Bruce Springsteen: the last man standing.
Maybe these aren’t the first thoughts you’d expect to have after a rock ’n’ roll show, but rock ’n’ roll is getting old, and one of its most prolific stars has been telling us for the past few years that he’s getting his affairs in order. His current tour, which continues his 2023 world tour celebrated in the recent documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, follows his latest LP of original music, 2020’s Letter To You. That record was explicitly and thematically an exploration of the Boss’ mortality, and this year’s jubilant roadshow continues that chapter with shows across the U.S. and Canada.
“The older you get, the more you realize that, unless you’re über-wealthy, you probably have a lot in common with the characters in Springsteen songs.”
I was at the Montreal show on Halloween night, where Bruce, the E Street Band—Steven Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg, and Roy Bittan, along with Soozie Tyrell, Charles Giordano, and Jake Clemons—and a brilliant backing ensemble of singers and musicians performed for roughly three hours straight. The show rewired my brain. For days after, I was in a feverish state, hatching delusional schemes to get to his other Canadian shows, unconsciously singing the melody of “Dancing in the Dark” on a loop until my partner asked me to stop, listening to every Springsteen album front to back.
“The stakes implicit in most of these stories are that our time is always running out.”
Photo by Rob DeMartin
I had seen Bruce and the E Street Band in 2012, but something about this time was different, more urgent and powerful. Maybe it’s that the older you get, the more you realize that, unless you’re über-wealthy, you probably have a lot in common with the characters in Springsteen songs. When you’re young, they’re just great songs with abstract stories. Maybe some time around your late 20s, you realize that you aren’t one of the lucky ones anointed to escape the pressures of wage work and monthly rent, and suddenly the plight of the narrator of “Racing in the Street” isn’t so alien. The song’s wistful organ melody takes on a different weight, and the now-signature extended coda that the band played in Montreal, led by that organ, Bittan’s piano, and Weinberg’s tense snare rim snaps, washed across the arena over and again, like years slipping away.
The stakes implicit in most of these stories are that our time is always running out. The decades that we spend just keeping our heads above water foreclose a lot of possibility, the kind promised in the brash harmonica whine and piano strokes that open “Thunder Road” like an outstretched hand, or in the wild, determined sprint of “Born to Run.” If we could live forever, there’d be no urgency to our toils. But we don’t.
Springsteen has long has the ability to turn a sold-out arena into a space as intimate as a small rock club.
Photo by Rob DeMartin
Bruce has never shied away from these realities. Take “Atlantic City,” with its unambiguous chorus: “Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact.” (Then, of course, an inkling of hope: “Maybe everything that dies someday comes back.”) Springsteen used those phrases on Nebraska to tell the story of a working person twisted and cornered into despair and desperation, but on All Hallows Eve, as the band rocked through their electrified arrangement of the track, it was hard not to hear them outside of their context, too, as some of the plainest yet most potent words in rock ’n’ roll.
In Montreal, like on the rest of this tour, Bruce guided us through a lifecycle of music and emotion, framed around signposts that underlined our impermanence. In “Letter to You,” he gestured forcefully, his face tight and rippled with passion, an old man recapping the past 50 years of his creative life and his relationship to listeners in one song. “Nightshift,” the well-placed Commodores tune featured on his 2022 covers record, and “Last Man Standing,” were opportunities to mourn Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici, his E Street comrades who went before him, but also his bandmates in his first group, the Castiles. It all came to a head in the night’s elegiac closer, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” performed solo by Bruce with his acoustic guitar: “Go, and I’ll see you in my dreams,” he calls
I’m still trying to put my finger on exactly why the show felt so important. I’ve circled around it here, but I’m sure I haven’t quite hit on the heart of the matter. Perhaps it’s that, as we’re battered by worsening crises and cornered by impossible costs of living, songs about people trying desperately to feel alive and get free sound especially loud and helpful. Or it could be that having one of our favorite artists acknowledge his mortality, and ours, is like having a weight lifted: Now that it’s out in the open, we can live properly and honestly.
None of us know for sure what’s up around the bend, just out of sight. It could be something amazing; it could be nothing at all. Whatever it is, we’re in it together, and we’ll all get there in our time. Until then, no matter how bad things get, we’ll always have rock ’n’ roll.
To fully digest these changes, it makes sense to examine the progression in small chunks and see how it relates to the traditional blues form. First, let’s look at the “Bird” changes below. (Remember, in jazz circles a triangle means a major 7 chord and a dash means minor 7 chord.)
When looking at a traditional 12-bar blues in F, the first four measures are usually an F7 (I) moving to a Bb7 (IV) in measure 5. In this version, Parker works backwards from the IV chord with a series of IIm-V7 moves that descend in whole-steps. Measures 4 and 3 are “major” IIm–V7s, but the second measure uses a “minor” version with a half-diminished chord for the IIm. Finally, Parker changed the chord in the first measure from a dominant 7 to a major 7 to place us squarely in the key of F. (It also helps with voice-leading across the first four measures.)
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Saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker was the figurehead of the bebop era. Listen to his relaxed, swinging take on “Blues for Alice,” which is one of his most popular compositions.
Ex. 1 demonstrates one way to navigate the first four measures. Let’s break that down a bit. I stick entirely within the F major scale (F–G–A–Bb–C–D–E) for the first measure. Easy enough. In the second measure, for the sake of simplicity, I am just implying A7 through both chords. The first two beats outline A7 (A–C#–E–G) and the remaining notes are plucked from the A Super Locrian scale (A–Bb–C–Db–Eb–F–G).
Click here for Ex. 1
I’m using a similar concept in Ex. 2, working with the F major scale in the first measure and thinking A7 in the second. I’m using the D melodic minor scale (D–E–F–G–A–B–C#) over the third measure while targeting the 3 of Cm7 (Eb) on the downbeat of the fourth measure. To create an altered sound over the F7b9, I use a Gbdim7 arpeggio (Gb–A–C–Eb) to nail the b9 (Gb).
Click here for Ex. 2
This next example (Ex. 3) takes cues from great piano players so it requires some quick position shifting. The first shift happens in the first measure, where we move from 5th position up to 8th on the “and” of beat 2. In the second measure, we imply an A7b9 sound using a Bbdim7 (Bb–C–E–G) arpeggio that touches on the #9 (C) and b9 (Bb).
In the second and third measures of this example, we’re basically using the same concept. Because D Dorian (D–E–F–G–A–B–C) and G Mixolydian (G–A–B–C–D–E–F) contain the same notes, we’re simply adding some chromatic passing tones that help the chord tones line up on strong beats. Move the whole concept down a whole-step (to C Dorian/F Mixolydian) for the next measure.
Click here for Ex. 3
The next section of a blues in F might look something like: Bb7–Bb7–F7–F7. Or, if you think of a traditional jazz-blues progression, it might be Bb7–Bdim7–F7–D7. Looking ahead, Parker wanted to target the Gm7 in measure 9. What’s the best way to lead into that chord? Simply add a IIm–V before it. Parker used backcycling to create a series of descending IIm-V7 progressions that connect the Bb7 in measure 5 to the Gm7 in measure 9. Rather ingenious, huh?
While these chords are easy enough to play with basic chord forms, it’s much trickier to solo through them in an authentic way.
Ex. 4 uses the Bb Mixolydian scale (Bb–C–D–Eb–F–G–Ab) over the Bb7 before moving to Eb Mixolydian (Eb–F–G–Ab–Bb–C–Db) for Bm7–Eb7. In the third measure, we move to A minor pentatonic (A–C–D–E–G) before coasting through an Abm7 arpeggio (Ab–Cb–Eb–Gb) for the last measure.
Click here for Ex. 4
The next lick (Ex. 5) demonstrates how you can use simple melodies to navigate this chord progression. The first measure is a simple lick based on the Bb7 chord, then we create a melody just using the F major scale—it’s all about landing on the Gm7 chord at the right time.
Click here for Ex. 5
Our final example over this section (Ex. 6) is just as loose with the chords, but makes sure to hit them as they land. The first measure uses the Bb major pentatonic scale (Bb–C–D–F–G) before using some outside notes that resolve to the root of the Am7 chord. At this point you should be seeing that a big part of the bebop genre is based on rhythm. The mixture of triplets and heavy syncopation is an essential part of the sound.
Click here for Ex. 6
The final section of a blues in F usually goes: C7–Bb7–F7–C7, but that’s too basic for beboppers. In Bird blues, we use a two-measure IIm-V7 progression before increasing the harmonic rhythm with F7–D7–Gm7–C7. In Roman numerals, this translates to I7–VI7–IIm7–V7.
I find the best way to play over this section is to remember you’re playing a blues, so some blues scale ideas might not be a bad idea, as shown in Ex. 7. We’ve even included some slight bends!
Click here for Ex. 7
This final example (Ex. 8) feels like another melody rather than something clever. Remember, we’re playing music, and often the best music is the type that your audience can sing along to. So don’t be afraid to hold off and play something melodic.
Click here for Ex. 8
Lastly, here’s a short backing track to help you practice these ideas, and then come up with some of your own. Keep listening and copying and before long you’ll be soaring like Bird!