Roll of the Dice: Stones

Lies: they will devour everything you have and everything you will ever have. Faith, hope, trust.. all those things that are hard to come by. That’s what grows your garden of love. Lies will try to make a fool out of all those things. But without them, all you have is stones. 

 

— Bruce Springsteen, Western Stars (2019)

If you ask me for my favorite Springsteen song on any given day, my answer will vary. There are too many gems from which to choose just one.

Ask me for Bruce’s best song, his most well-written, his catchiest, darkest, most romantic or thought-provoking, and I still couldn’t confidently narrow it down to one.

But ask me for his most beautiful track, and I’ll answer consistently and without hesitation every time.

From the moment I first heard it, “Stones” has stood unrivaled in my esteem for its loveliness both in vocals and music. When Bruce refers to Western Stars as a “jewel box of a record,” I have no doubt he’s thinking of “Stones” as its exemplar.

Every moment of “Stones” is carefully crafted, from its string-and-french-horn introduction to the interweaving of Luis Villalobos’ achingly gorgeous violin solo with the song’s central motif in the coda.

As for Bruce’ s vocals, they are unparalleled in Orbisonian warmth across his entire fifty-year catalog. That’s not a coincidence: for “Stones” to work,  it’s essential that every moment of the song glisten with sun-drenched beauty.

To understand why, we need to understand the song.

As Bruce cautions by way of introduction in the filmed version of Western Stars, lies have a way of eating away at even our truest, strongest, and most elemental relationships.

Over time, lies can turn a lush garden into a barren tundra, but they often take root at the height of spring. That’s why they’re so insidious: when first planted, our garden seems so verdant that it’s hard to imagine any weed could strangle it. But they can and do, and Bruce explains how through metaphor.

I woke up this morning with stones in my mouth
You said those were only the lies you’ve told me
Those are only the lies you’ve told me

I pulled my collar to the wind and spit them on the ground
You said those are only the lies you’ve told me
Those are only the lies you’ve told me

We sat on the edge of our bed in the sun
I felt them gather on my tongue

We meet our narrator in the prime of springtime, when love is young and vibrant. But the seeds of its demise are already present, and he knows it. The titular stones he wakes to aren’t salivary stones. They’re the untruths–perhaps small at first–that he tells his partner. And his partner calls him on it.

She recognizes the lies, and more forebodingly, she knows they’re only the ones he’s spoken–strongly implying that there are unspoken ones too. Lies of omission can cause even greater damage, because they wreak their destruction unseen below the surface, like weeds in a garden.

It’s no coincidence that the most repeated line in “Stones” is those are only the lies you’ve told me.

In the second stanza, the weather is already beginning to turn. Our narrator gathers his collar against the wind of his lover’s distrust even as he attempts to unburden himself. They still sit together in the sunlight, but he can feel the seasons changing.

In the next two stanzas, we flash forward. Our narrator can see the future, and it’s decidedly darker than the present.

The dirt-brown winter field, a thousand black crows cover the ground
You say those are only the lies you’ve told me
Those are only the lies you’ve told me

The autumn wind blows through the trees
As the dark leaves come tumbling down
You say those are only the lies you’ve told me
Those are only the lies you’ve told me

Notice that Bruce has broadened the metaphor. The lies that started as stones have choked the life from the field. Dark leaves fall, a cold wind blows, and a thousand crows cover the ground–all symbols of proliferating untruths.

Crows are highly symbolic creatures across many cultures and religions, and while they can augur both good or ill depending on the context and interpreter, they are almost always seen as omens–and usually, the more crows present, the more dire the warning.

And yet:

I walk a highway washed in sun
I feel weight gather on my tongue

We are still in the green times, still in the sunlight. We’re in the moments where truth matters most. But the weight of the unspoken is growing.

I woke up this morning with stones in my mouth…

That’s why it’s so essential that “Stones” shines with such a warm vocal performance and a bright, wide-open, orchestral vista. We’re meant to feel this love at its most pure and powerful so that we might understand what our narrator stands to lose.

“Stones” features some seriously dense and layered orchestration. Besides the prominent strings (Villalobos backed by the Avatar Strings), horns (Rachel Drehmann and Leelanee Sterrett) and timpani (Jon Brion), Bruce and Ron Aiello together juggle guitars, piano, banjo, upright bass, drums, and more keyboards than we can easily discern. (I have no idea who’s responsible for the finger-popping that kicks in around 1:35, but it makes me smile every time.)

Without a doubt, though, the musical pinnacle comes at 3:46, when the orchestra falls away to make room for a gorgeous solo by Villalobos accompanied only by Bruce or Ron (it’s hard to know who’s playing what) on piano. That solo is meant to represent love’s essence, untainted by lies until the orchestra returns with the song’s main theme at 4:06, intertwined with the violin solo as the strings fade and only the “Stones” theme survives.

The last words we hear are the first words we heard: I woke up this morning with stones in my mouth, leading us to believe that our narrator will miss the moment and steer inevitably toward the winter.

“Stones” is a carefully crafted song, created (like most of Western Stars) over the course of a decade. Even on an album full of meticulously arranged songs, “Stones” stands out as a track in which every decision, every element counts.

That’s why the song doesn’t work nearly as well when translated to a live performance in the filmed version of Western Stars. However, there is at least one aspect of the live arrangement that outshines its studio counterpart: the backing vocals.

It’s unclear to me who performs them on the album. It’s definitely a male voice, and Ron Aniello is credited with backing vocals on the song. I’m not familiar with his voice, though, and it’s possible that it might be Bruce himself singing in a different register. Either way, the backgrounds sound so similar to Bruce’s lead that they create an impression of the narrator’s inner voice rather than that of his partner.

Compare it with the live version, in which Patti Scialfa shares the microphone with Bruce. It’s a more resonant performance, one that’s easier for a casual listener to appreciate, and it works so well that it’s a rare instance of (in my opinion, at least) a Western Stars studio misstep.

It’s only a minor misstep, though, and the studio track still outshines its live counterpart overall.

Like the rest of Western Stars, “Stones” wasn’t meant to be reproduced on the stage. I’m not saying we’ll never hear Bruce play it live, but I don’t believe we’ll ever hear a live performance that surpasses the studio version. When you’ve crafted a jewel box of a record, it’s pretty darn hard to top it in concert.

Stones
Recorded: 2010-2019
Released: Western Stars (2019)
First performed: April 2019 (Colts Neck, NJ)
Last performed: April 2019 (Colts Neck, NJ)

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