BRUCE PREMIERES DEVILS & DUST! - 4/8/05
Last night in Los Angeles, a select audience of no more than thirty was treated to a private 6-song preview of Devils & Dust, the upcoming Bruce Springsteen CD, which is scheduled to be in stores on April 26. In addition to the title track, attendees heard “All the Way Home,” an up-tempo “last call, bars closing” anthem with a hook line that included, “Babe if you don’t feel like being alone/ I could walk you all the way home;” “Maria’s Bed,” a beautiful tune whose lyrics were accented by a folksy mandolin/acoustic guitar…well, bed; the lilting hymn, “Jesus Was An Only Son,” which lyrically traced the final hours of his life; “The Hitter,” the tale of a traveling boxer told with a skeletal arrangement of Springsteen’s voice and acoustic guitar and “All I’m Thinkin’ About,” which featured tasty acoustic slide guitar. The evening was capped off by a stark, dimly lit video of Springsteen performing the title track alone in a room with just a chair, a lamp, his guitar and a harp wrapped around his neck, which will be on the DVD side of Devils & Dust’s DualDisc. The visual clip began with a Springsteen voice over describing his songwriting process by saying in part, “As a writer, you have to write from your essential core…or the song dies!”