Track Listing

1. Devils & Dust
2. All The Way Home
3. Reno
4. Long Time Comin'
5. Black Cowboys
6. Maria's Bed
7. Silver Palomino
8. Jesus Was an Only Son
9. Leah
10. The Hitter
11. All I'm Thinkin' About
12. Matamoras Banks

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5920 in Music
• Released on: 2005-04-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: DualDisc
• Original language: English

Album Description
CD AUDIO SIDE: Entire Album

DVD SIDE: * Entire album in 5.1 channel surround sound and in 2 channel stereo. * Special Devils & Dust film by noted photographer and film maker Danny Clinch, including rare, never-before-seen acoustic performances of "Devils & Dust," "Long Time Comin'," "Reno," All I'm Thinkin' About" and "Matamoras Banks" plus Bruce's personal introductions to the tracks.

Amazon.com
The last time Bruce Springsteen ventured West for inspiration, the result was the desolate Nebraska and its tales of serial killers and used cars. On his first record in three years, Springsteen navigates barren deserts and Old West war fields for a dozen forlorn songs that co-star the artist and his acoustic guitar. Though he's always had a knack for carving out the hooks and melodies that make each journey memorable, this time around Springsteen relies on the lyrics to carry the tune-desperate tales of tragedy, heartbreak, and lust with a Latino twist, like the boxer coming home ("The Hitter"), a distressing border-crossing incident ("Matamoros Banks"), and the Nevada hooker with good intentions ("Reno," which led to the warning sticker Adult Imagery). With no E Street Band in the mix, the album is decorated with horns and strings and Springsteen’s novel falsetto on two his best efforts: "Maria’s Bed," where the narrator comes home to his woman after 40 nights on the road, and the fast-picking "All I’m Thinkin’ About," where he has more than Carolina on his mind. A decade from now this will be an underrated record in the Springsteen chronicles. --Scott Holter

The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (1973)
After a folk-rockish debut album that bubbled with ideas and dense lyrical play, this is where Springsteen began to find his voice as a rocker and as a songwriter. The prisoner-of-love romanticism of "Rosalita" and "Incident on 57th Street" hinted at what was coming, and this early version of the E Street Band--jazzier and more spare than later versions, thanks largely to David Sancious's piano--sounds great, if a little ragged, these many years later.

Born to Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
These two records, which belong on any compilation of the top 100 rock albums of all time, sketched the themes that he would spend his whole career chasing, and defined the expectations fans would bring to his records ever after. The first chords of "Born to Run" sounded like freedom itself the first time I heard them on the radio, and the album lived up to them. "Thunder Road" is still the greatest rock & roll love song anyone's ever written. The record sounded so big and impassioned and propulsive it was easy to miss the dread running underneath it. Darkness... put the dread front and center. There are more of his best songs here than anywhere else, even if the sound is muddy and leaden at times.

Nebraska (1982)
After The River (the best record that didn't make this list) and the ensuing tour answered his rock & roll prayers--he was a big star now, not just a perennial critics' favorite--Springsteen holed up in a rented house on the Jersey shore, where he wrote these songs and sang them into a four-track recorder in his living room. The tape was supposed to be a demo for the band, but after several false tries he concluded that the tape he'd been carrying around in his pocket was the record. Quiet and bleak, Nebraska nonetheless grabbed you by the collar and made you listen as surely as his rock & roll records ever had.

Tunnel of Love (1987)
The glare and hubbub surrounding the Born in the USA tour (the tour was great--the record itself overrated) made him pull back again, this time to write a cycle of songs about love and fear and self-doubt. After this, Springsteen's first marriage broke up, and he started a family with Patti Scialfa, disappearing for the better part of 10 years, notwithstanding the pair of not bad, just disappointing albums he released in 1992, Human Touch and Lucky Town.

The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
Some call it Nebraska II, but his second acoustic album was not a repeat of his first--the characters and settings had changed, and their circumstances were more expressly desperate, and social--though it did share the same interest in what happens to people whose isolation or marginal status renders them invisible.

The Rising (2002)
Everybody--including Springsteen himself--seemed to think it was a record about 9/11, but the subject was broader: death and loss as seen from more than halfway down life's road. Dave Marsh nailed it: "A middle-aged man confronts death and chooses life." Brendan O'Brien's production sounds great.

Customer Reviews

Well worth adding to your collection
I have been a casual listener to Bruce Springsteen for about twenty years. His raspy voice and anger were what drew me to him first. I was a teenager, and I was raspy and angry, too. Now, years later, I find that what I really want is depth and insight and humility in the face of insoluble problems and a world rich with contradictions and meaning. Bruce gives that in this album. The songs are haunting and sad mostly, with the anger muted and in the background. Jesus was an only son seems to me to speak of a faith that hangs on even though others in that faith have torn away the roots. I don't know much about his other albums, even though I have them, because they seem too earnest, too angry, and to be honest they scare me off a bit. But this one--wow. I think I'll go listen to it again right now. I learn something new every time. The music and the story work together--for the first time in a long time, since maybe Joni Mitchell's early stuff or Queen's Day at the Races, I can say that this is a real album and not just a collection of songs. Go get it.

I've Only Had 1 Quick Listen
I've only had one quick listen and haven't really had the opportunity to sit down and listen to it in depth. I didn't really care for "Nebraska" or "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" and thought this one was going to be more of the same. At first listen though I quite enjoyed what I heard. While I still prefer his albums with the E-Street Band, this was better than what I expected.

On a side note, I didn't really care for the F-bomb he dropped in probably my favourite song (track 4 I think). It seems a little beneath an artist of Bruce's talents. I didn't even notice but my young daughter pointed it out to me as we were listening. Come on Bruce, don't drop yourself down to the lowest common denominator.

Burlington, Ontario

Stunning.
This album is without a doubt my favourite Sunday morning listening......ever. Simple but full of depth, it is the work of a writer who continues the make the rest look tired and running on empty.