I’ve been following Bruce Springsteen for fifty years, since I first saw him in concert in Norfolk, Virginia, one August night in 1975. I was sixteen, looking for something transcendent, something that would rock my soul. It was the Born to Run tour, promoting the album that is his magnum opus. Three jaw-dropping hours later, I left that venue feeling more alive than ever.
Since then, I’ve seen the Boss twenty-five times. I own every album, a few concert DVDs, and a bunch of bootlegs. I’ve read several biographies, including his memoir, and hundreds of articles.
Until the recent release of Faithless, no one had written about an entire Springsteen album of spiritual songs, because it didn’t exist.
All that to say, I feel like I know Springsteen pretty well. But I did not know until recently that, twenty years ago, he made a gospel album. An honest-to-God record of songs of faith and doubt, sin and redemption, prayer and confession, and a deep longing for heaven. The work is titled, ironically, Faithless, and it’s one of seven never-before-heard records on Tracks II: The Lost Albums, which was released in June. Springsteen, a prolific writer, recorded the seven albums—a total of eighty-three songs—between 1983 and 2018, but had shelved them all for one reason or another.
Faithless, written and recorded in 2005, was supposed to be a soundtrack for a film by the same title, a movie Springsteen calls “a spiritual Western.” The film was never made, and the eleven songs were set aside… until now. (Unfortunately, the Faithless album is not available by itself, but only sold as part of the seven-album Tracks II collection. Alternatively, there’s also a twenty-song sampler called Lost and Found.)
Springsteen, a self-described “lapsed Catholic,” gave some back story to The New York Times.
“I had an hour of religion every single morning from when I was 6 years old until I was 12, 13,” he said. “They steeped you in the Bible and ideas of damnation and redemption. When you get that at that age, it stays with you your entire life. Luckily I was able to turn it into lyrics and concepts. There’s a lot of references to religious imagery in a lot of my music.”
I’ve noticed that imagery over the years. “Land of Hope and Dreams” is one of my favorite songs about the hereafter, and The Rising, an album written and recorded after 9/11, is rife with songs of hope and new life. Many articles have explored Springsteen’s songs of faith, and a Rutgers prof even taught a course and wrote a book about it. But until the recent release of Faithless, no one had written about an entire Springsteen album of spiritual songs, because it didn’t exist.
It’s Steinbeck meets Louis L’Amour. Or, as the National Catholic Register wryly observes, “It’s the Augustinian journey, Jersey style.”
Springsteen, now seventy-five, plays most of the instruments himself on the project, which includes elements of folk, country, blues, and gospel. The needle drops on instrumental opener “The Desert.” Perhaps a nod to the temptation of Christ? We don’t know. There are three more instrumentals—including the lovely, haunting “A Prayer by the River”—all meant as “interstitials” for the movie that never was.
The seven lyrical songs seem to describe the journey of a fictional cowboy, narrating seminal moments of his life. There’s a harkening for the holy and there are struggles with temptation, often all at once. It’s Steinbeck meets Louis L’Amour. Or, as the National Catholic Register wryly observes, “It’s the Augustinian journey, Jersey style.”
“Where You Going, Where You From” describes a man “wandering on the road to kingdom come… building my mansion in the evening sun,” while also wrestling with a whiskey bottle and the Devil. And yet every verse, whether praise or confession, ends with “Glory hallelujah.”
On “Faithless,” our protagonist—played by Springsteen himself in cowboy garb in the lyric video—says he was “faithless” until “I met you.” Is that a human or a divine “you”? Perhaps this verse is the tell: “I reached for the hem of His garment / I stood in the light of the doorway / I saw my face in the waters at the riverside / Faithless, then I found you.”
In “All God’s Children,” with a raucous vibe resembling an old work song, the character growls, “I ain’t been to heaven but I’ve been to hell,” but then proclaims with confidence, “I’ll be ready when the rapture comes / Glory hallelujah.”
“God Sent You,” a tender psalm of praise, is sung over piano accompaniment with a gospel choir chiming in near the end:
God sent you to me
A prayer of safety and salvation
God sent you to me
When faith was so hard to see
God sent you to me
Through His inner light, forsake temptation
God sent you to me
Up next is “Going to California,” where our main character reveals his travel plans to an Edenic destination “where the sweet fruit falls off the trees / The honeysuckle bloom and the blossom perfume the cool of the evening breeze.” And yet, like Eden, it’s not without temptation: “Where the women are as pretty as pearls / Where the rivers brim with whiskey and gin and the Spanish señoritas twirl.”
“My Master’s Hand,” the album’s best song, is a reverent prayer to be God’s vessel, come hell or high water: “And when the devil’s wheel spins ’round / With sword and shield I’ll lay him down… / I’ll be the hammer in my master’s hand.” The fade-out, with harmonica and a gospel choir, is soul-stirring.
The album’s penultimate song, “Let Me Ride,” is an appeal for grace… and admission to the ever after. Our character, joined again by a gospel choir, pleads for mercy:
I’ve been a stranger, I’ve been a thief
I’ve been a gambler, I’ve been a cheat
Give me my ticket, Lord, and let me ride
A fitting prayer for us all, sinners in need of a grace-filled ticket to glory.
