A quick cache and dash on the edge of Fareham Town in honour of my favourite album by my favourite musician - Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. There is plenty of parking in The Causeway. Please take care walking over the railway bridge as there is a short section without a pavement.
After the success of his third album Born To Run (1975) Springsteen hit the big time. And then his troubles began. He examined the contract he’d signed with manger Mike Appel three years earlier as a naive 22 year old and didn’t like what he saw. He filed a legal suit against Appel on 27 June 1976. Appel countersued 2 days later. The lawyers finally brokered an out of court settlement between the pair on 28 May 1977 and Springsteen was finally able to get back into the recording studio. He’d written over 70 songs during the hiatus and he and The E Street Band recorded 52 of them. Only 10 made the final cut and Darkness on the Edge of Town was released on 2 June 1978. Some of the “rejects” made it onto Tracks (1998) and The Promise (2010.) The rest are still in the vaults. I live in the hope that they will eventually see the light of day
Despite the title, the album isn’t about despair. Quite the opposite, it’s about hope and rising above adversity. Springsteen said “I wanted my characters to feel weathered, older but not beaten.” And “By the end of Darkness I’d found my adult voice.”
I was lucky enough to hear the whole album played live and in sequence on 15 June 2013 at Wembley Stadium on the second leg of The Wrecking Ball tour. To quote a line from track 9, Prove It All Night - “If dreams came true oh wouldn’t that be nice?” Yes Bruce, very nice indeed!