One Upping Bruce Springsteen
Why do some covers work and others fall flat?
Cover songs are great. I wish they were more common nowadays. They speak to the lived tradition of music. A song resonates with you and you wish to carry that on by sharing with others. There’s something primal about the feeling we have of wanting to let others know when something resonated with us. But, because any cover is treading on well worn ground, they can be quite tricky to pull off.
One of the most important acts of the mid-to-late 20th century was Bruce Springsteen. To no surprise, covers of his classic hit songs abound in all genres, and country is no exception. I want to quickly discuss two of his songs and their covers and jot down some thoughts. This is going to be more of a quick-hit style post.
The first song is “Atlantic City,” off of Nebraska. An iconic song, very well known and well respected, yet deeply depressing. Bruce sings and embodies an essentially broken man who has no hope. The narrator is a man drowning in debts no honest man can pay, considering taking a job with the mob. The song wrestles with desperation, the inevitability of death, and a last-ditch gamble for survival. He tells his partner to get dressed up pretty and meet him in Atlantic City for one final roll of the dice. It is quite befitting of the entire album Nebraska, which is maligned for being both too acoustic and too depressing. Accurate. It is certainly one of Springsteen’s more unique records, and as is often the case when presented with a zig or a zag, it was not well received in the moment. With time, however, history has been quite kind to it. It even served as the muse for his most recent biopic, Deliver Me from Nowhere, which chronicles the making of the album. Regardless, we are dealing with a bona fide classic, and one that most listeners already have familiarity with. Because of that, the task ahead of an aspiring cover maker is daunting.
Riley Green appears to have an abiding love for this song. He has made it a mainstay of his shows and has recorded it in studio twice (on his County Line EP from 2018 and Way Out Here, his early 2024 full-length album). And although it sounds technically excellent, it produces approximately zero emotion. Looking to the original, the lyrics are despondent and sad with a tinge of complexity. There is an upbeat feel, but a defining undercurrent of darkness. Some of that comes through from Springsteen’s raspy vocal performance. Some of it comes from the sparse acoustic accompaniment.
Green’s version of this song is more sonically textured. The arrangement is more sophisticated. It does have an acoustic-forward style, but there’s drum work and a broader accompaniment. And that contradicts the song.
On top of this, Green provides a shockingly lackluster vocal performance. It’s technically fine, as in he hits all of the notes, but the emotion is just not there. Why this performance has a strong sense of detachment from the story being told, I don’t know. His laconic detachment may code as “cool,” but for a song that requires the empathy and emotional conveyance of “Atlantic City,” it’s a poor match. Clearly Green has an emotional connection to this song. Perhaps he grew up listening to it. It’s a powerful song, a powerful message. And yet, he can’t seem to muster up any emotional grit, heft, or subtlety in his performance. An unfortunate swing and a miss.
The second song is “Tougher Than the Rest” off of Tunnel of Love. “Tougher Than the Rest” is an incredibly written song, penned in the throes of a crumbling marriage. It’s a message of resilience and commitment in spite of adversity, even though the chances of failure are incredibly high. Aside from reflecting Springsteen’s personal woes, it struck the nation at a time where crumbling marriages were a loud and outward part of the cultural story. Divorce rates peaked in the early 1980s. Attitudes and perspectives were changing on the fly. Springsteen, consciously or not, paralleled these conversations and shifts. It makes the song both a timeless declaration of intent and a window into a distinct time and place.
What makes Springsteen’s writing so compelling is his ability to embody duality. The sense of impending doom that is the thematic backbone of this record does not stop confidence and resilience from defining the song. “Tougher Than the Rest” is a promise that in spite of what was in the past — rocky roads, broken promises, and the like — the future will be defined not by the baggage that you would expect to crumble the average man, but by sheer human determination and commitment.
Unfortunately, Tunnel of Love was his most pop-forward record, and following Born in the U.S.A, expectations were sky high. From the get-go, there was zero chance Springsteen would be able to replicate the phenomenon of Born in the U.S.A., but doubling down in a pop direction did not seem to work. His fanbase found it alienating. For good reason: the pop style distracts. The smoothness of the synthesizers doesn’t fit so well with the grit of Springsteen’s vocal. The emotion behind the song would work better in a more open, less convoluted arrangement style.
Looking at the numerous country covers that are out there, most notably Chris LeDoux’s 1994 version from his album Haywire, transforming it into a country song brings about a real enhancement of the meaning. LeDoux’s vocal work is probably the biggest difference from Springsteen. It’s a registered baritone, a bit raspy. But unlike the nuance in Springsteen’s vocal — full of cracks and micro-rhythms, craggy and world-weary — LeDoux is more straightforward. Some might describe it as merely competent, but it’s this straightforward simplicity in delivering the lyric that serves the song.
Then there’s the country instrumentation, which does wonders for “Tougher Than the Rest.” Yes, the arrangement has drums, but instead of being overly present, the drums are more there to provide rhythm and texture. The crying fiddle kicks in at certain points and serves as emotional emphasis. The fiddle is, tone-wise, the closest instrument to the human voice and is therefore the most capable of providing that emotional gut punch that the song’s subtly deep, emotionally complex messaging requires. The distant, synthetic artificiality of Springsteen’s arrangement can’t hold a candle to the sharp, targeted arrangement of the LeDoux version. In that soundscape, the sharp targeted vocal work doesn’t get lost into a synthetic haze, like the details of Springsteen’s vocal do. Instead they become empowered, cutting sharply and delivering the emotional hit the song was begging for.
In a world with an essentially infinite amount of music to listen to, every song needs to prove that it’s worth our time investment. That question is doubled when that song is a cover. The test of any cover is simple. Does it justify its own existence? Green stumbled at the task before him. He proved you can hit every note and miss every emotion. By contrast, LeDoux’s fiddle excavated new ground that Springsteen’s synthesizers couldn’t pull off.
Thank You for reading! Last oppurtunty to submit you letters for the mailbag episode coming early march!
Hope you enjoyed reading,
Joe