Friday 3 January 2014

Bruce Springsteen-Prove It All Night



A Bruce Springsteen concert, you can't compare it to any other live show, it's like his performing only for you, putting your story front and centre all the struggles and sadness he sings it like no other. There are very few artists who capture the burning intensity of life, the internal struggle for meaning better than Springsteen. He takes you down that dusty road, through all the small towns where nothing ever happens, the people, the dreamers who yearn for more. All the wrong turns, wrong decisions, the missteps, the mistakes, the heartbreak, the anger he can capture it all.

Prove It All Night came off the Darkness on The Edge Of Town album, an aptly named album the songs have a small town ache,

I've been working real hard
Trying to get my hands clean
We'll drive the dusty road
From Monroe to Angilene
To buy you a gold ring and a pretty dress of blue
Baby just one kiss will get these things for you
A kiss to seal our fate tonight.

In many of Springsteen early songs and it probably rings true today, his heroes all wear a dirt stained halo, all are big dreamers, outsiders always striving for something more. There is an almost insatiable hunger in the protagonists never do the songs veer towards sentimentality nor do they become riddled with cliche. This song really exists in a live environment, if you watch early live shows you see Springsteen and the band just wring every emotion from this song. It builds slowly with a melancholy refrain from Roy Bittan on the piano before Springsteen blasts through the veneer with some tough sinewy guitar lines before launching into the opening verse. The song is always underpinned by Bittans' elegant piano phrasings, as the song builds to a crescendo you have some manic keyboard work from Danny Federici and some raw call and response between Bruce and guitarist Little Stevie Van Zandt. The E Street band are truly one of the all time great rhythm sections, they are masterful in helping to create Springsteens vision.



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