The Gaslight Anthem Band • Page 170

The entire Fallon streak is good, but 2008-2012 is one of the all-time great five-year stretches in output.

 

National Anthem made my essential playlist and I’ll die on this hill.

“I remember she used to look so good in that dress. Now she just screams how I promised her more than this. Take it easy baby it ain’t over yet” is the most heartbreaking line ever.

 

I have detailed memories of listening to Handwritten the first time. I was with 3 other friends who are all also big Gaslight fans. We just graduated high school and another friend was throwing a party at her house that night. We were in a god damn Ocean State Job Lot trying to find matching windbreakers for the party (for whatever reason) when it leaked (or streamed?) and I FREAKED OUT. We rushed to my house for me to download it on my iPod, and we went and listened to it with great speakers in my friend's basement and we all just were in shock with how great this album was.

When National Anthem came on we all were like "SHIT" at the lyric you quoted as well as:

"Now everybody lately is living up in space
Flying through transmissions on invisible airwaves
With everything discovered just waiting to be known
What’s left for God to teach from his thrown?
And who will forgive us when He's gone?"

Fond memories of playing that album on repeat the entire party and then the following like 6 months, and we all fell asleep singing "oh sha-la-la" lol.

 

Yeah, both of those verses are absolute crushers. That song doesn't get the credit it deserves.

 

Listened to Blood Loss for the first time in a while, goddamn that song is a monster. It moves at such a slow pace that once he starts howling the chorus out of nowhere, it's almost breathtaking. And it's hard to find a better line than:

My footsteps ain't hung in your hallways enough for you to be truly haunted.

I think a lot of my initial disappointment with Handwritten was that it came after two albums that featured, IMO, Brian's most poetic and mature songwriting. The lyrics on American Slang and Elsie are so beautiful that some of the lyrics on Handwritten seemed a bit lacking in nuance. Over time I've come to appreciate it for the big rock album that it is, but 2010-11 will always be peak Fallon for me.

 

My friend and I have had a long conversation about Blood Loss trying to decide if it's one thought, or if a conversation between the verse and the chorus. The verses describing being haunted by the ghost of a former love, the choruses doing the haunting "i'll tell you when it's over, i'll tell you when you've cried long enough etc..."

i fucking love it.

 

I had assigned my own kinda meaning where, it wasn't a past love haunting me, but it was being sick. Because the way it works, it's a lot of starts and stops and thinking your done and finding out your not and the idea of the whole process shouting down at me "I'll tell you when it's over, I'll tell you when you can leave" and fighting through that hit hard. Elsie as a whole is on a whole other level of songwriting. It's perfect. I don't get people who find a single flaw in it.

 

I argued probably 100 pages ago in this thread that his stretch of these 8 albums is more consistently great than any songwriter, EVER. And that's without even mentioning the B-Sides.

Obviously this is wildly subjective - there are some terrific "5 album runs" from some of the greatest bands of all time. But 8 straight like this is really, really hard to top. And who's to say that it won't stretch to 10, 12, 14 straight.

Brian is my favorite songwriter and artist of all time, and it's not really all that close.

I honestly don't understand why he's not more famous than he is........it's not like his songs (both solo and band) are not accessible, they are hooky as hell. I always feel like anyone I introduce to his music will like it. Their (TGA) lack of major mainstream success (like, headlining arenas) was always odd to me....

 

I don’t think anyone has ever topped or will ever top Bruce’s first eight-album run. With apologies to Brian.

 

See, Brian stuff hits harder for me than Bruce because there's an element of "Brian's MY guy" whereas Bruce is my father's. That's totally subjective though lol.

 

Your parents’ artists can still be your artists! Realizing that was one of the coolest moments of my musical development.

 

Oh, i know! And I love Bruce he's one of my all-time favorite musicians. I just have such a soft spot for Brian/TGA.

 

I'll agree with that sentiment. I love Bruce, but Brian Fallon is mine. My Dad showed me Bruce, but I got to show my Dad Brian. (He even went to a Brian Fallon show and loved it!)

 

Bruce is an argument, but I don't think Nebraska or the first 2 are of the same quality as the others, and after that, starting with album #9, he became hit or miss for me

Petty's best stretch is probably Damn the Torpedoes through Wildflowers, and that's 8 albums, but I think Let Me Up and to a lesser degree Southern Accents are a little weaker.

Those 2 are the closest I can think of, but I still think Brian wins out.

 

I’ll give you Greetings, but The Wild, The Innocent and Nebraska are incredible. And I also don’t personally think Sink or Swim and Get Hurt quite measure up to the other six Fallon records.

Petty is way more of a songs guy than an albums guy for me, so I probably wouldn’t have him in that conversation, great as he is.

 

Some of this comes back to the fact that so many think Get Hurt is just okay, whereas I think it's basically just as good as all the other stuff.

 

Interesting, Greetings and The Wild Innocent kinda run together for me. I know which songs come off of "one of those" albums but I couldn't name the tracklist of each specifically. This is my own failing, rest assured. To me Born To Run and Darkness are when Bruce takes off. But yes, I like those as well.

 

I freaking love Sink or Swim

 

Huh, that's odd. Greetings and Wild really aren't that much alike, beyond the fact that they came out in the same year. Greetings is mostly a singer/songwriter record, but Wild is an R&B/soul rock album. The former is hamstrung by flat production and a few dull songs, but the latter has a ton of energy and some of the most unique songwriting of Bruce's career. I'd urge you to give it another shot. I feel like a ton of American Slang comes from that album.

I've been conflicted about Get Hurt from the first time I heard it, and I still am. I think it's fascinating mess of a record, and I love talking about it/writing it, but I don't always love listening to it. I think part of the problem with it for me at this point is that it has to bear the burden of being their swansong/the album that essentially killed the band. If Get Hurt gets followed up two years later with another Gaslight album, I think I'd respect it more as the oddity that it is. As is, my stance is more "Well, what would have happened if they'd taken the break they clearly needed at this point in their career rather than making this album?" I'd give that record away if it meant we got another chapter of Gaslight.

Then again, Born in the USA/Tunnel of Love were probably that for a lot of Bruce fans for a long time. Similar situation.

 

Whenever I listen to Sink or Swim as soon as it gets done I swear its my fucking favorite.

I do that with a lot of his albums actually.

 

I recognize that I’m in the minority on Sink or Swim. I like the songs, hate the recordings. I basically never listen to it because it sounds so bad to me.

 

Yes, it would be much better with good production, no doubt

 

Dylan comes close. Freewheelin -> Nashville Skyline is a hell of a run, and he did it in 6 years instead of 14.

 

I’m nowhere near the Dylan fan that I am a Bruce fan, but this is a killer run.

 

I was thinking about desert island discographies today and the reason I'd go with Dylan over Springsteen is there's more to think about in the long haul. He's wise and opaque at the same time, and his lyrics are like fragmented sparks that can only burn for a moment before you're drawn to the next.