Bruce Springsteen: "Youngstown" and "The River"

Music on Sunday @ The Reaction

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm all about Bruce Springsteen these days. I posted my revised Top 10 last week, along with a clip of what I think is his best song, "The Ghost of Tom Joad," live with Tom Morello.

Well, let's head back to the well this Sunday evening, the day before Labor Day, with two more of his best -- "Youngstown" (with The E Street Band, Hyde Park, London, 2009) and "The River" (from way back when).

"Youngstown" is from Tom Joad, maybe his best album. It includes these unforgettable lines:

Well my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite, coke and limestone
Fed my children and made my pay
Then smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

Brilliant. (A brilliant vision of hell.)