The worst-to-first Springsteen countdown continues with songs 190-181.

Song 190: “Souls of the Departed”
Album: Lucky Town

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I once read a quote somewhere attributed to Randy Newman concerning his song “Sail Away,” which is essentially an ironic recruiting pitch by a slave trader. I don’t remember exactly the quote, but the gist of it was that Newman said he couldn’t very well attack the topic by simply stating slavery was bad. He had to find a way to present the situation in a different way that might actually reveal something about the situation people didn’t already know.

I mention this because in “Souls Of The Departed,” found on 1992’s Lucky Town, it feels like Bruce Springsteen is telling what we already know: war and violence are bad. Inspired by the dual early-90’s downers of the first Gulf War and the L.A .riots, the song tries to personalize the situation by depicting the stories of individuals caught in the big picture. But it all comes off as a little too obvious.

Bruce has written far more subtle indictments of the toll taken by war on human lives, and by mashing up the war part with the story of a little boy caught in the middle of a gang war, it just seems like he’s loading the deck. Nobody is arguing that these situations are tragedies that speak poorly on the human race as a whole, but we don’t learn anything new from the song.

The outrage is admirable and necessary in a society in which too many people, like the men living comfortably in Bruce’s narrative, look the other way when confronted with these realities. But by hammering this home with blunt tools, the impact of “Souls Of The Departed” is minimal.

Song 189: “Human Touch”
Album: Human Touch

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Expectations were high when Bruce returned from a five-year recording hiatus in 1992. In the middle of an era dominated by grunge and gangster rap, surely Bruce would clear the air with a state-of-the-world missive that would set everything straight again.

Maybe those expectations still linger when I listen to “Human Touch,” the song with which he made that return. I don’t think so, though. I think the song would have come up short no matter when it was released.

At 6 -½ minutes long, when it probably could have been a punchy 3, it just never achieves the liftoff to which it’s aspiring. There are individual lines that hit home here and there, and Bruce’s harmonizing with his wife, Patti, on lines that were clearly inspired by their romance is still lovely to hear. Still, “Human Touch” seems like a letdown.

The clanking percussion effects were always troublesome, giving the song a harsh feel at odds with the lyrics. And the long instrumental finish wants to achieve some kind of catharsis but gets tedious fast.

Bruce wrote in the liner notes to his "Greatest Hits" collection that this song was about “searching for the bottom line.” If the bottom line is a revelation as standard as the only-love-matters theme of “Human Touch,” a theme in which I believe, but one that isn’t exactly fresh, then you wonder where Bruce was searching all those years.

Song 188: “Roll of the Dice”
Album: Human Touch

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Geez, how could you ever tell Roy Bittan had a hand in writing this song? Could it be the fast and furious piano chords that come blazing at you from the get-go? It’s actually quite reminiscent of some of the session work that The Professor did with Bob Seger around that time, as well as having more than a passing resemblance to countless E Street classics.

Of course, “Roll of The Dice” is found on Human Touch, and sounds more like classic Bruce than any other song on the record. It’s almost like Bruce reluctantly gave in to those who never wanted to see him venture from the plink-happy sounds of his mid-to-late 70’s triumphs.

But this song comes darn close to self-parody with the heavy-handed piano and Bruce’s screeched vocals, which are seconded by R&B singer Bobby King playing the Little Steven role to marginal effect. The standard love-is-a-gamble lyrics veer into cliché way too often (or at least a too-close-for-comfort association with The Stones’ “Tumbling Dice”).

While the bright colors were a nice change of pace from the murky sound prevalent on Human Touch, the song tries to force its momentum on the listener. The echoes of past standouts that “Roll of The Dice” conjures may have been intentional, but they are all too faint.

Song 187: “Something in the Night”
Album: Darkness on the Edge of Town

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One of the few missteps on the nearly impeccable Darkness On The Edge Of Town, “Something In The Night” finds Bruce’s mistrust of the forces around him edging closer and closer to paranoia. Whatever’s chasing Bruce in the song sure sounds ominous, but you get the feeling it all might be in his head.

The exaggerated drawling vocals and staggering pace are a tough sell. The intent is to create a heightened intensity through these tactics, but they’re a little too transparent. In addition, the crawling tempo only throws sharper focus on the lyrics, which are too abstract about the singer’s malaise and lack the sharp details that distinguish the best of Springsteen’s writing during this period.

I will say that Max Weinberg is up to the task of the slower pace and more touch-oriented drumming style asked of him here, proving that he’s far more than a walloper. The final verse, in which he alone accompanies Bruce with a thump-thump-thap heartbeat that threatens to stop at any time, is the highlight of the song.

The moment is brief, however, and it’s not enough for me to glowingly recommend the entirety of “Something In The Night”.

Song 186: “Mary Queen of Arkansas”
Album: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

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The suits at Columbia famously tried to cast Bruce Springsteen in the role of “The New Dylan,” a role he was ill-suited and reluctant to play. Had he chosen to go down that dead-end path, we might have ended up with many more songs in the vein of this one off his 1973 debut. Or maybe not that many more, because Bruce’s career could never have survived that strain.

It might have been those comparisons that made Bruce feel compelled to include “Mary Queen Of Arkansas” on Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. The hyper-earnestness of the song overwhelms the undeniably impressive wordplay on display. And the overdone strumming is typical of some of the excesses of the singer-songwriter genre that was blooming at the time.

It’s too bad, because had Bruce just stuck with the nice melody and his interestingly opaque story, he might have been on to something much more affecting. The love affair between the singer and the titular character seems to hinge on issues of power. She seems to have all of it in terms of social standing, but he still has her ear, probably due to their physical relationship. These are mature themes that went far beyond your typical navel-gazing that dominated the genre.

But listening to the song and all its forced drama is a bit exhausting. After a while, following these two characters becomes a chore. Bruce leaves the song in limbo, his narrator hoping that Mary will join him in escape, whether that escape is actual or spiritual. We all know she ended up on the porch of “Thunder Road,” a song that plays with similar themes. The difference: By then, Bruce was no longer “The New Dylan.” He had become the only Bruce Springsteen.

Song 185: “Further On (Up the Road)”
Album: The Rising

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Springsteen’s vague tale of a man drifting through an indefinable, existential malaise doesn’t bring anything new to this mini-genre, one Bob Dylan has mined prolifically for a very long time. Dylan always knows how to throw in a few revealingly weird details to ground his songs of this nature, whereas this track never feels believably lived-in.

“Further On (Up The Road)” has an ironic hopefulness to it, with Bruce promising a future meeting with the person he’s addressing. From the sound of the ominous croak he chooses as his singing voice, it’s not really clear that the meeting is going to be all puppies and balloons.

Bruce could have taken this in a bluesier direction for a little bit more impact, instead of the pretty bland blaring rock arrangement that doesn’t allow any air to enter. The few brief flashes of color, provided by Little Steven in the form of harmony vocals and mandolin, are buried way too deep in the mix.

The Rising, standing at 15 songs, saw Bruce falling victim to the bloat that has hampered so many CD releases. Just because technology allows you to fit more songs onto a record, it doesn’t mean that you have a mandate to do so. A little more editing would have benefited the album, and “Further On (Up The Road)” seems like it should have been a prime candidate for the chopping block.

Song 184: “Streets of Fire”
Album: Darkness on the Edge of Town

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There are elements of this song that are undeniably great, starting with Springsteen’s majestic vocal performance. The man hits registers here that, frankly, suggest that he was being disemboweled while recording his lead vocal, so that should count for something, right?

And the moment when the guitars and drums come crashing in at the chorus following the stark intro in which Bruce is accompanied only by Danny Federici’s see-sawing organ chords, well, that’s a grabber too. The Boss also rips into a guitar solo that reaches to bust down the barriers that have hemmed in the song’s protagonist.

But the schizophrenic nature of the song, bouncing back and forth between the staggering verses and the blistering refrains, dampens any momentum it seeks to achieve. The catharsis that Bruce is seeking never quite arrives.

That leaves us with a song that reflects utter desolation about as unflinchingly as any in the man’s catalog. These streets are all dead ends, full of deception and danger. Bruce was channeling all of his frustration and turmoil, the themes that dominated the "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" album, into this 4-minute piece. The utter lack of hope and the stifling arrangement make these “Streets” a place that no one would be to anxious to visit.

Song 183: “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)”
Album: The River

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Look, I’ve got a 6-year-old, so I can relate, you know? Many is the time when I’ve been strolling through a department store at the mall only to catch something out of the corner of my eye, a shiny, undoubtedly expensive, object hurtling to the ground, at which point I’m forced to go into an Ozzie Smith, parallel-to-the-floor dive in order to make the save rather than enter into indentured servitude for the rest of my existence. I get it.

That said, I’m not sure if I’ve ever thought this situation worthy of song material. That’s one of the great things about Bruce, I guess, that he can take a mundane act of clumsiness and turn it into catchy rock and roll. But this number from The River is so lightweight it borders on a novelty song.

There is a subtle lesson about temptation buried within Bruce’s three slice-of-life vignettes in the verses, which rush by in a breathless flash. The music is heavily indebted to Chuck Berry, and the song fits with the everything-goes ethos of The River. But if there is one song of Bruce’s that Ray Stevens could cover, this might be it. You can decide for yourself whether that’s a compliment or not.

Song 182: "The New Timer"
Album: The Ghost Of Tom Joad

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Clocking in at almost six minutes, “The New Timer” is a bit of a slog. Bruce travels the rails like a latter-day Woody Guthrie, a novice at such an itinerant life until he’s taken in by a veteran who shows him the ropes.

Had the song stuck with just this relationship, it might have found a stronger footing. There are some interesting dichotomies to be explored. The older man, named Frank, serves as a much-needed father figure to the young man that Bruce depicts, even while that younger man has proven derelict in his own fatherly duties, having left behind his own son to a life that he can only now dimly envision in the campfire light.

The song rolls along amiably and without much oomph for another several verses after Frank is senselessly killed, if only to fulfill the cycle of violence. The younger man waits in the dark with a machete at the end of the song, praying for a chance at revenge.

The Ghost Of Tom Joad was never meant to be a pick-me-up record by any means, but this song borders on a hopelessness that has no bottom. You might want to have song #183 cued up to play at the conclusion of this one as a tonic for all the despair on display.

Song 181: “All I'm Thinkin' About”
Album: Devils & Dust

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Who is that singing on this Devils & Dust track, Bruce Springsteen or Smokey Robinson? On an album where tentative experimentation seemed to be the prevalent mood, it’s somehow fitting that the Boss tests out his shaky, yet endearing falsetto on this one.

When aided by some female backing vocals in the refrains (including wife Patti, of course), Springsteen manages a soulful croon. On the verses the unfamiliar style is exposed a bit, and it’s almost a relief when the next chorus rolls around again to get things back on more solid footing.

There’s nothing much else going on here. Lyrically, it’s just a series of run-of-the-mill observations sandwiched around the title refrain. Musically, it’s a gentle acoustic shuffle which bears a passing resemblance to “Two Faces” from Tunnel Of Love. So, at the very least, the falsetto gives this song a distinguishing characteristic, and a fun one at that.

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