{"id":41081,"date":"2023-01-22T05:16:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-22T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=41081"},"modified":"2023-01-22T07:12:15","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T15:12:15","slug":"roll-of-the-dice-soul-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/22\/roll-of-the-dice-soul-driver\/","title":{"rendered":"Roll of the Dice: Soul Driver"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Whenever I\u2019m paging through magazines and there\u2019s like a compendium of your records… you know, \u201cThe Bruce to Buy\u201d and \u201cThe Bruce Not to Buy\u201d… [<\/span>Human Touch<\/em><\/span>] is always sort of star-challenged. And perhaps unfairly!” — <\/span>Bruce Springsteen, August 10, 2005<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or perhaps not.<\/p>\n

Despite a few standout tracks, there’s a reason Human Touch<\/em> is a little light in the stars department.<\/p>\n

It’s not the songs, though. Even the weakest track<\/a> on the album has redeeming virtues, and two in particular (the title track<\/a> and “Real World<\/a>“) rank among the best in Springsteen’s catalog.<\/p>\n

The problems lie in the arrangements and production, which render even gorgeous songs like “Real World” so clunky and dated that they sounded pass\u00e9 on the day they were released.<\/p>\n

The sad thing is: it didn’t have to be that way.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, “Soul Driver.” One of the earliest songs written and recorded for\u00a0Human Touch<\/em>, it seems to have started as a Springsteen-Bittan collaboration like “Real World” and “Roll of the Dice<\/a>.” Unlike the other two songs, however, Bruce decided to write his own music for it. He debuted the finished song at his acoustic Christic Institute concerts in November 1990, almost a year-and-a-half before it saw official release.<\/p>\n