I think bruce springsteen is a great songwriter.
but I always got the feeling he wanted to be more than he actually was. like he was always itchy and climbing, always a little uncomfortable in his own skin.
if you look, in his earlier stuff, there’s not so much of him as the story, and there’s a lot of that that’s good: rosalita, blinded by the light, spirits in the night, growing up, and of course thunder road and born to run. but later on, something happened, and like his center moved, and his really powerful songs came from a different place, and they were all about him: darkness on the edge of town, adam raised a gain, stolen car, one step up, brilliant disguise and stuff like that.
then there’s a lot of derivative stuff, but every now and then he comes out with something that is really good, like ‘ghost of tom joad’ or ‘devils and dust.’
and all that.