Track Listing

1. Ain't Got You
2. Tougher Than The Rest
3. All That Heaven Will Allow
4. Spare Parts
5. Cautious Man
6. Walk Like A Man
7. Tunnel Of Love
8. Two Faces
9. Brilliant Disguise
10. One Step Up
11. When You're Alone
12. Valentine's Day

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9103 in Music
• Released on: 2003-05-05
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
After several years at the top of the rock world, Springsteen pulled back the reins on Tunnel of Love--a lot, not just a little. Members of the E Street Band played on the album but seldom in full-band arrangements. Then, too, there are the deeply conflicted songs--"Brilliant Disguise", "Two Faces", "Tunnel of Love", "One Step Up"--that may have been written in response to the imminent failure of his first marriage. There's more to the album than divorce-court play-by-play, however. There's also the raw rocker "Spare Parts", the sprightly "All That Heaven Will Allow" and the bold declaration "Tougher Than the Rest". Overall, these are some of his most thoughtful songs and most intimate performances. --Daniel Durchholz

CD Description
TUNNEL OF LOVE (Bruce Springsteen's ninth album) is essentially a solo release and marked the final chapter of The E Street band, whose members appear separately on several tracks. Springsteen's home studio in Rumson, New Jersey was the primary recording location.
Popular music as an art form has attained some of its greatest peaks when dealing with the thorny material of relationships. Bruce Springsteen's TunnelOf Love, a powerful meditation on his own disintegrating marriage, represents a classic of its type. Predominantly an intimate solo recording the songs convey the gamut of emotions experienced in a long-term relationship, from desire ('Ain't Got You') through disquiet and deceit ('Tunnel Of Love' and 'Brilliant Disguise') to despair ('When You're Alone'), ending on a note of cautious optimism ('Valentine's Day'). Springsteen would never again be as nakedly emotional as he was on this beautiful and honest album.

Customer Reviews

Springsteen's finest hour
The collapse of Bruce Springsteen's marriage to his first wife Julianne was undoubtably the main inspiration behind this beautiful and reflective album. You could be easily mistaken in thinking that all of the songs would be about woe and suffering, but that has never been the Springsteen way. This highly underarted lyricist sharply gets to the centre of what major problems can occur when two aults decide to spend the rest of their lives together and it is all laid out in typically honest fashion. They say great art comes from pain and this is no exception, this album is easily the equal of Bob Dylans "Blood on the tracks". Songs like the title song and "One Step Up" are wonderfully reflective and like the rest of the album they are all covered in wonderfull melodic acoustic arrangements. There are other more straight forward tracks such as "Walk like a man" which incisively chronicles the expectations and pressures on new husbands to be and the lovely "All that heaven will allow" which is a classic Sprinsgteen love song. This is undoubtably Bruce's most honest album but it is also his most musical and in "Valentines Day" it posseses Bruce's finest ever song in a career that spans nearly twenty years. "Valentines day" is a song about the redemptive qualities of love and the fear we all have in losing the person we need and cherish the most, with the killer line "A friend of mine beacme a father last night, and in his voice i could hear the light". Shortly after his divorce and this albums release in 1987, Bruce married his backing singer Patti and now he has his own family. His output since has been patchy, but take a listen to this wonderful album when the Boss was still seeking the light and his music was all the better for it.

A moody follow-up to the flamboyant "Born In The USA" album
Coming three years after the era of the jeans-clad, T-shirt wearing Springsteen of "Born In The USA", this record has a much more subdued Bruce Springsteen on the cover, wearing a black suit and a cautious look on his face.

Many believe that his songs about mistrust and deceit in a relationship reflected Springsteen's own marital problems at the time, and the songs on "Tunnel Of Love" do indeed seem darker and more personal that his previous writings.

But that doesn't mean that it's all gloom and doom - "Ain't Got You" is a good-natured bluesy little song, and the glorious, slow rocker "Tougher Than The Rest" is the statement of a man who has been hurt but whose ego is intact and who is willing to take another chance.

"All That Heaven Will Allow" is light-hearted and fun in spite of itself. "Brilliant Disguise" is one of Springsteen's later masterpieces, a dark, bitter tale of supposed infidelity set to one of his best tunes. The tragic, yet hopeful "Spare Parts" rocks, whereas the quiet, folkish "Cautious Man" would have fitted seemlessly onto "Nebraska". And the same thing goes for "Walk Like A Man", which is just Springsteen, a synthesizer and Max Weinberg on percussion, and seems to carry a strong message to his father.

The only song that dosn't really work for me is actually the title track. A bland melody and too many unnecessary sound effects and annoying backing vocals.
"Two Faces" and "One Step Up" are pleasant little mid-tempo folk rockers, though, and the album closes with the resigned but melodious "When You're Alone" and another Nebraska-throwback, "Valetine's Day" (which would benefit from an actual melody, but really isn't all bad).

All in all, "Tunnel Of Love" is certainly not the most accessible album Bruce Springsteen has ever made, and it not as pop radio-friendly as "The River" or "Born In The USA", but give it a chance, and you will find that the lesser songs are vastly outnumbered by the good ones. And besides, it has "Brilliant Disguises" and the majestic "Tougher Than The Rest". Gotta have those two, right?

Moving
I bought this album in a sale. The first time I listened to it, I thought it was the best thing I'd heard in months.

This is Bruce's divorce album ( I'm sure ). This is an album about him losing the one he loves, and it's for real.

The real strength here is that you sense this album comes completely from the heart. That's not to say the album is raw, but what you have has been modulated and refined so what you're left with is the truth - Wordsworth said that emotion was passion recalled in tranquility, and that's what we have here.

What makes it strong is that Bruce is very much a man's man. He's not the type to conjure up fake tears and trauma - so his sadness here is the real deal.

It's an album about how it's hard to do the right thing, hard to stand up tall. It's about how important love is, and how hard it hits you when its gone. The beauty is that it lacks rancour and accusation. It's pure.

This is not Born in the USA, and it's not Born To Run - so fans of Springsteen might not find it completely to their taste. However, those who find Springsteen a little bombastic ( not saying he is ! ) should maintain an open mind about his work ( qv Ghost of Tom Joad ). He's a man with plenty to say.

Stand out tracks - Walk Like a Man, Brilliant Disguise, Valentines Day, and the glorious One Step Up.