The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town (2010)

Amazing.

I was finally able to get a chance to watch this and I loved it. Though of course I'd love it being a Springsteen fan. However it did make me appreciate his incredible talent a lot more. His strive for perfection would be the end of most people but somehow he manages to keep it altogether. His friends and band mates hang around. They know this guy has something special. His attention to detail is remarkable.

In an age where we have manufactured "musicians" and bands that retire or break up so quickly, it was great to see this behind the scenes look at an album that took nearly three years to make. He wrote countless songs for the album (more then 40, I think?) and time and time again kept adding and taking away songs from the final product. Lyrics changed daily, tunes changed hourly. The story of Bruce wanting REAL sound and wasting days to find it only to realize he'd never get it was pretty funny but just shows how much dedication he has and how meticulous he is about his work.

Even if you're not a Springsteen fan or even if you don't like music, I think you could easily enjoy this. Hell, I think it'll make you discover his incredible and glorious body of work.

Such and open and honest behind the scenes look at record making, song writing, and how it all comes together.

Check this one out!

Yeah, seeing them two just horsing around on instruments was pretty fantastic. It was pretty interesting to see how the album took shape; how it went from having certain songs on it and then all of a sudden being something completely different. Dropping "Fire" and "Because the Night" because Bruce felt they were too good and too mainstream was interesting.

I'm really happy that Bruce put out some of the tracks that he decided not to use for this album. "The Promise" album is really solid and it's great to hear some new old Springsteen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

 It was also interesting to get into Springsteen's head in regards to how he viewed his music, really fascinating how he sort of viewed Born to Run as an obstacle rather than a creative springbroad.

I liked his comments regarding his first two albums where he said he thought a lot of the lyrics were terrible. He hadn't matured enough and made bad decisions with some wording. Even though The Promise didn't really go into it, I'd like to hear his thoughts on a lot of his songs and albums now. See what has to say about choices he made for certain albums, lyrical choices, arrangements. I wonder how often he hears something or his or reads back a song he wrote and thinks to himself, "nah, that ain't right. damn."