Bruce Springsteen – We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

When I first heard that Bruce Springsteen was releasing a Pete Seeger tribute, I was intrigued.  Not for anything Springsteen – whom I’ve never managed to get, he’s just too earnest for my ears – but for Seeger whom I adore.

Upon the continual praise lauded upon this new disk from Sirs Saleski and DJRadiohead I finally went out and bought the disk.

Sweet jeebus!  Holy mother of folk!  What a great freaking record.

If I was an explorer and I came across some lonely tribe in the deepest, darkest African jungles that didn’t know what music was – had never heard a note – I would play this disk for them.  I would introduce music into their world with these songs

It’s that good.

If the big one dropped tonight, destroying this sad world we’ve created; years later when the few survivors crawled out of their holes, I would play them the Seeger Sessions to remind them that this world can still hold beauty.

It’s that amazing.

Years ago, when I was but a lad, I attended a Christmas celebration at my grandmother’s Southern Baptist Church.  It was a spirited, holy-roller affair.  There was shouting, and praising, and the raising of hands, the talking in tongues, undulating palpations and laying on upon hands.  My little eyes didn’t know what to think.

My uncle was there.  He is an old-school man.  He is big and tough and sometimes mean.  He doesn’t cry.  He doesn’t feel.  He can rib a man to death with venomous jokes.  He’s a good man, but made from a mold of man they just don’t make anymore.  He was at this church.  He was on the stage.  He was crying, shouting out for Lord Jesus, weeping in that emotion.

This album is a lot like that.

It is both holy and profane.  It has the hushed tones of the haughtiest church and the wild secularism of the Saturday night brothel.

Springsteen is the preacher, the poet, the sinner, and the shaman.  He stands on the altar giving salvation to the listener.

It is a big tent revival, a barn burner.  The band is full of the holy spirit of rock music and it’s the judgment day.

There isn’t a song to highlight; there is nothing that stands out above the rest.  As I listened for the first time, I kept thinking it couldn’t get any better than the song playing.  I was proven wrong 14 times until the CD stopped playing.  Every song is perfect, every note spot on.

Take “Shenandoah,” it is one of the few songs that can make me weep every time.  No matter where I am when the first longing notes begin to play I must pause and feel the weight of life sweep away.  Bruce simply nails it.

He stares into the deep darkness, like the cold Missouri waters he sings about and sees the mysteries, and finds truth.

This album, this collection of songs, pushes aside all that is wrong with music and the industry it supports.  It cracks the hard, crusty casing of pop music and finds something new, something mysterious.  If you look hard enough, if you stare into its cold dark waters you might just find a little sliver of truth yourself.