— Mike Stand
"Bobby said he'd pull out, Bobby stayed in
Janey had a baby, there wasn't any sin
They were set to marry on a summer day
Bobby got scared and he ran away..."
"Spare Parts" is a track on Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel of Love, a masterpiece of love gone sour and loneliness. It isn't one of the albums highlights but it isn't mere filler either. For one thing, it's a welcome rocker in the midst of all these bleak acoustic guitar strums and/or synth wails. It's also nice to hear something that isn't first-person derived ("Spare Parts" is followed by the folksy "Cautious Man", the only other track that uses a narrative of other lost souls instead of Springsteen himself). It was an unlikely single — though beyond "Brilliant Disguise" there wasn't much chart potential for any of Tunnel of Love's dozen songs — and only performed modestly. It wasn't even released in the US where Born in the USA had resulted in a ridiculous number of hits, a feat that its predecessor couldn't come close to replicating.
"Spare Parts" is about a young couple and how each reacts differently to an unexpected pregnancy. Bobby is a coward, a rogue ("Bobby heard 'bout his song bein' born, swore he wasn't ever goin' back") and a loser. He doesn't Walk Like a Man. Janey's situation makes her despair and she seriously considers pulling an "Ode to Billie Joe" in order to rid herself of the child she has to care for. Instead, she ends up discarding remnants of her life with Bobby and winds up with some "good cold cash" from the pawnshop. Her story is unresolved from there but the implication is she's going to be strong and that she'll raise her infant son to be more of a man than Bobby ever was. What goes unacknowledged here is that old Bobby had a Hungry Heart. After all, everybody's got a Hungry Heart.
Bruce Springsteen was already over thirty when he finished recording The River, a double album of maudlin reflections and balls-out comedy rockers — as well as a great deal in between. I don't know if it's many people's favourite Boss LP (the popular picks are Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska and Tunnel of Love) but it is perhaps the most representative of him. It was initially going to be a single disc known as The Ties That Bind until Springsteen changed his mind at the last minute. Manager Jon Landau suggested expanding it to encompass more of the diversity of his work and that's what eventually happened. Philip Larkin would put a great deal of care into how his collections of poems would be sequenced — "I treat them like a music hall bill: you know, contrast, difference in length, the comic, the Irish tenor, bring on the girls" — and that is not unlike how The River took shape.
Would-be title track and Heartland anthem "The Ties That Bind" opens the first disc in much the same way "Badlands" kicks off 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town. But it's the album's second track that indicates changes have been made. "Sherry Darling" is one of Springsteen's most engaging rockers and it must tear the house down whenever he performs it live but it is also funny. To have the earnest and painfully sincere Bruce Springsteen singing about being fed up with having to drive his irritating mother-in-law down to the unemployment agency every Monday makes for a refreshing change. The trope of the nagging in-law was probably more amusing then than it is now since it had been such an established as sitcom fodder. Members of Springsteen's E Street Band cheer and holler The Boss as he spins this yarn and it's as if they recreating the casual, good-natured vibes of The Beach Boys Party album.
Having "Sherry Darling" appear so early on The River turned out to be a canny move for Springsteen. The album's twenty cuts didn't necessarily need to be taken seriously even if some still did. The remainder of the first side of disc one is a return to a more straight laced Boss with the imploring "Jackson Cage" and the desperate "Two Hearts" and once the lovely closer "Independence Day" is done, it's time for a palate cleanser. Side two's opening track doesn't quite do the job as effectively as "Sherry Darling" but it does provide light relief.
"Hungry Heart" doesn't have to be taken as a lighthearted number but that's how I've always heard it. I will always remember how jarring it was the first time I listened to the album because of his voice. ("Is that even him or has another E Street Band member taken over the vocals for once?") He sounds younger and his throat is far less ravaged than normal. It's almost pure which makes the narrative easier to swallow. Oh, and about that narrative: there isn't much of one. As Mike Stand himself does, the song's opening lines ("got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack / I went out for a ride and I never went back") are often quoted because (a) it's so gloriously wrong and (b) it's the only thing anyone remembers of it. For such a popular Springsteen tune, it sure is lyrically slight. That said, it displays one of the finest recorded performances of the E Street Band with everyone in top form and raging.
It was famously supposed to be for the Ramones, which is yet more evidence that "Hungry Heart" is much more of a comedy number than it may appear. While it's hard to imagine the sneering Joey Ramone singing it at all, there's no way he would have taken as anything but a joke. And he would have been right to. Springsteen could have done with treating it a little less seriously.
None of this is to condemn "Hungry Heart", only to make a case that it's lighter than it's typically thought of. Springsteen wrote far more convincing songs about unsatisfied souls dreaming of better lives for themselves than one with some glaring contradictions. In a way, it's a number that isn't quite sure of itself. It doesn't completely convince as a song of a restless soul and neither does it engage nearly as well as "Sherry Darling". Bruce could occasionally be guilty of trying to be all things to all people in his songcraft and that's what's going on here.
Theory time: "Hungry Heart" and "Spare Parts" are about the same couple. If this is the case, Bobby comes out of it looking even worse. In "Spare Parts", he's a character that Janey and their infant son are best rid of; in "Hungry Heart", he makes a rather feeble case for being such a free spirit: there's something inside of him that makes him crave the road but we aren't meant to understand why. I guess it just goes to show how Bruce Springsteen was still improving as a songwriter. By the time he got to Tunnel of Love, no one could touch him — not even the earthly/heavenly Bob Dylan.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Devo: "Whip It"
There was something so utterly cool about discovering Devo for the first time. To find out that there happens to have been a group of nerds who wore flowerpot hats and did creatively oddball tunes is revelatory at any age and at any time — and that's before even getting to their outstanding music videos and their still-brilliant and original concept of wrap-around themes for their home video releases. The world is a much better place for having Devo as a part of it. That said, I'm more than twenty years out of university and their music no longer has that same thrill as when I was younger. Everyone should have a Devo period even if they end up outgrowing it eventually. "Whip It" is indeed great but it just doesn't sound the same as it used to. But I'm sure that's at least as much on me as them — if not much more so.
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