U Talkin’ U2 To Me? - U Springin' Springsteen On My Bean? - Letter to You

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

In the season finale of U Springin' Springsteen On My Bean, Adam Scott Aukerman go through Springo's twentieth studio album, Letter to You—an album about death and aging that was partially inspired by the passing of Bruce's former bandmate George Theiss. The Scotts also rehash their list of demands for Da Boss and finally reveal their complete rankings of every album covered in this series.

🎵 From born in the USA to death to my hometown, this is you springing Springsteen on my bean. The comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of all things Bruce. This is good rock and roll. Music. When you clear your throat and be honest. And how many times do I do it?

An hour? Can I finish my question? Oh, sure. I'm so sorry. Thanks. I'm going to start over. Okay. When you clear your throat and be honest, do you go, or do you go, can I ask follow-up questions or yes.

What is the purpose of me clearing my throat? Is it to relieve myself of mucus or is it to get someone's attention? Well, I think that when you clear your throat, uh, it can only be to relieve yourself of mucus. Otherwise, you're not clearing your throat. You are just getting someone's attention, right?

By clearing my throat. By clearing your throat. That is a means of getting someone's attention. Yeah, but it's not a sincere clear. It's more of a... Is this an episode of Sincere Clear? Absolutely. How can there be any sin in Sincere?

Where is the good in goodbye in goodbye? Hey, everyone. Welcome to Sincere Clear. This is Scott. And this is Scott. And we're talking about clearing our throats. And whether or not. Whether using that to get someone's attention is a sincere clear. I personally, sincere clear or insincere clear, I don't think that matters. I think it still counts as clearing one's throat because otherwise you would call it something different.

You don't think it matters whether it's a sincere clear or not. one's throat what why would it not have a different name if it didn't if if in order to get someone's attention like you can get someone's attention in a lot of different ways you can say you can say hello boys you can wave your arms you can be like hey hey, sailor. You can say, hey, come here, come here, come here, come here, come here. Or you can go. But those are very direct means of getting someone's attention. A ahem as a way of getting people's attention isn't as direct. It's a dishonest way of getting attention. Dishonest or not dishonest. You just said it was clearing your throat.

You couldn't call it a different name. So that means it is clearing your throat. Well, in a sense, it is clear. If I move my legs in a circular motion, I can say that means I'm riding a unicycle right now. No. But I'm not actually riding. No, but you are pedaling your legs sure and you you pedal your legs when you're on a unicycle obviously we all do every day everybody as a

means of getting around town pedals a unicycle of course did you ever try to learn how to ride a unicycle i think i did i did super hard although i got the the hang of it after a while. No. Really? Because you like put your, you put your legs on the outside of the spokes on like the nuts of the unicycle. You put your legs on the nuts of the unicycle. Like on the nuts that are holding the wheel into the spokes. You put your legs on the outside of those in order to boost yourself up. Okay.

And then you hop onto the seat from there. Don't they have little steps, not steps, but little foot grabs there rather than just stepping on the nuts? At least the one that I had. Let me look up a picture of unicycle. What should I enter in order to optimize my time? Do you step?

Why? Just unicycle plus picture. Step on nuts. See what you get when you Google step on nuts. Step on nuts. Okay. Well, okay, now this is a very tall unicycle

and this one does have two steps or at least one step. No, I think it has two, but one must step on the nuts first in order to get up to that first step. But I would imagine

they've augmented that, that, no, check it out. Small. This is a stock photo. Look, there's 1,787 unicycle stock photos, free and royalty-free stock photos.

Oh, we don't have to pay for these? We got to do something with these. Let's go for it. What should we do? Should we start a blog? Let's start a blog and then make a movie based on the blog. Yes. It's all unicyicycles that's right and unicycle uh culture enthusiasts it's kind of like uh the dogs of z town or lords of z town where were they lords or dogs uh dogs i think this is an episode of what were they lords

or dogs yep I think this is an episode of What Were They, Lords or Dogs? Yep. Hey everyone, welcome to What Were They, Lords or Dogs? This is Scott. And this is Scott. And there's a lot of situations one might be in where one would wonder, what is this, a lord or a dog yeah particularly um when you're in the uk and you are a dog and you're trying to address other dogs yeah and then suddenly a lord walks by right you're like and here's part of the problem what is dog spelled backwards whoa here's where the confusion lies. G-O-D, guys. G slash D. Well, you know, I have a dog. I have two dogs.

Does that mean I have two gods? Who knows? Two lords. Two lords, yeah. Maybe they're... What were they, though? Lords of Z-Town? This is fun.

Dogs of Z-Town. Dog Town and Z-Boys. That's what it was. Right, but then there was a different movie that was- Really? Either the documentary it was based on or the narrative that- Oh, there was a narrative based on the- There was a narrative and a documentary.

Yeah, I don't know. Should I look it up? Am I allowed to look it up? I don't think we need to. By the way, I got to know. Did we ever find out it lance henriksen species i still don't okay we gotta go to that show idea hey everyone this is was lance Henriksen in Species. This is Scott.

And this is Scott. So we still don't know if Lance Henriksen was in Species. I don't think we know this yet. Weird. Okay, is there any way of finding out? Yeah, but we're not allowed to look it up. Right. We're not allowed to watch the movie.

We're not allowed to look it up. Yeah. We're not allowed to ask Scottott glenn who we don't even know if he's in species wait this is the other show yeah hey everyone welcome to with scott glenn and species this is scott and this is scott now i would love to ask scott if Lance Henriksen was in Species. Me too. But we're not allowed to ask Scott Glenn if he's in Species.

Because that would be the source where you know you would get a straight answer. And look, do I wish there was some sort of Scott Glenn website, scottglenn.com? Yeah. Actually, let me look up scottglenn.com. So we tried talking. we talked to Kyle. 404 Not Found. Can you imagine being Scott Glenn and not purchasing ScottGlenn.com? Was Lance Henriksen in 404 Not Found?

Oh, this is another show entirely. Oh my God. hey everyone welcome to was lance henriksen in 404 not found this is scott and this is scott and we're trying to figure out look what do we even know lance Henriksen from? He was in Aliens. Sure. He was in Alien. I think he was in Time Cop. I think he had that show that Chris Carter, Millennium. That's right.

He was in a bunch of badass stuff. He was in Species, right? I don't know. Oh, shit. Stop it. We got to go. Bye. Bye.

Anyway, Scott Glenn. Not allowed. Would love to talk to him about this. Scott, if you're listening and we know you are. Reach out. We would say reach out, but we're not allowed to talk to him about this scott if you're listening and we know you are reach out we would say reach out but we're not allowed to talk to you not allowed to talk to you but but a one-sided conversation sure you could if you can pass this information to us somehow uh subliminally or or otherwise i would love to know were you in species and then he could just write it in a in a letter and send it sure because we're there's no rule that says we can't read a letter by Scotland.

No, we just can't talk to him. That's right. Written communication is on the table. It's fine. Write to us. Let us know if you were in species. And then if you were, or even I guess if you were not, let us know. Well, that's our other show.

Bye. the show bye anyway so scott we need scott glenn to reach out to us about this issue yes was lance henriksen species we don't know okay so we'll just wait for scott glenn to reach out and then we'll be able to solve this problem and end this podcast okay and we'll and we'll talk about it on the next episode after he does absolutely okay bye bye and anyway i forget what show this was this was dogs or lords oh dogs or lords yeah so uh, am I, I'm not allowed to look it up. Fuck. It's bugging me though. It was Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Dogtown and Z-Boys. But then there was another, I think it was the Lords of Dogtown. The narrative was Lords of Dogtown. I think you're right. One of them was Lords of Dogtown. Well, Dogtown and Z-Boys was the doc. So Lords of Dogtown must be. I saw them backwards, by the way.

I saw the narrative. Oh, really? And thought it was really good. I never saw that. And then Heath Ledger, um, others and, uh, was interested in the story, then found out it was a dock and went backwards to the dock. And so thus Lee, I thought both were good. Whereas if you saw the dock first, I bet you

would go like, why do they even need to? Yeah. That's why I never saw it is because I saw the dock and it was, it seemed like enough, but we can agree agree we think it's lords of dogtown i believe so okay bye bye huh good to hear from some old friends yeah went three deep three deep there. Like usual for you. That's right. When you have sex three times. Oh boy. Oh boy. Guys, welcome to You Spring and Springsteen on My Bean and a lot of activity on this episode. This is our season finale.'s right and a lot we have to cover um first off a little spring-o news um there is a new netflix documentary speaking of documentaries uh releasing in a couple weeks

on january 29th about how we are the world came together and Bruce and another guy are in the trailer for it. Bruce and another guy. Another guy we used to do a show about. Huey Lewis? That's right. Oh, cool. So wait, it's a whole doc on- A whole documentary on We Are the World.

Oh, that's fantastic. I hope they cover the sign above the door. What did the sign say? Leave your egos at the door. It did? Yeah. Got it. Quincy put that up there and was like, it's a famous sign.

I don't remember that at all. That's cool. Do you think they'll spend like, what, 45 minutes or an hour on Michael Jackson and the allegations? uh i would imagine that most of the footage that they're able to kind of round up was probably of and about michael jackson since he was the biggest star in the world at the time and the and he was kind of the lead character and the yeah i remember him being by far the reason everyone was interested yes exactly i just saw the the mj the musical by the way uh-huh how is that i mean it's weird yeah although they do they do reference it they do not they do it's strange it's strange that they got the rights to do this from the michael jackson how do they reference it they they obliquely reference it but i don't know

anyway it's it's a weird it's a it's a strange thing i would imagine it's quite strange. Whether it's mentioned or not, it is a strange thing to be. He is portrayed as a troubled character, but not as troubled as. As he was? As he was, yes. Hard to do. Anyway, back to Bruce. I'll watch the thing just to see Bruce walk in the door and go, Hey, everybody.

Yeah, it's ripped jean vest. Did he have that in the We Are have that in what line did he sing do you remember i don't remember it was right in the smack dab in the middle of born in the usa era so he was bandana and yeah he was full just jean jacket he'd started working out um i forget what uh what lyric he wrote we are the world lyric i'm gonna look i don't remember that at all he sang okay here's what he sang uh steve perry daryl hall cindy lopper kim karns it's quite a group i mean it's pretty amazing d Dylan Ray Charles, uh, Stevie wonder. I said,

okay, Bruce Springsteen, we are the world. He sang the chorus. There's a choice we're making. Yeah. We're saving our own lives. I think he's saying that there's a choice we're making.

That sounds right. That sounds great. We're saving our own lives. Yeah. That sounds really good. I'm going to watch the shit out of that. Anyway, so. When does that come out?

As previously discussed, January 29th. When did we discuss this? When I introduced the entire topic. Oh, I see. I mentioned it was coming out in a couple of weeks, and then I got, I drilled down, was very specific. And it's January 29th. I certainly did. Wow.

Did you watch the Wham documentary? Mm-hmm. Of course we did. Who are you talking to? We. I certainly did. Wow. Did you watch the Wham documentary? Mm-hmm. Of course we did. Who are you talking to? We're musicologists here. Yeah. I thought it was great. Yeah.

It was really fun. Yeah. I believe we've mentioned this on the show before. I think we must have. Anyway, that's a little spring-o news. But more than that, Adam, here's our season finale. A little bit later, we're going to be talking about the album Letter to You, and we're going to go through our ranking of all of Springo's albums,

barring his most recent because we haven't covered that one. But more than that, I think the season finale is a good opportunity to go over our list of demands. Oh, okay. Because we started this show not asking, because I guess demanding an interview with Bruce Springsteen. Right. We've interviewed everyone that we've covered.

We've interviewed, other than, I guess, Stained. But we've interviewed the gentleman, the lovely lads from Liverpool themselves. Hugh, too. Hugh, too. We also interviewed three quarters of the band Harriam. Harriam. And spoke to the other quarter backstage at a show. That's right.

That was so fun. That was great. We spoke to Huey Lewis. Huey Lewis. Huey Lewis. And, of course, we not only met Jerry Harrison's son, but we met Jerry Harrison, which I know this is an episode of I Met Jerry Harrison. Yeah. Everyone, welcome to I Met Jerry Harrison.

This is Scott. And this is Scott. And we just wanted to reiterate, we met Jerry Harrison. Yeah. Twice. Well, I met him twice. You met him twice. Oh, you went to that party. Yeah,. Yeah, twice. Well, I met him twice. You met him. You met him twice.

Oh, you went to that party. Yeah, I went to the party afterwards. I met him once. Not in person. Okay, bye. Bye. So, obviously, we're here kind of saying like, hey, Bruce, where are you? And we started the show and knew he was listening

yeah bro what the fuck so i just kind of wanted to reiterate our demands that we've made over the over the episodes and our our producer scott sonny has uh made a list of them and uh do you want me to go through them here yeah what's going on something very weird is happening. What's that? Did you grow a pube finally? Yeah. Oh my God. This is ridiculous. I'm not going to explain it right now because it is so boring, but it has been fucking with me.

Adam, by the way, is on his computer. He's trying to rank his albums because he didn't do his homework beforehand and um it has been completely you're fucking with me pages or something like that i'm using notes which i write use all the time you know the yeah sure it's an iphone app jot down notes so i'm i wrote oh my god i all, put all the names of the albums just in a list form in notes. Yeah. And then started ranking them, like put a one next to one and then went up the list, put a two down the list, put a three. It then, anytime you put a number next to one, then it-

It starts ordering them. Ordering, yeah, yeah. So I keep being like, oh shit, I didn't mean to do that. And go back and correct it. And it keeps, so I just figured out what it's been doing. So I told you it was a really boring thing that was happening to me. Yeah. So I'm going to stop doing it.

I guess I didn't trust your instincts and I should have. Because usually you think it's super exciting. It ends up being like incredibly interesting. Well, I, we're going to get to that at the end of the episode, but right now we're going to talk about our demands for Bruce. Okay. Okay.

All right. So if you'll recall, we started at a three hour one on one on one uninterrupted interview. Yeah. Um, we two on one, two on one. Yeah,

that's right. Two on one one i guess we could take turns if we wanted yeah we'll take turns if he's more comfortable with the one-on-one we'll take turns it's entirely up to him sure two-on-one one-on-one we don't care no um but we started with a three hour we then we then extended it to three hours and one minute oh yeah and i'm thinking we gotta up the ante here again okay three hours and 90 seconds okay what do you need that extra 30 seconds for i i'm worried that i'm gonna trip when i walk in the door oh yeah and that's gonna waste 30 seconds of me going at least i mean it could be more depending on uh the injuries sure do you want to just stretch it out to two minutes just in case

90 seconds is good all right so three hours and 90 seconds and by the way it's got to be all chit chat no music talk um if bruce ever starts talking about music the clock starts over that's right but even if it's a part of chit chat and not relating directly to his career or his songwriting even if he mentions like a classical piece he heard when he was seven years old yeah anything involving music so if he's just chit chatting about like hey did you see may december yeah that has music in it oh okay yeah so the clock starts over makes sense yeah um a one-on-one or two-on-one is preferred but if if he wants to bring little steven that's fine oh okay so two on two yeah two on two up to him um we need him to bring a couple of t-shirts a piece, either vintage or new. Yeah.

If he has a warehouse of shirts in New Jersey, then just send all the shirts in the warehouse to us. Okay. And we'll sort through them ourselves. And we'll pick out two each and then you can send them all back. Yeah, COD. Yes, they're on their dime. On his dime, yeah. Or if Bruce wants to pay for plane tickets to New Jersey, we will come and just pick them out on our own. We need two Chalky Malts a piece.

That's chocolate malts. Yeah, I love those. Yep. And anytime he talks about music, the clock starts over. He must provide another Chalky Malt. Okay. So those first Chalky Malts uh is he walking in with them i think he's got to keep one in the freezer because one will melt when we're drinking the

first one are we sharing this first one no no they're two a piece oh unless well we could share he's got to bring four total if you want to share lady in the tramp style both of them all four he's going to need one of those cardboard trays like uh that you can put four drinks in containers so we might want to throw that on there he'll need to drop two off to us one a piece and then go to a freezer so obviously this one-on-one interview or two-on-one or two-on-two has got to take place somewhere where there's a freezer yeah so he's got to factor that in yeah when he picks the location maybe a food storing warehouse sure or a meat packing plant yep that's probably best that's fine yeah because it'll be a cool

atmosphere and it'll smell good um bruce has to write a song about us okay i think that's just a given yeah that makes sense i think i think when you're a musician and Rolling Stone calls you up or whatever, it's just customary, write a song about the interviewer. Yeah. I mean, at least on planet Earth, that's what happens every time. That's right.

I mean, we haven't colonized Mars yet. Right. Maybe up there they do things different. Hello, Elon. We need free tickets to one of his shows. No, well, let me be more specific. We need free tickets to half of the first half of one concert and then half of the second half of another concert.

Okay. Some of these demands are new to me because I've forgotten about them. Right, right. Well, let me remind you, Bruce must play the second half of the second half of the concert first. Yeah. He can play the middle part of the concert whenever he wants, since during the middle part, we're going to be watching Monsters, Inc. in the parking lot. Okay. So whatever he wants to do, we don't care.

Okay. okay so whatever he wants to do we don't care okay um he must play the first half of the first concert last and it must be timed to the exact second so if he's in the middle of a song uh just pertaining to our interview yes this must happen he wants this interview to happen he's got to provide this he needs to do this okay um we need seven 12 packs of topo chico delivered by himself yeah um and this is not... He can't deliver them at the interview. This is like he's got to deliver them. Separate, yeah.

He's going to need a hand cart. Yeah. Okay, a push cart. Push cart. And he can leave it here. A dolly. A dolly, yeah. He can leave it here with us if he wants.

We get to keep the dolly. We keep the dolly. Two autographed 8x10 glossy headshots with a substantive personal message on each. Okay. He's got to get personal. Yeah. He has to dig deep. And he has to, you know, really talk about us and our lives and our families.

He's got to do a little bit of research. He has to, yeah, jump on Wikipedia and really figure it out. We're going to need a full box of thumbtacks to hang the headshots. That's right. He needs to record a full album covering 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Fully counting down from 99

bottles to one bottle. And then our last demand, he's got to record an EP of songs that contain the word Ghostbusters. And this is all we need. That's it. This is it.

Just so we can put out another episode. How many songs are minimum for an EP, do you think? I think four. Okay, so four songs. That have the word Ghostbusters somewhere. That have the word Ghostbusters. Are there four songs, or is he going to have to write a new one? There's definitely the song Ghostbusters.

Yeah, Ghostbusters. Ray Parker Jr. Cleaning up the town. Those Ghostbusters came in. Oh, yeah, they say Ghostbusters. Sure. Bobby Brown's out here on our own. He says Ghostbusters. We're the Ghost here on our own. He says Ghostbusters.

We're the Ghostbusters and we're in control. Okay. I think the El King song, maybe she mentions the Ghostbusters. I'm not sure. El King. She did the Lady Ghostbusters theme. Okay. She is a great-

But isn't it a spin on the Ray Parker Jr. song? No, she made her, uh, her own song. Okay. What is it? And then was there one. Good Girls is the song. Let me look up the lyrics. And is there a new song in Ghostbusters Afterlife?

I don't know. I haven't seen it. I saw it. I don't remember though. I don't remember. If there's a new song in it. Here, let me go through the lyrics of Good Girls. I've been a dancing in there's a new song in it. Here, let me go through the lyrics of Good Girls. I've been a-dancin' in devil's dirt.

Okay. She's talking about eatin' pussy. I'm not sure. Jesus, Scott. I'm a whole lot of trouble in an itty-bitty skirt. I'm just scanning you for Ghostbusters. Well, the best kind of loving is the one that hurts. You can get your kiss.

I'll get my purse. No Ghostbusters there. I can take kind of loving is the one that hurts. You can get your kiss. I'll get my purse. No Ghostbusters there. I can take you down when the damned get wild. That's non-Ghostbusters related. Is any of it related to Ghostbusters at all? I'm just scanning. I'm going to go down all the way to the end. Nope, she never mentions Ghostbusters.

Okay. Seems like a missed opportunity. But that's like the theme to the kind of, I would imagine they used Ray Parker Jr. Maybe. In there somewhere, right? Maybe Bruce needs to write a new one? Yeah.

That's what this means. Wait, Planet Jedward did a song called Ghostbusters? Oh, these are all just covers of the, Kidz Bop did a song called Ghostbusters oh these are all just covers of the kids bop did a song called ghostbusters so i looked i looked up songs with the word ghostbusters for the paul feig one a bunch of people covered the original song is that what that is no no these are just like people covering it for fun oh god not for work got it for pleasure yeah just taking your own time kind of like us in this podcast yep i feel like uh there are only three so he's gonna have to write a new one yeah for sure

and while he's at it we'll do him a favor yeah we'll send it over to uh paul rudd himself star of those new ghostbusters movies and they can use it in the new one yeah for sure you know he didn't have a lot of luck with his harry potter song but uh we're willing to send the demo cod of course we we will yeah we're not paying for it we will make it happen guaranteed guaranteed we i mean both of us know paul yeah so we'll make it happen yeah if he's you know i know he's kind of bummed he didn't win that GG the other day for that new song that he has in that one movie that everyone's seen. But he's bummed about that. We'll make it happen next year. Yeah. For the real

GGs, the Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters. The GBs. That's right. So those are our demands Adam anything you want to add because we're here at our final episode before we take a little hiatus anything you want to add here no it covers it I think the demands

speak for themselves well Bruce we know you're listening speak for themselves. Well, Bruce, we know you're listening. We want it to happen. We know you're coming back out on these shows. We love you, your music, and would appreciate strict adherence to these demands. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Thank you in advance. Enough said. Thank you in advance. So next time we do an episode, it'll probably be the interview. Yeah. We don't know when that'll be. Safe to say. He'll probably reach out to us now that we've reiterated

just how strict we are. Within a week. Yeah, within a week. So just check back every hour probably to your podcast app, wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll probably have an interview up sometime within the next week. Every hour, but within that hour,

every 90 seconds. Yeah. Good point. All right. Well, I think that does it for this first segment. We've talked about a lot of Bruce stuff

and we've covered a lot of ground here. Are we announcing ends of segments now, like they're ends of episodes? Yeah, why not? Okay. It's a new style for podcasting in 2024 innovations abound all right we're going to take a break when we come back we will be talking about letter to you on you spring and springsteen on my bean we'll be right

back Welcome back. You springing Springsteen on my bean. To be honest, I'm a little surprised Springo hasn't reached out. Yeah, it's been 90 seconds. Yeah, during the break, it's a little surprised Springo hasn't reached out. Yeah, it's been 90 seconds. Yeah, during the break, it's a little strange. He will. Yeah.

He definitely will. Yeah. Yeah, obviously. I'm not at all concerned or nervous. I would imagine when he was at the Gigi's a couple weeks back, everyone at the Gigi's was probably coming up to him and going like, Hey, when are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing hey when are you doing what are you doing what are you doing here but you obviously while you're in town you must be

hitting up the scots because he knows here's the thing is he knows we're here right yeah like when he landed in los angeles he was like all right they're close yeah there's two signs one with a big bruce springsteen sign for his car and then another sign that says like what are you doing man what are you doing man you go into the hilton or the beverly the bev hill the beverly hilton yeah or are you heading to scott's place the other hills yeah the hollywood hills the real hills that's right um i listened to that song that he was nominated for it's pretty cool cool yeah it's with um uh previous comedy bang bang guest aaron dessner on both the tv show he on bang bang he was on the tv show and the uh podcast yes is amazing yes both both he and

jack antonoff were both on the tv show and the podcast itself and then went on to acclaim writing for taylor swift so love those albums would love to get t swift uh on bang bang as well um i have no demands at this point but uh the longer this goes on the longer that list is going to be of demands of demand okay that's fine you know i think uh even if the when the podcast ends after this episode uh the demands never end no is that what you're saying the demands never end i i i do want to say tay, now that I think about it, same demands as Springo. Oh, wait. Taylor Swift is now, we're making demands?

No, on Comedy Bang Bang. Oh, I see. I know you're making your list, but I'm going to need you not to be five minutes behind. Okay. No, wait. Sorry about that. Wait, you've been asking taylor swift to come on never mind we're moving on okay all right uh we're here this week uh this is our season finale and

we're talking about um a very specific album yep in bruce's discography we're talking about letter to you now you'll you'll know all the ins and outs of it but was this a bit of a surprise when it dropped yeah i well when he when he came out with western stars that was in uh 2019 it was in 2019 but it was in June. He mentioned he wasn't going to tour with it and that he was focusing on Edible Street band material and that he was hoping to tour with them. Plus a tour of Western Stars would have been

very cost prohibitive. Although maybe he plays the Sphere with it one of these days. I think that would be a hot ticket yeah springo playing a full western stars his show though is not uh technology uh dependent no like they just have a screen not even a very big screen no and they're just like focusing on band members playing occasionally occasionally they'll like a picture of Clarence will come up and they'll all point to it. Yeah.

I was surprised though at the size of the screen last time I saw them. It's a 12 inch. Yeah. It was just an iPhone on its side. At least it was landscape mode. Yeah. You got to give it to them for that because a lot of people don't although now now people are not doing landscape stuff they're doing it uh yeah it doesn't seem like vertically now yeah what's going on man i don't know man um anyway but yeah so i i

i don't know that this was a surprise but uh do you want to do some stats of when it came out please okay released if you had to guess a date that it was released. December of 2020, right? At some point. Or November? I'm going to need you to be more specific. Let's say December... 25? 11th.

December 11th, 2020? Yeah. Close. What is it? October 23rd, 2020. That's really close i'm within breathing distance sure you're yeah it came out in october it did rocktober it did you remember what i have very specific memories about this record me too um tell me yours i remember it coming out and in december uh in in December because I was listening to it when I was, Oh no,

it was around Thanksgiving that I was listening to it. So it would have been, uh, cause you were carving the old Turk. Yeah. Um, yeah, I remember it coming out.

I'm going to take a, I'm going to take our big knife to this. Put on letter to you. Yeah. Um, yeah, I remember it coming out. I remember really liking it,

particularly loving the song ghosts right away. Um, but yeah, yeah, I remember it coming out. I remember really liking it, particularly loving the song ghosts right away. Um, but yeah, anyway. But what is your memory? Why do you know it was around? I was, because I was, I was up at friend's house and like upstate cause I was shooting season one of, uh, of, uh, of severance and it was right around. You can barely remember the name of your show. I know.

How am I supposed to? Well, it's been a while. I keep thinking it's Succession. Yeah. That might be why I get mixed up every time I say the word. And listening to it then. And it was nice. What are your memories?

Well, this is prime COVID times. Yeah. Election times, too. Election times. My memories are, this was, okay, so this was a,

this is a rough year, obviously, for a lot of people. For us in particular, it was pretty rough because we were in the middle of egg retrieval, IVF,

which I was thinking about this the other day, Adam. Do you remember, we've thinking about this the other day, Adam, do you remember we've been doing the show for now 10 years and I feel like that's how long we were doing IVF because there was a particular episode. I don't know. I don't know if you remember exactly what you're about to say, where cool op had to get a trigger shot.

If you, if you know exactly what that is, is it's a shot that you need to inject uh the woman with in order to do it do an egg retrieval the next morning and it has to be literally within five minutes of a particular time that's right otherwise it's no good that's right and i think the only day that you could record was at night. Yep. And. She had to come to the studio.

She came to the studio. I had to literally like have my eye on the time the entire time. And I said, okay, we have to take a break. Even though like we were in the middle of something. I took a break, went out into the Earwolf lobby and gave Kulop this trigger shot. Yeah. So, I mean, we've been doing this a long time. Yeah.

But I remember this in particular was a really rough year. Yeah. IVF is really hard. It's so, so tough. And Kulop was having a really hard time with it. This particular egg retrieval in particular, it was just really mentally challenging for her

yeah so and then we're just cooped up by ourselves not seeing anyone we're doing like zooms with people i remember you had your birthday zoom that's right yeah right at the beginning right the beginning your wife did a nice surprise yeah where we all jumped on a zoom yeah waved at you and and then got off yeah and we're like we're getting the fuck out of here yeah it was really nice um but this was a really tough time so we we uh this this particular week we uh all of our close friends we all said you know what i know it's like slightly risky but we're all gonna test like we all laid down parameters of like how how could we get comfortable going somewhere and we all tested for two weeks straight i think uh and then we're all convinced that we were okay to then go and then we rented a house and we were okay to then go.

And then we rented a house and we all went to the house together. And it was the first time we'd seen each other for a while. Yeah. And I know like Kulap was crying. Like she was just really having a hard time being cooped up and having like all of the emotions that the hormones bring. And not being able to lean on friends or, you know. Yeah, of course. So we, someone brought, I feel like it was David Kass, but brought a, like one of those speakers to put out by the pool and that you could hook your iPhone up to. Yeah. And so David had not heard the album.

David's a huge Springo fan. He's been to this concert tour that springo's doing right now i think five times or something at this point he's gone to different multiple cities anyway so i put on this record and we listened to it like right when we got there by the pool so that's my that's my how did david like it if that was all right yeah i like i think i like it more than him okay i was like this is great. And he was like, yeah, it's pretty good. Anyway.

I will say it's a grower. That's right. And you should know. I don't know. So anyway, I remember this week very plainly. And it was quite a cathartic experience i would imagine um so so yeah october 23rd approximately eight days before halloween but not a lot of people celebrating halloween this year going house to house i was in new york because we started

shooting on uh election day we started shooting on or so november the day after election day that's what it was yeah it would be weird yeah i remember that you did i do for some reason i remember you telling me this because i was thinking yeah it would be very strange to start on election day so none of you could go to the polls yeah so so i remember it was scheduled the day after. And I was so focused on this show and starting this show that after things were looking bad the night before, I did media blackout for the entire first week of shooting so I could just focus on the show. Because when I went to sleep, it looked like Trump was going to win. So I was like. You went to sleep at about three in the afternoon, right? Yeah, that's right.

But on the East Coast, it was like 1 a.m. And it was still looking bad. So I didn't know until that Saturday I finally took in all the information. Well, yeah, it took a week or whatever. Yeah, I am. Yeah. Anyway, so and by the way, the political climate will tie into this album a little bit um when we talk about it but um so let's talk about the recording of it the recording happened uh just

a couple months after western stars came out so it it was recorded in november of 2019 oh it was yeah so this is before covid okay so i think what was happening was springo was saying i'm not going to tour western stars because i have this album in mind yeah that's a true edible street band banger album and i'm going to tour behind that yeah and then they record it and then suddenly covid happens and no one's able to tour. So they were originally going to release it like in the spring of 2020 or something? Probably or summer or maybe even at the same time. It ended up coming out like at the perfect time because in the movie of it, it's like snowing and then the cover is all snow.

So it came out like in the holidays. It kind of felt right. Yeah. The movie, we should talk about the movie. There's a documentary that's on, um, Apple TV plus Adam's home,

which, um, I would say people should watch, um, if they want to bother to get Apple TV plus, I know it's for a lot of families. It's a conversation of like, do we put down a down payment on a home or do we get Apple,

Apple TV plus, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a binary payment on a home or do we get apple apple tv plus you know it's a it's a it's a binary choice for a lot of families i was able to afford it as well as provide for my family i think it's free if you get a phone otherwise it's like nine dollars one of those nine hundred dollar phones right right even if you i don't know who knows who knows but but but i do know a lot of people can't afford both jesus so i would say take care of your family first and then entertainment can be a secondary thing if you have enough money left over in your budget but um god but they but so so the the the movie came out around the around think, when the album came out, like maybe that week. Yeah, yeah.

And the movie is, unlike Western Stars, which is a performance movie, a live concert movie shot in a barn, this is a documentary about the making of this album. Yeah. And you get a sense of just how live the album is. Yes. It really is just them playing in a room so so here's here's the story behind the record so we talked about in the last episode how western stars was written quite a few years beforehand right um during the springsteen on broadway shows he was interviewed quite a bit and he mentioned he hadn't written a song in years.

And then at a certain point in, I think in 2019 is what happened. Yeah, George Thies, I hope I'm pronouncing that correct, his bandmate in the Castiles passed away. Now, you recall us talking about the Castiles. Let me play a little bit of their song.

So the Castiles was Springo's first band. George, if you'll recall, we talked about this in the first episode, was the person who came over to date Springo's sister. Okay. And he was in this band. Yeah. And she said, oh, my brother plays guitar. And he said, okay, he can join the band. And so they were a band in the late 60s for like three years.

And Springo's not singing. I think maybe he's doing backups, but he's the guitarist in the band. And this is sort of the lifeline that gave Bruceuce a career right it started him off on the path to being a musician and the confluence of talent and luck and uh certain events all combined to make him yes uh one of the biggest stars in the world yes but um george uh passed away and uh uh passed away and uh springo was by his bedside when he was um in the few days before and um then he got back home and he was kind of uh bummed about the whole thing and just thinking about everything and realized that um he was the last person in the band who was still alive from the castiles so he just kind of like got very inspired picked up a guitar um that was uh there it was a mystery

guitar given to him by a fan outside the walter kerr Theater. Like a fan from another country just like handed him a guitar and said, I want to give this to you. So, and he kept it by like the kitchen table, I think. And so he just picked it up. He picked it up, started writing, and he was just thinking, he says he thought about it for a long time

and those meditations became the songs. So he started writing we'll talk about which song he wrote first but um so you would say like oh okay this he wrote this entire album in two weeks but that's not exactly true okay because digging a little bit on it here's what i think i mean they recorded it in two weeks. They recorded it in four days. In four days. So he just, these new songs that he was writing, he heard them as Edible Street Band songs in his head.

And the classics sound, not the sound that they've been sort of doing with Magic and working on a dream and everything. He just heard it as like classic east street band songs and so he wrote that in mind and then he got the edibles together and said like hey come up to my farm yeah for five days and we'll record we'll just bang this album out live to tape they had not been in the same room together recording in years maybe since the rising i think yeah they'd done it separately in parts. And he said, let's just all do it in a room at the same time. And we'll do it in five days. They had five days.

They took four and they were done in four. Wow. But it actually is three different types of songs. So here's what I've been able to ascertain through research. He wrote six new songs. He took three songs that were old songs. He wrote in the seventies. Wow.

For the, remember the demo tape that he, he made in order to get a record deal. Yeah. Three songs from there. Wow. And then three songs were like outtakes from previous albums so we'll talk about them when they come up which is which okay which previous albums

not he's he's not ever said but the production credits include people in the production side that he hadn't worked with in years and years so people are sort of guessing as to which album that it was an outtake from but um it's sort of viewed as his death album but i think it's a little bit more than that but uh yeah those are the uh those are the stats 12 songs and uh uh you want to guess how long it is 54 minutes so close 58 17 four minutes off yep you must not be thinking about that one song that's four minutes and 17 seconds that's exactly right you're thinking of uh i was i was trying to see if there was one that was exactly the closest is Last Man Standing 405. Okay.

My favorite freeway. Anyway, we need to take a- You've always said that about the 405. I love it. Especially the interchange with the 10. Oh, don't even talk about it. So much fun to go down. We're going to take a break when we come back we are going to go in track by track uh in

uh letter to you we're also going to adam's been furiously typing away getting his um springsteen albums ranked huge final episode for us uh we're gonna come right back with more you spring and Springsteen on My Bean after this. Welcome back. You Springin' Springsteen on My Bean. Welcome back. You springing spring scene on my bean.

It's the beginning of jungle land. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. That guitar. How do they make the guitar sound like that? It's just beautiful. I don't know.

We are talking about Letter to You, and we're going track by track. Only 12 tracks, which is a little welcome to see that we don't have 20 to go through. But it is almost just shy of an hour. So there's a couple of long ones a couple of longies in here and um what do you say we get to it yeah absolutely all right let's do it um we're going to kick it off with track number one and um this is a song called one minute you're here and this is by Bruce Springsteen. Big black train coming down the track Blow your whistle long and long One minute you're here

Next minute you're gone I lay my penny down on the wrist As the summer wind sings its last song One minute you're here Next minute you're gone Baby, baby, baby I'm so alone Baby, baby, baby I'm coming home Autumn Carnival One minute you're here, Adam.

Here's the strings come in. Down the midway On and on Somber opening salvo. It's really pretty. Regarding this song, he talks about the trains in New Jersey when he was a little kid

they used to put pennies down on the track in order to try to flatten them have you ever done that? I haven't, I actually went to elementary school right by a railroad track and we would occasionally hop the fence and go over there which seems wild deeply dangerous um but um he he was always struck by how quickly they were suddenly they're there and

then suddenly they're gone um which he's using as a metaphor for life um and um he sort of then in the movie launches into to a story about how many wakes he was expected to go to when he was a kid um growing up in that environment with that religion um you were expected to go into every like anyone in the neighborhood who passed away you were expected to like go in there uh hand in hand with your parents and then look at the dead body and then yeah you know put in your time essentially but so he says he got pretty used to death but um you know obviously just the fact that someone can be there one second and then just suddenly they're gone is is what he's talking about um he sets one verse in the late summer and then the carnival later on in autumn just signifying like times in his life it seems um what do you think adam i think it's really pretty it's a cool way to open the album

i thought yeah it's definitely not like when you hear east edible street band like banger album it's a little shocking that it's a this kind of pretty meditation on death but it sets the tone for the whole album which is sort of about that um this is not one of the new songs although he may have in the movie you see him singing it into the mic he may have laid down a new vocal but a lot of people theorize that this was a western star song ah and that this was sort of an epilogue it could have been the epilogue for western stars but instead he used it as the opening song to this cool but it works it also works really well with the last song on the album yeah i think yeah um so yeah he's he's definitely uh uh working through um his thoughts about um you know obviously clarence and danny federici had had yeah uh passed away recently um so i think this is

really the album where he's dealing with that but i think this next song is one where he is focusing what he's trying to say about it a little more um this is a song called letter to you this is by bruce springsteen He's a crown of mongrel trees I pulled up by the sun thread Got down on my knees Grabbed my pen and bowed my head Tried to summon all that my heart finds true And send it in my letter to you

Things I found out through hard times and good I wrote them all out in ink and blood Dug deep in my soul and signed my name true And sign my name true And send it in my letter to you In my letter to you I took all my fears and doubts In my letter to you all the hard things I

found out in my letter to you all that I've found true and I sent it in my letter to you

Letter to you. Letter to You, the classic sound, has returned. Yeah, I think it sounds great. The you that he's talking about is us, the audience. Is that right? Yes. He says this album, and that's why he called it letter to you this is about the conversation that he and the edibles have been having with the audience over the past 50 years um and i think i think that's what this album is is it's it's sometimes it's

branded as the death album but i think it's more of like the recent death of his first bandmate is making him sort of re-examine this conversation as he says of rock and roll uh music between him and the audience for the past 50 years and i think that's why he brings back three songs that he wrote in the early 70s probably is thematically they're fitting in to this album about why he even started a band and the people who have joined him along the way like clarence and danny and kind of a thank you to the fans to the audience yeah yeah um good song yeah really good all right let's go to track three this is burn and train by the way the g and burning is not there they put an apostrophe i get it yeah burn and train this is by bruce guitar solo Here's my number Time was my honor

I wanted you to heal me But instead you set me on fire We were out on the border I watched you in hard water We whispered our black prayers And rose up in flames We'll be right back. Black wings beat I ran my fingers across the heart of your stomach as you lay breathing Without a shade of faith

Rising dark in decay Take me and shake me from this mortal cage Take me on your butter train Burn and train, Adam. Yeah, this is awesome. So this is a song about staving off death by having sex. Is it really? Yes. Really?

Yeah. Listen to this part. So actually, this is one of the older ones. It is. A lot of people theorize this is from Magic. This was a Magic, something that didn't make it on Magic. I buy that. Maybe because it sounded too classic.

I don't know. But it fits here great yeah it's awesome and and they've been doing this live in concert a lot it's really good yeah it's a good one and thematically it sort of fits because it's about death and stuff burning train burning train would i like to uh see him add that g to the burning burning train yeah sure i think it's sloppy well they probably just forgot about it yeah that's true you you would think john landau you know much like the born to run album where he made them put a sticker correcting the spelling of his name on on the pressings. Then you'd be like, you haven't finished this word. Yeah, and he would put a little G sticker.

Yeah. But maybe John Lando, he's mentally over it. And G stickers are the cheapest of all the letters, right? Because the Golden Globes buys so many of them that they essentially, they'll sell them to you for a cost. Well, everyone overprints g's because of the golden globes yeah and so uh they're everyone's just trying to get rid of all especially the day after the golden globes that's when you can really clean up they'll they'll be

given the things away yeah not quite but yeah they're very no i was being a hyperbolic no no i know but they are extremely reasonable yeah i mean is it gonna cost you sure sure but not an arm and a leg no but a pretty penny finger and a toe yeah okay let's go to track four um and this is one of the old 70s ones that he recorded um and in the in the movie he's like they're about to record the the 370 songs he's like get ready for some wild lyrics um talking about his old very verbose style yeah um this is janie needs a shooter by bruce springsteen Well, Jane is kind of doctor Who tears apart insides

He investigates her And silently bakes her silence He probes with his fingers but knows her heart Only through his stethoscope His hands are cold and his body's sore. Janie turns and I'm locked up. Janie needs a shooter now. A shooter like me on her side Janey needs a shooter now

A shooter man who knows her style Oh, yeah, I know her style The way you had an over time Well, Janie's got a pretty song Janie Really sounds like Needs a Shooter An old Bruce Springsteen song But in the sort of modern edibles Not even modern, but in the classic classic edible sound which he wasn't using

right then right um yeah more of a almost kind of river born to usa era sound well this was actually weirdly enough this was in contention for a couple albums this was in contention for the edible street shuffle and then also the river it was on track listings of the river for a while interesting i'd love to hear that version yeah yeah so would i they haven't put it out i think because he wanted to save it maybe i don't know i don't want to get into his head even though we have plenty of times on the show yeah um but yeah what do you think yeah i like it's a great one i really really like these songs. So far, the first four. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

Boom, boom. We're loving it. You should cover that song. Yeah, why doesn't he? Because Justin Timberlake did, and it was a huge hit. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Doo-doo. That one?

That's written by him. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. I'm loving it. Why do you keep saying doo-doo? I don't know. I didn't know but i'm loving it why are you saying dude dude i don't know i didn't know the i'm loving it part you've never seen the mcdonald's commercial oh okay oh yeah i love that why do you think i justin timberlake really write that he wrote it for mcdonald's i i don't know but i have a single where he put it out as a single first just that one bit that like two seconds yes let me look up uh justin timberlake i'm loving it um timber lake i'm loving it okay here we go the song originally written as a jingle for mcdonald's was produced by the neptunes and

is written by pharrell and a few other people. Good for them. They must be making some cash on that. I would imagine they're already rich. So I'm like, throw some over to us. Yeah, give us money. All right, let's hear track five. This is Last Man Standing.

This is the first song that he wrote for the album. This is the one where he picked up that guitar, the mystery guitar. Got it. He laid this down. This is Last Man Standing by This is the first song that he wrote for the album. This is the one where he picked up that guitar, the mystery guitar. Got it. He laid this down. This is Last Man Standing by Bruce Springsteen. Faded pictures in an old scrapbook. Faded pictures that somebody took. Faded pictures that somebody took When you were hard and young and proud

Backed against the wall running raw and loud Snake skin vest and a shark skin suit Cuban heels on your boots. Kick in the band and side by side. You take the crowd on their mystery ride. guitar solo Black leather clubs all along Route 9 You count the names of the missing ones To count all the time Rock of Ages lift me somehow Somewhere high and hard and loud

Somewhere deep into the heart of the crowd Last Man Standing, Adam. I like this song a lot. Here's Jake with the sax. Sounds really good. This is what he was thinking about when he realized he was the last man standing in the group and that also implies next to go i feel like we should go back to the bruce willis uh movie last man standing and really do some research here well just kind of weave this song in yeah we should do a topher grace style re-edit yeah

except with this song and that instead of star wars yeah but everybody is kind of waiting for a recut of walter hill's last man standing i also think we could put it in a few other bruce movies like color of night where he shows his penis sure Sure. Why not? Why not? Like it's suddenly like when he shows his penis, you hear this song just rise up. You've been waiting for it here. Man, I remember Color of Night. Yeah. What do we think?

Last Man Standing. I really like it. So, so far we have five great ones. You like it too. Yeah, yeah. Super good. Five really great ones. Let like it too. Yeah. Yeah. Super good. Five, five really great ones. Um, let's go to track six.

This is the power of prayer by Bruce Springsteen. In the afternoon meet the summer sun Ride by the lake till the evening comes I run my fingers through your sunscreen tear Baby, that's the power of prayer Summer night, summer's in the air I stack the tables with the chairs It's closing time, then you're standing there Baby, that's the Power of prayer All right, Power of Prayer.

This is not necessarily about praying to the old J-Dog. You know, J-H-C himself. Oh, yeah, listen. I get it. It's about music. It's about getting a song right. Is this an old song or a new this is a new one yeah and last man standing was as well we talked about that uh what do you what do you think i like it when i just look at the the title of the song i was like okay what's this i know and then i i like it so here's my. I don't like it as much as the previous five. Here's my issue.

It is the exact same melody as the previous song. Oh, is it? I was going to say it's close to a magic song that I really like. It's exactly the same. It is, as Last Man Standing?

The power prayer we just heard, it's da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. Okay, let's hear Last Man Standing? The power prayer we just heard, it's... Yeah. Okay, let's hear Last Man Standing again. Different key. Don't let that throw you off. It probably will. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And now power of prayer. you're right isn't that weird interesting that they would put them back to back i know like if you even separated it by three songs people probably wouldn't notice but every time it comes on when i listen to the record i'm like is this just this have people yeah notice that yeah it's really weird it's strange isn't it yes i mean maybe he's trying to say something with that i i've part of me was sort of like oh if you made it a sweet like how uh like jungle you know like maybe it would be because i even think power of prayer is a slightly more complex melody when it gets to the part after this but i don't like all the prayer stuff anyway so i would pick one or the other if i were yeah that's probably right like you just do one or

the other yeah sharing a melody maybe put the i like last man standing more i like it more too but i wonder if it's because of all the prayer stuff. I don't know. I'm not a huge. Yeah. I mean, you know, when there's a gun to my head. Yeah. Sure.

I'll let out a few squeakers. Sure. Like, hey, God. There are no atheists in a foxhole. Sure. We got to get into one of those foxholes, by the way. Yeah. Let's check it out.

Where's the nearest one uh i heard there's one in silver lake oh yeah yeah oh that's convenient yeah we we should try to find a really kick-ass coffee and oh wow there's a nice place to sit outside we gotta go okay um this is the next track this is house of a thousand guitars this is by br Bruce Springsteen. The blood moon shines across the veil Bells ring out through churches and jails I tally my wounds and count the scars In the house of a thousand guitars The criminal clown has stolen the throne

He steals what he can never own May the truth ring out from every small town bar We'll light up the house of a thousand guitars Well, it's all right, yeah, it's all right Meet me, darling, come Saturday night All good souls from near and far We'll meet in the house of a thousand guitars Hear the bitter and the poor

Awake in search of the lost core And we'll band us together for as long as this starts In the house of a thousand guitars It's alright, yeah, it's alright Meet me, darling, come Saturday night Brother, sister, wherever you are Meet me in the house of a thousand guitars House of a Thousand Guitars.

What if we determine that this also has the same melody? Well, the melody is maybe a little repetitive, but it's... Well, let me read this quote about the song that he's quoted as. House of a Thousand Guitars attempts to define the world that I attempted to create with my audience and my listeners from the beginning. It's a world of value, of code, of honor, fun, and joy. And that's a world I create when I walk on stage at night and my audience walks through the door. We live in that world for two or three hours and then we leave and take that world with us and hope that it sustains us for as long as it can. The House of a Thousand Guitars is the house we built,

and within this house, these things matter. So this is all about- That's cool. Yeah, rock and roll. So it's a repetitive melody, but it's a romantic melody. And the production too is like a little bit of echo and mystery, I don't know, I think it's cool. Me too, I like it a lot actually. He does i don't know i think it's cool me too i

like a lot actually he does it uh he's been doing it on the tour a lot yeah as well by the way last man standing he does uh solo acoustic and it sounds really great in the middle of a show all right um let's hear the next track if i'm guessing it's eight this is rainmaker. This is by Bruce Springsteen. Arch crops die and eat the dead sun. We've been praying, but no good comes Dogs howling home stripped bare We've been worried but now we're scared

People come for comfort or just to come Taste the dark sticky potion or hear the drums Hands raised to your way to bring the rain down He comes crawling across the dry fields like a dark shroud Rainmaker, little thing for hire Rainmaker, the house is on fire Rainmaker, take everything you have

Sometimes folks need to believe in something so bad So bad, so bad They'll hire a Rainmaker. Rainmaker, Adam. Not as into this one. This is one I would leave off. And this is one of the old songs, and the one that kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.

But I have a theory as to why it's here. Why? Tell me. So let's first of all talk about what the song's about. It may have been from Magic, by the way. The Matt Damon movie? Yeah. The Rainmaker?

Okay. Magic, the Matt Damon movie. Yep. It was written about George W. Bush. But it's the story of someone in history, Charles Hatfield, who was an early 20th century sewing machine salesman who started touting this invention that he created, what he called a moisture accelerator, which was something that was attracting rain supposedly so he would go to travel from town to town that was like these dry towns in the american west and say i have your solution i've created a moisture accelerator um and it was like a 23 chemical cocktail he claims that had the power to attract water and so he would get these towns to pay him to do this and then it would rain but most people assume it just was he was either

a person who was guessing when rain was gonna come to a place and it was just naturally occurring no one no you occurring no one no you know no one thinks he had the ability to do this he was essentially a con man right yeah so then uh he came to uh an ignominious end with this when in 1915 uh san diego wanted to hire him but they were a little more skeptical because Because they needed rain. They needed rain, yeah. So they negotiated a deal with him that he would only be paid for $1,000 per inch of rain if he actually got results, right? So he did this deal with them.

He got to work on New Year's Day of 1916, and the rain came five days later, and it rained all day, and then the day after that, the day after that, and the rain came five days later and it rained all day and then the day after that the day after that and the day after that and then it rained all throughout january and um it flooded rivers it broke dams and he got credit for all of it and they they held him responsible for all of this for the bad stuff for all the bad stuff that happened um bridges railroads 20 people died jesus um 10 billion gallons of water did he still get a thousand dollars per inch oh yeah no no i think i i don't know exactly what happened to him but this is the story of a

con man who's like telling people what they want to hear he wrote it about george w bush around magic probably but i think this all things were turning for that administration turning bad but this this album you'll recall comes out in october of 2020 yeah right before the election yeah uh i think he viewed this as like wow it's even more about trump than about george w bush yeah i think he viewed this as his last chance to put it out depending on what happened with the election and he wanted to put it out as like a condemnation of trump yeah it doesn't really fit on the album to me yeah because yeah i guess he doesn't feel it isn't a perfect fit for Trump either, but fine. Because he's, Trump's not a con man.

He actually. Yeah, he's completely on the level. Bruce is quoted as saying Rainmaker was sort of the one that stood in for the album I didn't make. I think he was thinking about that as the cornerstone of a different, more political album or something. But this was his last shot at putting it out. Little did we know that four years later he could have still put it out and it still would be yeah uh topical okay anyway so we agree we would probably leave that one off yeah um let's go to track nine this is if i was the priest seven minutes on there's a light home yonder mountain, and it's calling me to shine.

There's a girl over by the water fountain, and she's asking to be mine. to be mine And Jesus is standing in the doorway In a buckskin jacket boots and spurs so fine Says we need your son tonight up in Dodge City

Cause there's just too many outlaws trying to work the same line Now if Jingle was a sheriff and I were a priest If my lady was an ass And my mama was a thief If Pablo wrote shotgun on the Fargo line There's still too many bad boys trying to work the same line

Oh, sweet Virgin Mary If I was the priest, Adam, I like this song. This is the song that blew away John Hammond when he played it for the demo. John Hammond, by the way, from Jurassic Park. He got into music production around the same time he was constructing the island. He got into music production around the same time he was constructing the island. And, you know, when he found the DNA of a dinosaur trapped in amber. But this is the song where, like, John Hammond was sort of like, I think he said something like, after the first two, okay, now just go really wild.

Show me something really crazy. And this is the one that he played it doesn't sound crazy to me but john hammond was like whoa okay i'm signing you after this song um it's not now you hear if i was the priest you're kind of thinking is this another fucking prayer thing uh it's about the ministry of rock and roll he says it's like about him wanting to be a rock star trying to break away from what's holding him back um talking about if he were the priest so this is literally from like 1970 yeah interesting um i like it i think it fits in uh thematically with this because it's all about his conversation with his audience sounds good yeah this whole

album like just sounds good yeah it's just and but bashed out in four days yeah great stuff all right this is track 10 of 12 this is ghosts and this is by bruce springsteen I hear the sound of your guitar Coming from the mystic far Stoning the gravel in your voice Come in my dreams and I'll rejoice It's your voice Moving through the night Spirit filled with light

I need Need you by my side You're loving like Oh I I can feel the blood shivering in my bones I'm alive And I'm out here on my own I'm alive

And I'm coming home Ghosts at him. I feel like this is the best song on the album. This is the star. This is absolutely the star of the album. They play it, I think, at every show. Yes. It is about the beauty and joy of being in a band

and the pain of losing one another. I don't know. It's very cathartic after the pandemic i think especially to hear this chorus of i'm alive yeah it's great especially in concerts sing along with it i almost feel like it should have been track two or something yeah it's so good it's great and and then watching them do it in the movie, they're all singing back up together. They're all doing the hand claps together. It's really great.

Yeah, it's awesome. And I'm out here on my own. I've heard a lot. Yeah, it's awesome. And the drums at the beginning sound so full and so great. Anyway, just an A+. Yeah, for sure. I mean, so far, it's basically just one song we would have dropped. Yeah, one song, which is Power of Prayer, yeah. Oh, no, Rainmaker. I would drop Power of Prayer as well.

Right. Because it's too similar to the other one. Yeah, I would have dropped, yes, two songs. Two songs, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Okay, so let's hear track 11. This is the penultimate song on the album. This is Song for Orphans.

This is another one of the 70 songs. Here we go. Bruce Springsteen did this. guitar solo Well, the multitude assembled And tried to make the noise And blank blind poet generals and restless loud white boys Times grew thin and the axis grew somehow incomplete But instead of child lines, we had aging junkies sheathed We'll be right back. Oh, praise the dead. Believe me, my good women.

The world will shine again. The Confederacy's in mourning now. The hounds are held at bay. The Axis needs a stronger arm. Do you feel your muscles break? Song for Orphans. I love this. It's Barry Dillon dylan yeah it's like the band it's like the weight take a load off sally's kind of um yeah this is one of the the demos for his first album this is maybe one that i would leave off really but uh it sounds really good. Yeah. I think it's awesome.

Maybe I'll leave it on. I don't know. I like it. I'm like mid on it a little bit, but. If you take it off, it's only a nine song album. I know. Which is Born to Run. I mean, isn't Born to Run nine songs?

Let's see how long it is if we leave it on, but take off the two that we don't like. Let's see. That's 50 minutes. It's pretty good. 10 songs, 50 minutes. Now's pretty good. 10 songs, 50 minutes. Now it's, with those two songs,

it's just shy of 60. Yeah. Especially, yeah, anyway. Yeah, maybe we leave it on. Yeah. All right,

this then is the final song on the record. This is one of the new songs he wrote, one of the six new songs he wrote. This is I'll See You in My Dreams by Bruce Springsteen.

The road is long And swimming without end The days go on I remember you, my friend And though you're gone And my heart's been emptied it seems I'll see you in my dreams I got your guitar

I hear you by the bed All your favorite records And all the books that you read And though my soul feels like it's been split at the seams

I'll see you in my dreams I'll see you in my dreams. Ever and ever in a bed. For death is not the end. I'll see you in my dreams. I'll see you in my dreams. Great.

This is fantastic. He plays a really soft, quiet spare version. Yeah. Just a solo show. Yeah. Every song, every show he's closed with Justin.

Like they do a kind of, I wouldn't say it's a medley, but it's like five of their big, uh, encore hits to do for the encore, you know, Rosalita, like he just breezes through like five of them and then the whole band

leaves and he just does an acoustic version of this. It is the theme of the album. Death is not the end. He says, uh, yeah, I'll see you in my dreams though. Yeah.

He, he, he, he talks, yeah, he talks in the movie about he doesn't know exactly what happens when you die but he hates to think that that would be the last time he is gonna see these people yeah all right that's letter to you really good album i i think it's good that we're ending the season on this record instead of the next one just because this feels like full circle in a lot of ways you know i mean it's it's got three songs

from the beginning it's about the beginnings of being in a band with um the castiles and everything and it's a return to the east street uh sound yep with the edibles just chewing away at their instruments, just going in and making it count. Yep. Letter to you. Any last thoughts about Letter to You? No. I like it very much.

I'll be interested to see where it figures in your list. They obviously were not, they couldn't tour with this right when it came out i was a little surprised he actually put it out because i was like maybe just pandemic wise yeah maybe he sits on it until he can tour but um they put it out didn't tour they were able to do snl right um two people didn't gary and suzy both passed on snl because they didn't want to travel yeah um so it's the first time i think gary had missed a show ever um but they did snl uh then as we all know but the only reason you're listening to this podcast is because you got into podcasts because uh springo and obama the original podcasters themselves they started doing their show which that's right i

listened to it during during the pandemic that's right which uh obviously you know uh uh trickled down uh uh listenership benefited all of us podcasts and, but then they were able to tour with it once the pandemic died down. Um, but he, uh, put out that Motown covers record, which we're not going to cover. Um,

yeah, but maybe we'll do an episode about it down the line sometime. But, uh, uh, the, and now Springo is out there, uh,

finishing up the tour of this, doing the makeup shows that he had to postpone due to illness. Those will take us through April or so. And then everyone's kind of wondering what is next. Yeah. There's a lot of theories that he's doing a second Motown album. Really? Because they had a lot more songs recorded for it he was going to finish up some new ones it probably sold well right i have no i doubt it i don't know who knows

everything i mean everything he puts out probably sells well speaking of selling what did this do this uh commercial performance number two on the billboard 200 um making springsteen the first act with new top five charting albums in each of the last six decades damn um six decades six decades exactly um hard to say how many it's how many actual looks like in uh the united kingdom it's it went gold it went gold and platinum a lot of places uh the u.s i can't i'm not getting that information anyway who

gives a shit what does sales even mean anymore right we do this for free yep um but uh a lot of people think okay is born in the usa a big box set for that next? That would be great. Where they tour that entire album.

A lot of people think Trax 2 is going to be next. That would be great. Because the reason that he put these three songs on the record was he was going through old stuff, I think. um so we don't know but all we know is the very next thing he's going to do is a either one-on-one or two-on-one or two-on-two interview with um the two of us absolutely and he's going to be bringing four chalky malts that's right that we're gonna suck down in the first five minutes that's right um okay adam we promised it this is our season finale we are going to rank the records um all uh how many 19 no 20 i'm not sure 20 of them right yeah we're including the promise even though we didn't do an episode about it.

No, all 19 of them. Let me count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. After that comes 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. I have 21. Okay, I did not count the promise. You want to pop it in there real quick? Give it a squeaker.

We're not counting his Motown record because we haven't covered it. Right. I didn't count that. Did you count Seeger? Yes. Devils in Dust? Yes. High Hopes?

Yes. What other outlier? Did you put Western Stars in there? Yeah. Okay. Not the Western Stars soundtrack. No. All right. Well, we'll see. I have 21 for right well we'll we'll see i have 21 for

some reason but we'll okay we'll see where uh where we're going you want to go from bottom up let's go it's more fun if it's top uh like the highest to highest to lowest yeah oh okay sure and do you want to switch off or do you want to do your own and then i'll do my let's fucking switch off bro hell yeah but i have to uh run to the restroom can we take your own and then I'll do my own. Let's fucking switch off, bro. Hell yeah. But I have to run to the restroom. Can we take a break and then come back and do this? Yeah, I guess so. Are you sure you don't want me to record you in the restroom? I mean, I'd be super into that.

All right, let's take a break. When we come back, Adam will have excavated his bowels, taken the world's largest shit. We'll be right back with more You Spring and Stream on my beat. Well, I stood stone like at midnight Suspended in my masquerade And I combed my hair

This is exactly what I do every midnight. Comb your hair like that? Comb my hair and I also just freeze wherever I am. Yeah. We're back. You're springing spring scene on my bean. And as promised, this is very exciting we are going to rank springo's albums that's right from what we consider to be best to worst adam's not putting

the promise in because oh we're starting with worst though right you just said i said i wanted to start top you said top down to the bottom. Highest to the lowest, meaning highest number to the lowest number. Highest to lowest implies highest, meaning your best, your favorite. No, it doesn't. Highest means starting with 20 and going down to one. Okay, sure, whatever you say. Let's do that.

That's more fun. Sure, whatever you say. Is that what you originally wanted to do? That's what I originally wanted to do, and then you said, no, let's go highest to lowest. Listen, we're on the same page. Okay, I love that about ourselves. We're just speaking different languages.

Exactly. I'm speaking English, and you're fucking speaking dumb shit. All right. You're not ranking The Promise because you haven't listened to it. I missed it because I thought it was like an outtakes thing. We didn't do an episode about it. It's really fantastic. I'm going to include it.

But we're going to switch off and we're going to start down at the bottom. You know what? I won't include the prom. I'll tell you where it is, but we'll say it's 20. So we're going to start at 20. Okay. I'm going to technically have 21, and I'll tell you where it is, but we'll say it's 20. So we're going to start at 20. Okay. I'm going to technically have 21, and I'll tell you where it is. Does that make sense?

All right, here we go. This is number 20. Adam, what is your number 20? My number 20 is High Hopes. High Hopes, you consider to be the nadir of his career. This is, of course high hopes do you think i have high hopes at the bottom yes or either that or working on a dream i have working on a dream at the bottom yeah Yeah. I just find that record, even though it has some good songs on it, I find it just confounding. It has some of the worst songs on it.

Yeah, but I feel like there's a couple songs on there that are so bad that it just way better than... Yeah. I don't know. I think, you know what, I will say after we did the High Hopes record and we each came up with our track list for a combined American Beauty slash High Hopes without the songs we don't like, I listened through it and it was great. Yeah. So that's why I bumped my next, my number 19 is High Hopes slash American Beauty. Okay. What is yours? Next, my number 19 is High Hopes slash American Beauty. Okay.

What is yours? My next one, which would be number 19, is Working on a Dream. Right. Okay. So we just, those are very close to. Yes. So we're on the same page here. Just have that transposed a little bit.

Let's go up to number 18, Adam. 18. What's yours? Mine is Human Touch. Me too. Whoa. Human Touch. go up to number 18 18 what's yours mine is human touch me too whoa human touch human touch got a couple of good songs on it but uh it's pretty thin and it's pretty repetitive yeah and the performances as much as i love randy jackson oh yeah rando rando i love seeing that billboard of whatever new show he's on and he's super super thin. Is he on a show now? I think so.

Good for him. Would love to be on a show. Look, you have a show. Randy Jackson has a show. I know. Where's my show? What is your number 17? Number 17, I have a little album called Devils in Dust.

Oh, wow. Mine is Lucky Town. It's number 17. seven lucky town so you view those as being pretty yeah i actually had them together as one album which is why my thing is at 19 right yeah lucky town was a little better than human touch i thought i like lucky town better than devils and devils in dust i'd like conceptually and i like a few songs but it just doesn't hang together for me yeah remember we did uh lucky touch the combination of the two yeah that's a really great album that's a good album yeah mine's a little better than yours but um we both did a good job okay what is your number 16 uh well no you didn't say what you're uh 17 yeah, 20, 19, 18. Oh, yeah, you did. What's your 17?

Oh, you said. Devils in Dust. Okay, 16. I have the Seeger Sessions. Me too. Wow. That's amazing. Okay, then what's your 15?

Devils in Dust. Okay, I have Lucky Town. Okay. I mean, it's all the same. So it's all so similar. Okay, but this is where we may start to diverge. What is your number 14? Wrecking Ball.

That's my number 14? It is. Yeah. All right. All right, what's number 13? Wait, where the fuck is it? Oh, Ghost of Tom Joad. Interesting.

Mine's Tunnel of Love. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay, let's go to 12. wait where the fuck is it oh ghost of tom jode interesting mine's tunnel of love oh wow okay yeah okay okay let's go to 12 what's your 12 western stars interesting i've go i've ghost of tom jode okay all right what's your then i mean this is where it starts getting interesting because they're all really yeah yeah so this is is this this is, is this the top 10? No, we're on 11. We're on 11. Okay. What's your number? Because I really like Western Stars. 11 is Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. Mine's Western Stars. Okay. Okay. So now we're in our top 10. Top 10. All right, here we go. What is your number 10? Letter to You. That is my number 10. Really? Yes. Wow. Okay. All right. What is number nine? Greetings from Ashbury Park.

That's my number nine. No shit. Wow. What's your number eight? I just changed those three around, like four of them around just before we started talking. Number eight, darkness on the edge of town. I have the wild, the innocent, which you put it 12 or something. 11. Okay. Number eight, the Innocent, which you put at 12. 11. 11.

Okay. Number eight, is it now? Seven. Mine is Tunnel of Love. Okay. So you're, that's where we diverge here.

I put Tunnel of Love, even though it has some great highs in it. Yeah. There's some snoozers. Some snoozers. I put Nebraska next. Whoa.

At seven. At seven. Okay. All right. We're going to diverge quite a bit here. All right. Number six. For me, it's magic. I have the rising. Okay. Okay.

Number five. Number five. Oh, by the way, I put the promise in here. Oh, right. This is where the promise goes. I like the promise better than the rising, Nebraska. Sure. Yeah. Anyway, i love that one yeah so what's your number five my number five born to run wow okay mine is the rising interesting so you like the rising better than magic i thought uh just the the uh emotional

everything about it yeah yeah right but there's magic as an album is more cohesive okay what's your number four i can't believe i just said that can you slap me across the face okay number four is the river i have darkness at the edge of town okay what's your number three okay we're in the top three now top three this is This is where it really comes down to it. Yeah. I know two of yours. Okay. Number three is Born to Run. Okay. I have, and this may sound like heresy, I have Magic at number three.

Wow. You know, Magic originally for me ranked in like maybe, I wanted to put it at three, but I was like, I can't. I know. Like in terms of the history of bruce you can't but i just love it good and for me as the record that sort of brought me back into the fold yeah uh i think it's so consistent and so it's so good i just i i have to be i had to be honest with this yeah no i i i'm with you i mean it's the one album i've been listening to the most

like consistently since we've been doing this show all right what's number two for you number two born in the usa i also have born in the usa as my new number two okay i knew what your number one was gonna be yeah yeah number one's the river okay number one for me is nebraska yeah these are both we kind of knew that these would be the nebraska is the one that the first one you bought yeah the thing that got you into it yes and i still just love it so much i mean it's from like 10 down these are all great like 13 yeah 13 or so they're just great albums yeah um where was ghost of tom tom joe for you that is uh 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 12 yeah okay

yeah i i i probably would have been lower for me except when we did the deep dive on it i really went into the lyrics i didn't like it as much as I thought I did when we really dove into it. You know, it goes to show if you pay attention to an album, you like it more. Instead of just putting it on a couple of times and going like, yeah, this sounds fine. That's right. Well, Adam, this

was a pleasure to do. Super fun. Super fun. I'm glad that you suggested it. Did i suggest springsteen you did i had suggested a different uh spin-off type show first and and then what was it it was the one that we talked about last time we saw each other uh yes we may end up doing that's right at some point but uh um i think we should do another yeah we should well this is episode 98 is it really yeah i feel like jesus obviously springo's gonna reach out like three i mean it's about three hours

per episode safely i would say so 300 hours we've spent doing this um we we it's not three hours our episodes two hours they're two okay i i would imagine you know what i'll bring all of my recording equipment which is uh an entire recording studio yeah with me to new york yeah and maybe it's like what it's one of those tiny houses right it's a small house yeah that you put on the back of a pickup truck it takes four weeks to get from los angeles because you gotta take a lot of breaks oh yeah and i bring my recording studio um on senate yeah so obviously episode 99 is going to be the springo interview uh three hours three hours and 90 seconds yeah um all chit chat yeah that'll be episode 99 then maybe we'll do an episode a hundred. Um,

at some point, uh, our anniversary is coming up. Um, I do want to thank everyone who, uh, helped us with this season, putting everything together. Our producer,

uh, Scott Sani, uh, Sonny rather, uh, to Sonny without the does he put it, uh, he,

uh, had a lot of passion for this show and would listen to them like right away when I would send them and get back to me about what themes we would need for the sub podcast. He also put together all of the our demands in a document and every sub podcast. He made a list of every sub podcast we've done over the season. And so a sub podcast heavy season. Yes, I would say. Some might say a crutch we were leaning upon i feel like there were more sub podcasts this season than um the last couple seasons maybe i mean i could tell you uh uh some of the ones we've done this year i mean are we going to do

an extravaganza bad headshot experiences experiences? Did I tell you about that? Do you not know Stones? We just did that last episode. Etymologies, of course, one of our favorites. One of my favorites, explaining reality shows to Adam. So many great, I mean, that's just scratching the surface. But thanks to Scott. Thanks to Sam Kiefer, of course, for putting these together thank you scott thank you sam uh thanks to everyone at

earwolf this is our last episode at earwolf this is our last one there oh wow we are uh no longer doing it there they have treated us well they did for quite a few years but now we are uh persona non grata perhaps um but this so this is the final episode uh there uh but that's not going to affect you it'll you'll still get it exactly where you've always gotten it don't know where we're going to end up now but uh i'll tell you what we're going to love it when we do and that's going to be it for us but Adam have a great time doing your S show whatever it may be titled

it does, I remember that that's right and we'll see you next time and until then we hope that you found what you're looking for bye We hope that you found what you're looking for. Bye.