Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Working on a Dream

Working on a Dream may seem unfinished to many people. Bruce Springsteen has spent 40 years plumbing the depths for us; the hopeful, escapist youths of Born to Run and the prideful would-be laborers of Born in the U.S.A. spoke without metaphor to our struggle. The personal narratives in Tunnel of Love, Lucky Town, and Human Touch failed to resonate, where the grief in The Rising and the righteous anger of Magic brought The Boss into the historic relevance in which Working on a Dream arrives.

And that’s where Working on a Dream falls. Because it has exactly two songs that aren’t great — I won’t name them, because critics shouldn’t try to remedy art, but almost every song on this record continues the emotive strength of the previous two records, to the point of seeming like a trilogy. The Rising reacted to September 11th. Magic meditated on the war in Iraq, and Dream speaks to the personal stories of our current crisis. The Americans in Working on a Dream have lost their jobs, their homes, their cars, and perhaps the protection of The Constitution, but they are no less American. The characters take comfort in each other. They count their blessings. They fall in love a thousand times a day. They seem to stop and smell the flowers ’cause it’s free.

I think that’s why it’s called Working…, because the American Dream is not merely one of Cadillac trucks. If it were, it would not endure. The truest glory, the soberest nobility of our American Dream is that it persists. The dream remains a Work in progress.