Roll of the Dice: The Wayfarer

If we were to distill the theme of Western Stars into a single word, it would be: forward.

Bruce Springsteen’s nineteenth studio album features a collection of short stories and character studies, all centering around late-in-life characters realizing that time only ever moves forward. Some embrace it (“Hitch Hikin’“), some make peace with it (“Western Stars“), and some look longingly backward before inching ahead (“Moonlight Motel“). But none of us can stop time in our tracks, no matter how much we might wish to.

The album is linked by more than just a common theme, though. There’s also a narrative arc at play. The album opens with two songs about restless wanderers and ends with two songs about learning to live in the here and now.

Last year, we looked at “Hitch Hikin’,” which serves as the album’s overture. It’s a story about the joy of life’s open road, as told by a narrator unmired by the trappings of life, love, and family. But the album begins in earnest with “The Wayfarer,” where we meet a protagonist no less itinerant but not quite as rootless.

If “The Wayfarer” is where Bruce starts to play his narrative hand, it’s also the place where he reveals his musical inspiration.

Western Stars is very much a love letter to the music of Glen Campbell, and nowhere is that more apparent than in “The Wayfarer,” which owes a tremendous debt to one of Campbell’s tracks in particular: his 1969 single “Galveston.” If you listen to them both, there’s no doubting an intentional homage.

There are some narrative similarities between the two songs, too. Both “Galveston” and “The Wayfarer” feature narrators looking back towards home and the love they left far behind. However, Campbell’s narrator is a soldier called away to a foreign land by a sense of duty. Bruce’s character has no such nobility–he’s just moving ever forward, as Bruce’s guitar counts the white lines in the road from the opening bars.

It’s the same sad story, love and glory going ’round and ’round
It’s the same old cliché, a wanderer on his way, slipping from town to town
Some find peace here on the sweet streets, the sweet streets of home
Where kindness falls and your heart calls for a permanent place of your own

I’m a wayfarer, baby, I drift from town to town
When everyone’s asleep and the midnight bells sound
My wheels are hissing up the highway, spinning ’round and ’round

There’s also a bit of meta-commentary on display here. Bruce winks at his penchant for spinning tales of wanderers and nomads. It’s the same sad story, the same old cliché. But the last couplet of the first verse introduces some deliberate ambiguity. Some find peace in their hometown, our narrator tells us, implying that he’s not one of them. And yet, that last line–where kindness falls and your heart calls for a permanent place of your own–is too empathetic to come from the imagination of someone who hasn’t felt those feelings himself.

He may be a wayfarer, but we can tell he still feels the tug of a far-off home, specifically the first home he shared with his lost or left love.

You start out slow in a sweet little bungalow, something two can call home
Then rain comes falling, the blues come calling, and you’re left with a heart of stone
Some folks are inspired sitting by the fire, slippers tucked under the bed
But when I go to sleep I can’t count sheep for the white lines in my head

I’m a wayfarer, baby, I roam from town to town
When everyone’s asleep and the midnight bells sound
My wheels are hissing up the highway, spinning ’round and ’round

There’s a nice lyrical link in the first couplet to “Tucson Train,” the song that immediately follows “The Wayfarer” on the album. Then rain comes falling/tired of the pills and the rain. Just like “Hitch Hikin'” and “The Wayfarer” feature itinerant narrators, “The Wayfarer” and “Tucson Train” feature narrators who leave when life gets hard–but where the protagonist of “Tucson Train” does the work to reinvent himself and rekindles is relationship, our wayfarer just keeps on leaving.

He can leave, but he can’t escape. He may have left her behind, but his love haunts his thoughts. As he gives into the tide of time and memory, the song opens up. walls come down, and emotions come flooding in.

Where are you now
Where are you now
Where are you now

But something unexpected happens after the bridge. We expect the narrator to realize that his wanderlust is just a cover for his flight instinct, that he screwed up and ruined something good, and that perhaps he might even attempt to go home again–emotionally if not geographically.

Instead, though, what we feel is self-acceptance. I’m a wayfarer, baby, he tells us, and we believe him. He’s not running, after all. This is just his nature, and he’s at peace with it and with its cost. He wonders what’s become of his lover, but there’s no trace of regret in either his voice or the backing track, which only gets more confident and assured as the miles pass and the song concludes.

Like the protagonist of “Hitch Hikin’,” our narrator chooses a nomadic life. But in his case, freedom comes at a cost, and he appreciates it all the more for it.

These are themes Bruce mines throughout the rest of the record: the choices we make, the journeys we take, and the things we forsake along the way. Because moving forward means leaving something behind, and as we reach the final fork in the road and discover there’s still more miles left to travel, how we choose to spend those remaining miles matters.

That’s Western Stars.

Bonus: Like all of the tracks on Western Stars, Bruce has only performed “The Wayfarer” once before an audience, during the staged filming of his Western Stars concert document. And like pretty much every other song he performs in the film, the live version of “The Wayfarer” can’t match the lush and warm perfection of the studio track, despite the presence of that glorious orchestra. Nevertheless, it’s a beautiful performance and well worth watching.

The Wayfarer
Recorded: March 18, 2010 – early 2019
Released: Western Stars (2019)
First performed: April 2019 (Colts Neck, NJ)
Last performed: April 2019 (Colts Neck, NJ)

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