danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

I picked up Working on a Dream right when it came out, and I’ve listened to it all the way through exactly once.  Since that first hearing I have avoided a few tracks, and grown very fond of many others. What don’t I like?  “Outlaw Pete” is just too long and rambling. “Lucky Day” is weak.  “Good Eye” isn’t bad, but it’s a really bluesy number, and, in general, I don’t like songs with lots of harmonic sevenths.  “Queen of the Supermarket” is an unfortunate case.  The music is lovely, and in the same aesthetic vein as most of the other songs on the album, but it is a waste lyrically.  The singer’s effusive praise for the wonders found in the aisles of the grocery store seems ridiculous.  And, by the end, the addition of cash register sound effects sends the whole affair over the top, like a bad imitation of Meatloaf, but without the ironic wink.  It’s unfortunate that Bruce didn’t scrap every line in his notebook and come up with a whole other concept for the otherwise worthy tune.

What do I like?  Most of the rest of the record, really. The big arrangements that characterized Magic are even bolder here, and, in many instances, they are coupled to song structures that are more obviously inspired by 1960s pop.  Take “This Life”, for example.  It begins with sounds which would have fit well on a Beach Boys album:

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But it’s not just what’s on the surface that reminds me of 1960s pop; it’s the harmonies and chord progressions themselves.  I cannot, off the top of my head, think of many occasions where Bruce has turned to a diminished chord, but very briefly in the second verse of “This Life” you find one (and only one: the other verses don’t do this):

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I am aware that what I like on any Springsteen album is often the opposite of what many Boss fans like.  I have read reviews of this album that praise the harder rocking numbers like “Good Eye” while disparaging the tracks that appeal to me.  These reviews come from people that preferred Magic tracks (like “Gypsy Biker”) which don’t appeal to me aesthetically.  To each his own.  It is no wonder, then, that a my favorite song on Working on a Dream would be one that that I suspect is the least favorite of many: “Surprise, Surprise”.  It’s a straight-up pop song that would have surely made the top-10 in 1965.  The vocal timbre is much more natural, and has little of the affected twang that Bruce has used for years now:

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The chord progression is a total throwback to classic pop:

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And for me, the climax of the song comes when we hear other members of the E Street Band get to sing a little.  It’s the perfect touch:

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When I listen to this song, I am always temped to follow it with its musical twin from Magic, “I’ll Work for Your Love”.  In fact, quite a few of the tunes on Working on a Dream have analogs on other Springsteen albums from this decade, including Magic and We Shall Overcome.

Where “Queen of the Supermarket” fails lyrically, “Life Itself” succeeds.  The banal imagery of the former isn’t nearly as subtle or imaginative.  That is to say, I think “the wind in the black elms” is a much more meaningful metaphor for life than the aisles of a store.

If it isn’t my favorite song on the album, I must acknowledge that “The Wrestler” is Working on a Dream’s best song.  It is the sort of portrait that he painted so well in the old days, as good as anything he’s written in years, and it’s remarkably touching:

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My ultimate analysis is that, while there are many tunes on Working on a Dream that I like, if I had my way, there would have been a couple that never made it.  I recognize that the three E Street Band albums of this decade each explore a particular theme (September 11th with The Rising; America in the Bush era with Magic; a new optimism with Working on a Dream), and that is a pretty amazing feat, even if none of these records will ever rival masterpieces like Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town.  It’s an impossible standard to live up to.

Filed under: Popular Music on February 8th, 2009 | No Comments »

This afternoon, to get out and enjoy the perfect (at last!) weather, I went for a ride on my motorized bicycle.  I went down a few blocks, was going reasonably fast, and suddenly felt my back tire seize up.  I skidded for a long time.  Long enough that I expected to hear a tire popping sound.  The tensioner that takes up the slack in the chain had moved enough to cause the chain to come off the back sprocket.  I am going to have to re-engineer that mechanism.  Meanwhile, my wheel has been taken way out of true.  I need to get a spoke wrench tomorrow.

Filed under: Transportation on February 7th, 2009 | No Comments »

After almost two weeks of off-and-on work, I finally put the finishing touches on my newly motorized bicycle, and this afternoon, as I pedaled briskly down my street, I popped the clutch and the engine came to life.  I have to make some minor adjustments to the carburetor to reduce the idle speed, but it seems to be doing what it was designed to do.

The engine is something I bought online for $124.  It came with everything needed to convert a 26″ bicycle to a moped.  As I wrote recently, however, my Schwinn–a gift from Jeff and Sandi in 2007–was just slightly too small to accommodate the motor.  It turns out that many mountain bikes have small frames for their wheel sizes.  Bikes designed for road use generally have great big frames with lots of clearance for an engine.  Serendipitously, Sarah Jean had a bike laying around, and she just gave it to me.  For nothing.  The engine fit perfectly.

The kit came with comically mistranslated instructions.  I made better progress when I discarded them in favor of photos of other motorized bicycles online.  The throttle cable and carburetor cable gave me trouble, as did the chain, which required the removal of several links.  I didn’t have a chain breaking tool, but I got the guys at Bikes and More on 6th Street to do the job for me.  It was cheaper than buying the tool.  Alas, they made it an inch too short, so I had to improvise my own tool (a nail set), and I put a link back in.  I was extremely confused by what to do with multiple springs, and where the printed instructions included patently false information, a Flickr search showed me that one spring wasn’t mean to be used as a spring at all, but as a heat shield for the clutch cable.

I wouldn’t say that I was going the full 30 miles per hour this afternoon that some have claimed.  It’s really hard to judge speed on a bicycle.  Supposedly, if you make some changes to the exhaust system you can dramatically increase performance.  But that would involve increased noise, and that’s the last thing I want.  I’d be willing to sacrifice speed for less noise.  As it is, right now it basically sounds like a chainsaw.

Getting used to the clutch and the braking system will be my biggest challenges now.  Braking involves putting in the clutch to disengage the drive, then stopping as normal.  But you have to remember to start pedaling before you pop the clutch again, or else you’ll stall. I think I am going to just use the engine when I have to go up steep grades, and when I have long straightaways where I don’t need to do a lot of starting and stopping.  It’s going to make my life easier.

Filed under: Technology, Transportation on February 7th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

As I wrote back in December, the February deadline for transition to exclusively digital TV signals is near.  Or it was, until this afternoon when the stupid house of representatives passed a bill to extend analog broadcasts through June.  On the News Hour just now I saw stupid Maxine Waters up there saying something to the effect that, “people are going to be so confused when their TVs stop working”.  Probably.  But guess what?  That’s the only thing that’s going to prompt some people to get the converter they need.  Pushing back this transition is only going to make things worse.  For a year now, stations have been running PSAs telling people the switch was in February.  TV stations had been planning to stop broadcasting, and now they’re going to have to keep running an extra tower for the tiny population (something like six million people) not yet ready.

This is such a stupid idea.  Mark my words: come June, the same people who are not ready today for the digital switch will still not be ready.  Only having their TVs go blank will motivate them.

Filed under: Current Events, Television on February 4th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

It is now after noon here in Gainesville, and it is not even 40 degrees.  Worse, it’s windy as all get out.  I had been hoping to work a little more on my motorized bicycle this evening after work, but I suspect I’ll change my mind when I leave the station this afternoon.  The temperature is forecast to be in the 20s tonight.  This is intolerable.

Filed under: Meteorology on February 4th, 2009 | 1 Comment »