“By The End Of Darkness, I’d Found My Adult Voice.”
When Bruce Springsteen released Darkness On The Edge Of Town in June 1978, his first release since 1975’s Born To Run, received his first recognition after his fighting a lawsuit with his former manager Mike Appel.
The album peaked at the No. 5 on the Billboard albums chart, making it one of Bruce’s best albums.
“Along with the class-conscious pop of The Animals, early 60s beat groups and the punks, I began to listen seriously to country music and I discovered Hank Williams,” Bruce claimed in his autobiography. “An inspiration that lent a certain gravitas and world-weariness to his songwriting and musicianship that can be clearly heard on the country-indebted parable of working life on ‘Factory’ and emotionally downtrodden ‘The Promised Land’ with its sapped scream of “blow away the dreams that break your heart.”
Bruce Springsteen surely showcased his songwriting craftsmanship with this meticulous record and certainly captured people’s hearts with vibrancy and eloquence.
For four decades, Darkness On The Edge Of Town remains an essential listen, and describes Springsteen’s artistic stories and the tales he wants to share with the world with refined musical maturity and themes about power, love, and life. An album of The Boss’s blood, sweat, tears, and heart. This album deserves more than attention — a masterpiece where Bruce Springsteen was “born again.”
He said it himself, “by the end of darkness, I’d found my adult voice.”
Listen to the full album below: