Tunnel Of Love, by Bruce Springsteen

In 1987, Bruce Springsteen found himself at a serious personal crossroads with the collapse of his marriage, and also at a professional crossroads with his decision to break from the E Street Band. His previous album, Born In The USA, had been a smash record both commercially and critically, having seven top ten hits among its songs, and one would have expected Springsteen to be riding high in its aftermath. Unfortunately, Springsteen found himself to be in a deeply troubled place, turning inward in his focus. Despite, or maybe because of the downbeat and self-critical tone of the album, the album has long received a great deal of critical praise and the album was also commercially successful at the time, being certified 3x platinum and spawning several hits, including the title track, a top five hit in “Brilliant Disguise,” one of a short list of my own favorite tracks from The Boss, and a top twenty hit in “One Step Up.” For all of its success at the time, though, this album is not particularly well-streamed, which suggests that it has not received a great deal of attention from contemporary audiences. Are these audience missing a classic, if perhaps underrated, Bruce Springsteen album or is it overrated by oldhead critics? Let’s find out.

The album begins with the brief and perky “Ain’t Got You,” which reflects on the strange juxtaposition between Springsteen’s material and popular success on the one hand and his personal discontents on the other. If the song seems a bit light on the surface, it sets up many themes that we will be hearing later on in the album in a more serious and unpleasant light. “Tougher Than The Rest,” the best streamed song from the album, changes its focus to heartbreak and Springsteen’s efforts to woo a woman on the rebound by pointing to his own being tougher than the rest, showing the public face of his bravado even in the face of personal disaster. “All That Heaven Will Allow” shows Springsteen portraying a smooth-talking man seeking to enter a bar to enjoy a date and then reflecting on the path of romance from its uncertain beginnings to marriage and the enjoyment of whatever time is provided with a loved one by divine providence. “Spare Parts” is an evocative and bluesy mid-tempo portrayal of the results of fear of commitment, where a woman gives birth to a son after his father runs away from a shotgun marriage and misses the fun of party life. “Cautious Man” provides a slow and poignant portrayal of a slow-paced, decent, and careful person who finds love working away his temperamental caution born of fear. Unfortunately, he finds himself troubled by betrayal and darkness in his heart. “Walk Like A Man” shows Springsteen reflecting on his marriage and what has happened to it, and to his struggle to be an honorable and responsible man in his life. His own troubles lead him to wonder if people are ever happier in marriage than on their wedding day and to pray for the strength to be a good husband himself. “Tunnel Of Love,” the title track, one of two top ten hits from the album, and the fourth most streamed song from the album, begins with somewhat dated production and provides a narrative of passion and lust and fear of intimacy related to the distorted funhouse atmosphere of a carnival. The guitar solo here is definitely welcome, before a closing that focuses on the grim responsibility of man to cope with what we cannot overcome. “Two Faces” shows Springsteen reflecting on the painfully two-faced nature of his character, sunny and willing to make promises on the one hand, but unhappy, moody, and fickle on the other hand, admitting the way that his troubled marriage has attracted people interested in trying to win the love of his estranged wife. “Brilliant Disguise,” the biggest hit and second-most streamed song from this album, is a gorgeous but agonizing song that shows Springsteen staring deep into the abyss of his troubled marriage where he and his wife are both betraying each other and pretending to be loving to each other in the shambles and ruins of their relationship. “One Step Up,” the third biggest hit and third most popular song on streaming from this album, vividly portrays the futility of people struggling in a failing relationship where nothing seems to work, not even the effort to encourage oneself to think of oneself as anything other than a failure even as one is traveling, going to the bar, or fighting with one’s partner. “When You’re Alone” provides a downbeat and slow-tempo examination of the way that a broken relationship leads to intense loneliness. One really feels the isolation of this track as Springsteen looks forward to a personal and professional life cut adrift from those he had been bound to. The album then closes with “Valentine’s Day,” a waltz that portrays Springsteen missing his girl and his home as he has been cut adrift from what he held dear, a clearly ironically named view of a man who is experiencing the dark side of love in heartbreak and loss.

Listening to this album led me to ponder the value of self-examination and reflection. What is it that makes this album so great to me in a way that other albums that offer a similarly unsparing view of themselves–like, say, Taylor Swift’s Midnights or Adele’s 30–leave me cold and unimpressed? There is something more than merely self-criticism going on here. Springsteen is certainly unsparing about the flaws of his estranged wife and his dissatisfaction with the wreck of their marriage. He is also equally, if not even more unsparing, about his own failures to live up to what he knows to be the right course of conduct in his life. But Springsteen manages to affirm the rightness of a way of life that he nonetheless does not uphold. It is that standard of right or wrong that prevents this album from descending into mere melodrama, even if there is plenty of melodramatic material here about lonely men who are divided between fear and longing, who know what is right but struggle to do what is right, who stare into the darkness of their souls and find it staring back at them. Few people have either the musical ability or the personal integrity to make music like this, and even to appreciate this album requires one to be willing to reflect on the ways that we may not be so unlike the unpleasantly honest singer-songwriter at the heart of this dark set of songs that encourage painful reflection and its proper response, repentance.