Bruce's Biggest Regret

Taking advise from Sting.

May 13, 1985

June 8, 1991

'nuff said.

I know he regrets the dancing in the dark video! That's why he doesn't mime in videos anymore. Not, in my opinion, De Palma's best work.

Understatement of the day

Technically, this was a mistake. But he found his musical 'calling' because of it.

He regrets the sound on Darkness, too..it's not just us who think it's flat ("I oversang...they underplayed"). He prefers the versions on Live '75-'85.

Not auditioning the drummer after Zach Alford.

I think playing bigger venues was a regret. Now he might not say it is/was, but then he definitely would have.

I think it was more that he was uncomfortable with it then, had a hard time adapting. He seems much more at ease in the stadiums today, so I don't think he still regrets it.

I think I remember him once saying the entire TOL tour was a mistake, that he felt he should have tried what he eventually did a few years later.

I think he would have made The River better.

Born in the USA was really over cooked. There could have been at least 2 albums that would have been better than BIUSA.

The Rising tour was too long.

i think 57 channels says a lot

And supporting a too uneven album. Sometimes less is more.

BITU is a good album, the title track is one of the best songs he`s ever written. Everyone knows it could have been a double release where the other one would be the better album. About The River-some funny/silly songs done right in the right context, doesn`t have to drag an album down. And it doesn`t. Not even Crush on you.
The Rising tour did go on forever, and supporting a too uneven album with some boring music - Countin'on a miracle comes to mind. And not to mention repetitive and some poorly written lyrics bordering to embarrassment. Sometimes less is more.
That said, I doubt that any of those albums would be on his regret list.

It's funny how he's become quite at ease with playing 60,000 seat football stadiums at $85 bucks a pop. No regrets there...

He should regret his post Darkness guitar sound, if anything.

Seems I recall reading (here, pre-crash maybe?) about the degradation in sound quality being caused by equipment changes -- the length of the cable connecting the guitar to the amp, different amps, the effect of going wireless -- bunch of stuff I didn't quite understand and so on.

I was listening to the boot of his performance with Lucinda Williams -- he can still play damn well, and the sound was (to my ears) pretty damn good -- good enough to prove he can still play well.

I think he should regret (a) not having Clair Brothers do the arena audio setup, and (b) no longer walking around the arena before the show to make sure it sounds as good as it can everywhere.

I going to argue that giving these away was a good move.
I love these songs and hearing them live or on bootlegs were part of the mystery and magic that was Bruce back then.
Having heard them in person made you part of a select group (even more special than SPL).
Owning the bootleg of these unreleased songs gave you one up on the less clued in rock fan.

This also provided him with more airplay. Remember airplay. You wouldn't normally play Bruce twice in an hour, but you could certainly play Bruce and Patty Smith in the same hour. Or Bruce and the Pointer Sisters or Link Ray (anyone else cover this one?) in the same hour. I bet the Pointer Sisters had a whole nother audiance that may never have heard of Bruce before.

Correct. His choice of gear sucks.

Giving Because the Night to Patti did his career a world of good. I wonder if the song would have been covered quite as much as it was if it had been a Springsteen album track. I think Patti did the track better than Bruce could have, adding quite a bit more erotic power tothe song.

His biggest regret is not owning BruceSpringsteen.com

Uh, yeah. And why was he uncomfortable? Because he saw playing bigger venues as selling out, which would be a regret.

I don't think it was selling out that was on his mind, communicating over a stadium stretch is what took adapting. I think stadiums are the main reason why the raps were replaced by the preacher shtick. The intimacy needed for long raps was gone. I don't think Bruce felt really comfortable in the big stadiums until the Reunion and on.

He does loads of speaking parts on the Born in the USA tour. About Elvis, his Dad etc. Much more than he does these days anyway. I think the main problem is on the boots you can hear (or see on dvd) the crowd are either cheering like morons throughout or chattering to themselves (even worse ) all the way through them.

Not creating an alternative live performance persona.
That works as well as the E street band.

Exactly, that's why one of the reasons I think he decided to tone down, fire the ESB and find different venues. This is a man who does like people to pay attention to what he writes and says. He needed time to adjust, but in the end I don't think he regrets the upscaling. It just took him quite some time to find his groove with it.

You wonder how that could happen.

The muscle T-Shirt BITUSA look was just wrong.

Letting Steve sing Back-up

Once upon a time, that wasn't such a bad thing. It's one of the reasons I like "Night" in the #2 slot (or, preferably, as the opener)... it is in a key suited to Steve, and seems to get his voice in better shape for the show.

Steve?s background vocals on the river-tour where beautiful.
But you meant on this tour right?

Yeah, this tour and the the last two why we are at it......
As far as The River Tour goes, i have'nt listened to a show on that tour in while so i will take your word on it......But "Beautiful" ??? That's hard to imagine

Raggedy can be very beautiful. Just give Man Without Women another spin 8)

Biggest regret, possibly being too cautious sometimes. But in his favour, in the 80s, he never sold out to the marketing guys - imagine if JL had talked him into letting BITUSA be used for selling cars...... at least the guy can look in the mirror and like what looks back

tying that canoe down might have been a good idea!

Don't know about his life: maybe signing the contract with Appel but Bruce often tells that situation helped him stay with his feet on the ground. Maybe without it we wouldn't ever have listened to Darkness album.

Maybe the marriage with Julianne: it sounded like a mistake right from the beginning but surely we wouldn't ever have listened to a great song like Brilliant Disguise..

As for his works, Human Touch album can be a regret. It's well played but it's not the real Bruce. Some of the songs are really good. Real World, Roll Of The Dice, 57th Channels, With Every Wish and the same Human Touch are good stuff. A song I hate so much is Real Man, maybe the lowest point of the whole Bruce's career (even worst than Pony Boy).

He rejected some great songs: I would have a great regret thinking that he didn't put into The River Restless Nights or Loose Ends, maybe replacing modest stuff like Crush On You or I'm A Rocker. This Hard Land is a real masterpiece. In this case I just understand his choice because this song was out of contest with the other songs of the album (a western folk-rock song with harmonica had to do nothing with the rest..).

Of course I'm not criticizing: we're talking about one of the greatest rock musicians of all times, the best live performer ever, one of the best american poet ever...

*sigh*

As tongue in the cheek commentary 57 channels wasn't half bad, its just a shame he butchered all those fine songs that were there on Human Touch. He must have some regrets over that period. I wonder sometimes if he or we would have been more satisfied if he made some more fundamental choices like he did with the SSB. Artistically the latter had a lot more direction, the HT/LT albums and tour wound up being E-Street light because he tried to keep one foot into what he was doing with that band.

a) I don't like the official version of 57 channels but the idea is good. there's a beautiful live performance of this song played as a blues song. It sounded much better than the HT version. Its lyrics are somehow linked to the previous You can look... and to the next Radio Nowhere (themes: the lack of communication, the eccess of materiality)

b) A lot of people consider Bruce, Dylan and Neil Young as poets in music. Dylan and Bruce in particular, linked to Guthrie, belongs to the group of artists that took the inheritance of Walt Withman and put that kind of poetry in folk, rock and pop songs. There's a book in Italy, entitled Like a Killer In The Sun, by Leonardo Colombati, that argues about this and comes to the conclusion that YES Bruce is writing the Great American Romance.

Taking Sting's advice was a good idea. The mistake was playing it safe with musicians who didn't push him. He didn't need to bring in world musicians along the lines of Sting, Peter Gabriel, or Paul Simon, but he should've picked musicians who had something to offer. The only member of the 92-93 band who fit that bill was Crystal Talifero.

In a similar vein, he played it too safe on TGOTJ tour. Had he been more daring, we would've had the Devils & Dust tour about 10 years earlier. Whether or not you liked that tour, you've got to admit that Bruce pushed himself artistically there more than on any other tour.

Knowing fuck all about horses