A Night with the Jersey Devil was a surprise Halloween gift from Bruce Springsteen. On October 31, 2008, this brand-new song accompanied by a video popped up on his website, accompanied by a handwritten letter that said:
Dear Friends and Fans,
if you grew up in central or south Jersey, you grew up with the "Jersey Devil."
Here's a little musical Halloween treat. Have fun!
- Bruce Springsteen
The song has a repetitive gritty bluesy riff, with a lot of harmonica. Springsteen sings the whole song through a bullet mic, a trend which seemed to start in 2005 on the Devils and Dust tour with the sickest, most twisted version of Reason to Believe you'll ever hear. (I'm a big fan of the D&D version of RTB, by the way.) He sounds like he's screaming up from hell when he uses the bullet mic. At the time this song surfaced, we already knew he had an album coming up in early 2009. We assumed Jersey Devil would be on it (it wasn't), and I for one assumed - and was afraid - that the whole album would be in this style. It's cool when used sparingly, but I don't want to hear a whole show/album like that.
The song is a nice listen once in a while (so much so that I tacked it on to the end of the CD I made for myself when the WORKING ON A DREAM album leaked), and the video is appropriately unsettling, but I'm glad Bruce doesn't cram this genre down our throats. Apparently the Jersey Devil is a long-time local ghost story. Wikipedia sheds some light on the subject here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment