Music for the moment
"Western Stars" is full of regrets, love lost and lessons learned, wrapped up in sweet sad musical moments.
I’ve written about this before, but I fully subscribe to the theory that music comes to you when you need it.
There’s a lot of chasing the new these days – trying to find the latest and greatest, the hottest new thing. But I believe it doesn’t matter when you discover good music … sometimes it can be years after the event.
It happened again to me this past week.
I’m not a huge Bruce Springsteen, but after hearing the incomparable Linda Bull perform a spine-tingling and heartbreakingly beautiful version of “Born to Run” I went scurrying to Spotify. The originally is a little too bombastic and testosterone charged for me, but Linda’s version was transcendent (is there anything that woman can’t sing?).
Springsteen inspires such devotion, it’s hard to explain why his music doesn’t connect with me. After I quietly admitted I wasn’t a big fan of The Boss, a friend recommended I check out “Western Stars”.
With Linda’s performance seared into my brain (Bruce does quite a tasty acoustic version himself), I decided to check out “Western Stars”.
Released in 2019, it is now firmly on my late-to-the-party, undiscovered gems list. It’s full of stories of regrets, love lost and lessons learned, wrapped up in gentle yearning and sweet sad musical moments.
Some of it sounds so cinematic I had to check it wasn’t actually a film soundtrack. Tales of hitchhiking, train trips and small town cafes hark back to a time when life moved slower and seemed simpler.
Bruce himself said the album was influenced by the Southern California pop music of the 70s, including Glen Campbell and Burt Bacharach.
Who knows the reason it found its way to me now.
Perhaps I was looking for a way to contemplate the loss of another friend and seeing a past life framed in a rear-view mirror, receding into the distance.
“Drive fast, fall hard, I’ll keep you in my heart,” Bruce sings on Drive Fast (The Stuntman). “Don’t worry about tomorrow, don’t mind the scars. Just drive fast, fall hard.”
We’ve all got scars, it’s how we carry them that makes the difference.
