Working On A Dream is a very different sounding record for you – what was the impetus behind it, what were you going for?
I haven’t written like this in a long time and I love this kinda music. And I love the big pop productions of the ‘60s and, the Righteous Brothers, Walker Brothers. I love those big romantic records, and so I said, well, this is something that I haven’t done and so when I returned there, to write, it was sort of this little vein that had been untapped and was kind of sitting there waiting, with a lot of fuel in it. So I wrote a lotta things very quickly and I said well, these romantic songs, they’re big melodies, I’m gonna sing in a big, big voice that I’ve kinda steered away from for a long time, and I want these very sort of orchestral pieces and that, that really became the motif, for where I wanted to go. With every record you’re looking to broaden your vision and broaden what you’ve done musically and extend your vision in some way. All I’m trying to do right now is make really well thought out, really well-crafted, inspiring records, and get music to my audience that is relevant to the times we’re living in and the times in their lives. It’s a funny record, it’s a record where you’ll hear pieces of it in all my other records, but if you have all my other records, you don’t have this record.

Brendon O’Brien has produced this album- you’ve worked with him since The Rising – & it’s a record with the E Street Band of course – does knowing you’re making a record with these people change the sort of songs you do?
It’s gonna basically be, you know, a rock record of some sort, music that people can hear the E Street Band playing but hopefully it’s an extension of that sound at this point. Which is really what Brendan O’Brien gave us, he gave us a way that the band was going to sound in the present. Through the ‘90s I struggled trying to find a sound and a purpose for the E Street Band which is why we had that long, long period of break, I said yeah, well what am I gonna do with the band, I’m not so sure. How does the band sound now, I really don’t exactly know. You know, I don’t wanna sound like, uh, we did sound, I don’t have an idea for, you know, where I’m going with it. So during the tour where we got back together, I wrote “Land of Hope and Dreams,” and “American Skin.” I said well these, these two–these are two songs that are as good as any ones I’ve written for the band in the past, could’ve been on Darkness on the Edge of Town, could’ve been on The River, these songs could’ve been on any of, what fans think–think of our… classic records at that time. So okay, I can still write for the band. Then after the tour we went into the studio. And we cut those things. We didn’t sound quite right. You know, we just… you know, our production team at that point, we had simply run outta gas, and run out of options and run out of new ideas. And, uh…it was just, we hit the wall.

So what did Brendon bring you?
So much of what you’re doing is you’re writing for an audience. First person in the audience, me. [LAUGHS]

Second, you know, very often, I–Jon, or the guys in the band. That’s the audience I perform for first when I have new music. And, uh, those are the guys–what do you think. [LAUGHS] That’s the first place I get feedback, and…suddenly, I had this new guy, had this new audience. Right? Different roots, little younger than the rest of us, had a language that was drawn from not just the references that we drew from, but now=2 0here’s a guy who was hip, he knew all of our references. Places where I, you know, steal all my things, you know [LAUGHS], and all my influences.

But he had the rest of the stuff too, he brought with him a lot of his references which were different from mine. And what he gave us is really a new lease on our recording life. If you don’t have any more ideas, go find somebody that has some. You know? [LAUGHS] Go out and find somebody that has, that has and you incorporate them into–in your creative life. and he had a real idea simply about, how to record the band powerfully, currently, and true to the band’s identity. So there was enormous excitement. that was a tremendous stimulation for me. And the writing through my fifties has come very, very, uh, don’t like to say easily but it’s been, it’s been fruitful. I’ve had a real prolific time. And, part of it has to do with I think…knowing that, if I’m gonna write something, I got a guy that’s gonna make it sound great.

Is there a theme to this album?
I guess it deals with kind of love and, and mortality. There’s this–the song “This Life,” , and, and I guess the other one is “Kingdom of Days”, those are songs that tackle the…love’s eternalness. [LAUGHS] Patti and I’ve been together 20 years, that’s a long time, you know, and it feels like nothing but it’s a lot of experience together. You get those–to that point in your life where [UNCLEAR] a lot of experience together. But it’s finite. You know, you realize well I’ve spent a big chunk of my life, we’ve spent a big chunk of our lives together. And…there’s, the, the cosmic elements [LAUGHS], start to leak into your relationship, you know, where you see, you see into the future, and you also see its finiteness, you know. And you go wow. Well, rock music is set in the eternal present. For me when I was young that w as–its primary message was now, now, now, now. Live now. And I think, that’s why, part of what the band when we come out onstage, you know, we are desperate for now, you know [LAUGHS]. Very desperate for now. And that immediacy and that urgency is a sense of, of urgency that you’re trying to communicate, so people will seize their own day. And, that to me was an essential part of what music communicated to me, was– [INHALES] it was a deep breath of now, a deep breath of the present, a deep breath of life, at the moment that it’s being lived. All the great records fill me with that breath. From any kind of records, punk records, romantic records, uh, pop records, you know, all I know is the record I really love fills me with that breath. That breath of life, that breath of– [INHALES] oh, right now, oh yeah, you know, and, and…fuels you and keeps you going. That’s the essential purpose I think of, of “Louie Louie” or great Beach Boys song or the best punk music –they all fill that same function. And that was part of the essence of punk music when it was hit was like…there’s not enough now right now. [LAUGHS]

The record starts with Outlaw Pete, a real old cowboy fable. Where did that come from?
One of the first things I started to do when we started to write some of these, I said I’m gonna write a little, a little opera, you know. Haven’t tried anything like that in a long time, you know, it’s “Jungleland” or something. And I thought of a lot of things like “Heroes and Villains” and I thought of this: my mother used to tell me this story about Cowboy Bill. And it was “Of all the hands on Bar-H Ranch, the bravest was–young Cowboy Bill.”
So I said, well…uh…okay, you know, this is “Outlaw Pete”! So I started off sort of like a Coen brothers movie and a sort of, this little baby that’s robbing a bank[LAUGHS] Starts out this little baby cowboy that’s, that’s robbing a bank and, and all he says is, all he wants people to know is, I’m Outlaw Pete. Can you hear me. [LAUGHS] So, so initially I said yeah, that’s, that’s a good line, man, that’s– “I’m Outlaw Pete, can you hear me,” you know.
And, his entire life is, he’s forging this identity and he wants to know –he asks the same question to everybody, can you hear me? So it’s…it’s his, it’s his prime…it’s his prime motivation more than, more than robbing the banks [LAUGHS], or anything else, you know, and, and it turns the song into this search for identity, it turns through a lotta my stuff. And it starts as a farce, and ends as a terrible tragedy [LAUGHS and…it’s, it’s hard to exactly explain probably because it’s very close to me. [LAUGHS] When I think about it. Though it’s not me, you know. It’s about the, the, how the past is never the past. The past is always present. It’s always the present. How the past is always with us, with you. And how you better come to terms with it. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. [LAUGHS] It will get you really bad, you know. It, it, it will, you know, it will come and it will devour you, it will remove you from the present. And it will steal your future. And so, the song, is about this happening, to this character. You know, he moves ahead. He tries to make the right moves, he awakes from a vision of his death. And he realizes, life is finite. Time is with me always. And I8 0m frightened. And he rides west where he settles down. But the past comes back to get him in the form of this bounty hunter [LAUGHS] who is also, whose mind is quickened and burdened by the need to get his man. [LAUGHS] So…he’s possessed. [LAUGHS] All right. And the two of these sort of possessed creatures meet along the shores of this river where the bounty hunter of course is, is killed, and his last words are we can’t undo the things we’ve done.

In other words, your past is your past. You carry it with you always. These are your sins. You carry them with you, always. All right. You better learn how to live with ‘em. You better learn the story that they’re telling you because they’re whispering in your ear your future. All right? And if you don’t listen, your future will be contaminated by the toxicity of your past and of your sins.

What’s behind a song like Queen of the Supermarket?
They opened up this big, beautiful supermarket near where we lived. And Patti and I would go down [LAUGHS], and we’d– I remember walking through the aisles, I probably hadn’t been in one in a while and I walked in and says, wow. This place is spectacular [LAUGHS]. This place is…it’s a fantasyland.
So I came home [LAUGHS], said wow, the, the supermarket is, is fantastic, it’s my new favorite place. Right– [LAUGHS] And I said I’m gonna write a song, I’m gonna write a song about it, right [LAUGHS]. And, I started to write this song “Queen of the Supermarket” because, if there’s a supermarket and all these things are there, well there has to be a queen. [LAUGHS] And, and if you go there, of course there is. There’s millions of them, and so it’s kind of a song about finding beauty where it’s ignored also, you know, or where it’s passed by. It was just fun, it was just something that I sort of wrote for fun, and yet at the same time, those objects of desire are the things that sometimes, they just keep=2 0people living.

What inspires you when you’re writing songs?
Marty Scorsese once said, the artist’s job is to make people care about your obsessions and see them as their own and experience them as their own. You’re always trying to do that, you know. And I think when you grab your audience, you’re doing that well, and when you and your audience diverge, maybe you’re not doing it quite as well. So even, even if I move to The Ghost of Tom Joad or Nebraska I always assume, people are going to be interested in what I’m interested in. If I tell the story interestingly enough, you know [LAUGHS]. That’s my job. It’s about the search for and, and, and discovering beauty in the everyday.

That, that was what was great about all the music I loved as a child.=2 0People thought it was junk. Not beautiful, they thought it was–they thought it was not beautiful. But it was, it was beautiful. People were unaware of the subtext, in so many of those great early records but, you know, if you were a kid you were just completely tuned in. No, no, you don’t understand. We used to–you, you, even though you didn’t always say that it was a beau–you wouldn’t dare say it was beautiful. You’d say, you would just–I like it. [LAUGHS] No, Dad, I, I just, I like this, or it’s great, or it’s fun or, or it’s exciting me and those, the, the records… you know, some of them sustained their beauty, just, if you listen to the great Beatle records, say take the earliest ones. You know, where the lyrics are incredibly simple, why are they still beautiful? Why are those records still beautiful, well, they’re beautifully sung. They’re, they’re beautiful played, and, the mathematics in them, is, is elegant. They, they, they, they retain their elegance. So I think you’re, you know, you’re trying to write elegantly also. And there’s a lotta things on this record where I was interested in that kind of a pull–that kind of a creative pull where, what it’s about is, is it’s not the stream that runs on top through your farm, it’s the stream where it disappears underground. And the record–this is a record that needs to be listened to more than once or twice. It’s a funny record, it’s a record that I think it works on you…more underground than on top at first, you know.

What’s a song like Kingdom of Days about?
“Kingdom of Days” is about time, time, because, uh…I’m old enough to worry about that a little bit. [LAUGHS] Not too much but a little bit. The whole first couple of verses are about, how…uh… time is, is obliterated…in the presence of somebody…you love at, at, at certain moments, you know. How there seems to be a transcendence of, of time, in love. And I believe that there is. I believe that there is, I carry a lotta people with me that aren’t–that aren’t here anymore so love transcends time. So the normal markers of the day, of the month, of the year…those very fearsome markers, right, as you get older particularly. In the presence of love, and someone you care about…they lose some of their fearsome power. And it als o deals with the fact that the romantic ideal, at some point, deals with deterioration. The deterioration of your physical body…and the last verse talks about that, talks about aging And you can start…you visit that place in each other’s face. Not just the past and today, but you visit the tomorrows in that person’s face now. And everybody knows what that holds.

So is that idea of death a new thing for you to write about?
Actually if you go back to “Wreck on the Highway” and…it starts, it starts to run through a lot of my music. “Sinaloa Cowboys,” it’s a subtext through a lot of things, as…uh, it’s in “Ramrod.” [LAUGHS] Hey, they’re gonna go ramrod, forever more, you know. There the set-up is sort of…an idea that you can perhaps, run away from time. It’s in most great rock music, because the very desperateness of the presentness, and impact of so many great records, immediately tells you, oh, there’s something else, my friend. [LAUGHS] The life force in it, it’s always a ranting against the other thing. And the mythology is always, is always so mixed. The skulls, the crossbones, the death’s head- why’s it on your motorcycle? It’s ever-present. I hear death in all those early Elvis Presley records, you know, those really– all those great early, spooky blues records. But, you know, and records made by young kids - it’s in “Thunder Road,”. A sense of time and passage of time and you’re not so young anymore, the, the passage of innocence. So it cuts through all pop music but in this record, it comes more to the surface, but primarily the record works, and I wanted it to work as just, as simple pop music, you know [LAUGHS]. It’s clear. It’s clearly written. I can obfuscate these things for hours on end, my friend. Just give me the time– [LAUGHS] And I’ll go on about it, all right, I will go–I’ll go on– I–I’ll confuse you. But, well, we get older and things get simpler too. [LAUGHS]

Last year your old friend & bandmate Danny Federici passed, and The Last Carnival is about him obviously.
It was just a…song I wrote for Danny… after he died, you know, um… It was sort of, the–it’s the flip side of “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” I guess. Danny…Danny brought that… He was a unique player, you know, and… [SIGHS] You know it’s, it’s just you go back of course, you know, listening to his playing recently and… He was just– he was a true folk musician, in that no one played like him, in that he could not repeat things, that he did…regularly… He– I’ve never seen a more spontaneous player. It was, it was just… And I–I never saw another guy who was able, to sort of bypass, the parts of your brain that get in your way, and his instincts went straight to his fingers. Like I said if I wanted to loosen something up, I always put Danny on. ‘Cause, uh, he will just play something–first of all, I, I’d put him on and not tell him what to play, because, Danny or–that was a lost cause. He was not somebody that20you got in, and, and worked on an intense arrangement with - that was not his forte. His forte was, having something come through him and out his fingers that relaxed…and excited, and made spontaneous the track that you, uh, that you were working on, he almost ex–he almost exclusively played with only one hand. But it was magical, the one hand was magical, and, what’s nice is that we got him on a significant amount of this record before he, before he died. Danny was, uh, always, uh, a very reckless member [LAUGHS] of the E Street Band. [LAUGHS] And, and we, we banged heads a lot. We banged heads a lot, you know. He was…wonderfully kind, when Patti first got in the band he has…he–I think he was the guy that was best to her, you know. Had a deep, soulful softness, a lotta hurt. [LAUGHS] A lotta hurt. And, uh, you know, long time, time passes, long time together, in the end, hey, you know, you just loved the guy. He’s the first, the first guy that we ever lost really, the thing I’ve been proudest about for…a long time was that unlike many other bands our band members, they lived. [LAUGHS] They lived and, uh…that was something that was a group effort. You know, it was something that we did together. The surviving part. People did watch the other person. And it was a testament to the life force I think that was at the core of our music was…nobody gave up on you. And that lasted a long time. People got pulle d out of a lot of holes. And I would include myself. In different ways over many, many different years.

You won a Golden Globe for your title song for the film The Wrestler – how did that come about?
I know Mickey Rourke from– for a long time back, when, uh…I guess the early ‘80s or something, you know, he’d some to some shows and we met and we hung out a little bit and, when I first moved to Los Angeles. I was just always a fan of his acting and his, his, uh, he’s just a guy that he, he just carries some uniqueness with him, you know, a level of authenticity and just a beautiful guy, you know, I always, I always, I always thought, you know, and, and so he called me he said, well this movie is kind of a–he said it was a smal l movie, they were looking for some music, I said what’d you– I don’t…don’t think I have time to…score a picture and I’ve never done it but I, I can see if I can come up with a song, so they sent me a script and I read the script and, uh, and I wrote the song, you know, probably in an afternoon. It’s the same, just like writing anything, you know, except maybe you’re– I’m thinking about him…I’m thinking about the film, I’m thinking about me. [LAUGHS] You know. So, so for it to be, for it to be good, you’ve kinda got to think about all those, all those things, you know. And I said, well, I wanna write something that feels true to his spirit, I wanna write something outta something that I, maybe some commonality, that I feel between the two of us, something that I al–also know, and then something that makes sense in the story that the, the film is telling. It’s basically a song sort of about, about being damaged and living on.

How do you write something for a fictional character though, somebody that’s not you?
Everybody understands hurt, you know. [LAUGHS] Nobody doesn’t understand that, you know it’s the old job of putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes, while you’ve got a foot in somebody else’s shoe, and a foot in your own shoe. [LAUGHS] You know. And that’s how it works. I’m grounding this song in something that I know, I’ve felt, I’ve experienced myself, that I believe I can write about. If I can’t write about it then I can’t write you your song, you know, I can’t write that song.
So everybody understands damage by the time they were 12 years old - damage, what it does to somebody, the inability to get in. The inability to stand the things that nurture you. Uh, okay, these things will, will give you a life, if you can stand them. If you can stay in the room with them, if you can stand to be there with them. Because much of our life of course is spent running. Born To Run, running, running, one of my specialties, you know. You find your identity in the damage that’s been done to you. Very, very dangerous. You find your identity in your wounds, in your, uh, in the scars and the places where you’ve been beat up. And you turn them into a medal. We all wear the things we’ve survived with some honor. But the honor is in you wear those things, but also transcending them, you know. And, and moving past them. everybody has experience with those things, but if you live in them, if you make them your life, it’s a very dangerous life to make for yourself, and it’s gonna be a very hard and unsatisfying one. And that’s a daily choice and a daily experience, in my own life, you know, I’ve built a lot, but…I don’t kid myself that there’s certain parts of me that…that, hey - there’s always a part of you that wants to take it away. And, uh, uh, so the song, it’s about, it’s about that. It’s about, where do you find the honor in your life.

Do you still feel like a 12 year old sometimes?
There is no part of yourself, that you leave behind. That’s a–it0s, it’s, it can’t be done. You can’t remove any part of yourself. You can only manage the different parts of yourself, all right. There’s a car, it’s filled with people. The 12-year-old kid’s in the back. So’s the 22-year-old. So is the 40-year-old. So is the 50-year-old guy that’s done pretty well, so’s the 40-year-old guy that likes to screw up. So’s the 30-year-old guy that wants to get his hands on his wheel and puts the pedal to the metal, and drive you into a tree. That’s okay, that’s never gonna change. Nobody’s leaving. Nobody’s getting thrown out by the roadside. The doors are shut, locked and sealed, all right, until you go into your box. But, who’s driving, makes a really big difference about where the car is going. And if the wrong guy’s at the wheel…it’s, you know, it’s, it’s crash time, and, so the key is you move through life. It’s not you don’t leave these people behind, or these parts of yourself. You try to get good at managing them. And I know people that, sometimes when people go into something where they wanna change but, you know, but if I stop drinking I won’t be able to write, because that guy’ll be gone. If, uh, if I go and find out about this I won’t know who I am and this person will leave– Nobody’s going anywhere. Ever. They’re all in the car with you, and that is–and it’s a lifetime ride. But who’s at the wheel. You want the latest model of yourself being at the wheel hopefully, you know, the part of you that’s sussed some of this out. And can drive you someplace where you wanna go.

It’s 36 years since you released your first album, and you’re still a big star with a big audience – why do you think you still connect with those fans?
The writers people are interested in are people that got something eating at them. Those are the guys they’re interested in. Elvis - what was eating at that guy? Why did he have to sing like that and move like that. Well something was. Jerry Lee Lewis, what was eating at him, what was eating at Hank Williams. You know. Uh…uh… You know, it’s like something. Johnny Lydon, you know, what’s, what’s eating at–I mean something’s… All the people…that I think… uh, people find interesting, whose work they find interesting, are people that got something eating at=2 0them. And so the idea is, how do you manage that thing that’s eating at you, without letting it eat you? ‘Cause that’s what it wants to do. And so you know, my records and the music and, and, are me attempting to…keep from being eaten. [LAUGHS] As best as I can. [LAUGHS]