There are so many great Springsteen covers out there that I try not to feature the same artist multiple times.
But I’m a sucker for a fresh interpretation of one of Bruce’s songs, and I’m hard pressed to name anyone more inventive with their covers than Silent Bear. (Check out his funky, improvisational, thirteen-minute cover of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” to see what I mean.)
Today’s entry is just as creative.
“Lyrically, ‘Badlands‘ has always been one of my favorites,” Silent Bear explained to me. “If I choose to cover a song, most of the time, I like to challenge myself by coming up with an original arrangement. This was something that popped into my head that I just went with and it worked. As a solo performance, I wanted the power of the lyric to come through without the support of a large ‘ wall of Sound’ band arrangement like the original. In retrospect, my arrangement kind of reminds me of some of Bruce’s Nebraska arrangements, raw and blues-driven.”
Raw and bluesy are perfect descriptions of Silent Bear’s 2004 live performance captured above. It preserves both the darkness and the defiance of Bruce’s lyrics while recasting it in a completely new musical light.
For more of Silent Bear’s creative covers and original songs, check out his Soundcloud here.
