This week they get their answer with the release of a potent pair of new Springsteen albums—Human Touch and Lucky Town—chock full of songs that should dispel all notions that the Boss, now 42, is resting on his riches. Laced with the familiar Springsteen themes (but backed by a mostly new band), the albums reveal a more mature but no less perceptive sensibility. There are songs that express the simple joys of fatherhood (the lullabylike "Pony Boy"), grief for victims of urban violence ("Souls of the Departed") and even Springsteen's wariness of his own wealth and fame. As he sings in "Better Days": "Now a life of leisure and a pirate's treasure/ Don't make much for tragedy/ But it's a sad man, my friend, who's livin' in his own skin/ And can't stand the company."
The albums were recorded during a 20-month period in a studio that Springsteen built in a guest house on the grounds of the 4½-acre estate that he shares with Scialfa, 38, son Evan James, 1½, and daughter Jessica Rae, 3 months. It's not hard to imagine why Springsteen hasn't been getting out much lately. Home turf these days consists of a 10,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, pink stucco Mediterranean villa complete with maid's and chauffeur's quarters and a newly added wing for a nursery and family room. There is also the four-bedroom Tudor guest house, once owned by actor Robert Vaughn, a new swimming pool, lush redwood, citrus and 200-foot-high eucalyptus trees, sculpted lawns and flowering gardens.
But if Bruce has left the Jersey Shore, where he came of age—and where he still owns a rambling Rum-son estate that once belonged to Gloria Swanson—his pirate's treasure doesn't really seemed to have changed him that much at all. He and Patti are frequent hosts to old friends like former E Streeter Little Steven Van Zandt, John Fogerty, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Hornsby and Sting. He still prefers his American-made Corvette and Ford Explorer to limos and fancy imports and still keeps two motorcycles in the garage for rumbles into L.A. with his wife. The Versace suits seem to have disappeared, and a while back he even boarded a plane lugging a paper shopping bag as his carryon. "Although he and Patti have a nanny for Evan and a nurse for Jessica Rae, Bruce takes Evan shopping at the mall, to the playground—all the things a father normally would do with his son," says a friend. "Bruce spends time with his children every day, no matter what."
Friends also dispute suggestions that the Boss's blue-collar mantle is fraying. "I don't think he's gone Hollywood," says onetime Jersey Shore-mate Southside Johnny Lyons, whose latest album, Better Days, features a guest turn by Springsteen. A video shoot at Asbury Park's Stone Pony last September "took on an Old Home Week atmosphere," says Lyons, 43. "It was a lot of fun. We'd just jam and tell stories."
Back in their scuffling days, a penniless Springsteen used to carry cookies in lieu of cash and crash in Lyons's Jersey apartment. "He's got a wife and kids now," says Lyons. "He's got to protect himself from the sharks and nuts. But he also knows that the reclusive life isn't any good either."
Whether Springsteen's working-man persona and straight-ahead rock-and-roll style will appeal to younger, dance-and rap-happy record buyers won't be known until fans have their say at the sales counter. Concerned Sony execs have limited the number of Springsteen discs retailers can order and are taking a wait-and-see attitude. But chances are that Springsteen, now living those better days he describes, isn't worrying about his niche in the pop marketplace. "It's his album, and it doesn't fit anyone's marketing schedule," notes Lyons. "Let Madonna worry about those things."
STEVE DOUGHERTY
JOYCE WAGNER in Los Angeles
- Contributors:
- Joyce Wagner.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
