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Compelling complexities and contradictions of Bruce Springsteen
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a book with some revelatory insights into the work of the rock legend
Bruce Springsteen
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JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Bruce Springsteen: Like a Killer in the Sun (Selected Lyrics, 1972-2017)
by Leonardo Colombati
(Backbeat Books, £26)
WEIGHING in at a mighty 600 pages this is an unorthodox biography of Bruce Springsteen, related through song lyrics, critical commentaries, timelines, catalogues and lists.
The underpinning scholarship is impressive, as is Leonardo Colombati’s knack for linking events to developments in musical storytelling, and considerable credit for the book’s lively and accessible style should go to its translator Francesca Bolza.
The author’s central idea is that Springsteen’s lyrical oeuvre is an epic novel in fragmented form. The book’s opening segment, The Great American Novel, situates his work in US cultural history and it covers the influence of black music, the beginnings of rock and roll, the portrayal of masculinity in cinema, notable novelists, influential poets, urban decay and the demands of life in the post-industrial US.
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