

Thankfully it isn’t all happy, happy, joy, joy on Working on a Dream. The eight minute opener Outlaw Pete manages to merge the folk of The Ghost of Tom Joad with the arena rock of Born to Run effortlessly. The result is an opus about a baby already with a rap sheet whose life intertwines among mustangs (of the horse variety), Irish bounty hunters and young Navajo girls. Many artists have written this type of song before, even Bruce, but it still sounds fresh here in 2009. Good Eye, with its harmonica and scratchy vocals also has that down home feel to it and these songs may have made for a better template for a full album.

Springsteen has noted of 2007 album Magic that this was the first time he wanted to continue writing which was what spawned Working on a Dream. The result was his most scattershot album of his sixteen studio records. Even though it resulted in one of his best work in Outlaw Pete, the rest of the album just playes like and B-side or outtake compilation rather than a proper Springsteen disk. Hopefully for the next album, Bruce tears everything down and starts anew because it worked well on the previous fourteen times.

Song to Download - Outlaw Pete

Working on a Dream gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.