8. Tunnel Of Love (1987)
When people talk about Tunnel Of Love, they talk about it as the moment where Springsteen started writing about relationships. Now, Springsteen had been doing that for most of his career — it’s just that the relationships in question were often the sort of rock ‘n’ roll fairytales (“Rosalita” and “Sandy” come to mind) or those same fairytales flickering. Perhaps most often, relationships were a topic, but just one branch of threatened self-worth within larger narratives of working life, lack of fulfillment, and desires for escape. What’s different about Tunnel Of Love is its focus on the real guts of the thing, the intricacies and complexities of adult relationships. Namely, marriage.
At the time, that was a new way of life for Springsteen. He’d had girlfriends throughout his years of being a famous musician, but that occupation seems to have lent him the ability to remain loner-ish, often out on the road and able to keep any problems at an arm’s, or continent’s, length. That changed in 1985, when Springsteen married actress/model Julianne Phillips. Apparently, Springsteen had a hard time adjusting to married life; it’s rumored that he and E Street backup singer, and his future second wife, Patti Scialfa had an affair while on tour. Tunnel Of Love came out in 1987. He and Phillips were divorced in 1989. In light of all that, it’s not just that Tunnel Of Love delved into the complexity of a normal adult relationship, but it didn’t shy away from digging into the troubles and disintegrations of relationships, and the frustrating unknowableness of the people supposedly closest to you.
In hindsight, Tunnel Of Love can be viewed as a multi-faceted meditation: not just on the impending dissolution of Springsteen’s marriage, but on the impending dissolution of the E Street Band. Apparently, members of the band had seen it coming for a few years at that point. There was a general sense that Springsteen had changed during the success of the Born In The U.S.A. years (though, really, how could you not?) and grown distant from them. From Springsteen’s perspective, Born In The U.S.A. might have represented the zenith of what the band was capable of doing at that moment, and he had already been itching to explore playing with other musicians. So maybe because of these factors, or maybe because of the personal, interior nature of so many of the songs, Springsteen recorded much of Tunnel Of Love alone, and much quicker than he had previously worked with the E Street Band.
The pattern of Springsteen’s ’80s releases is one of those weird parts of his career I mentioned in the intro, and that has to do with the distance between what happened and what you’d expect given the massive pop presence he occupied during that decade. The dark Nebraska followed the resounding success of The River and “Hungry Heart”; most of that pop presence really came from Born In The U.S.A.‘s seven (!) hit singles. Rather than being pressured into releasing another rock album, Springsteen turned to Tunnel Of Love, an album just as interior as Nebraska, but in a far different way, devoid of the E Street Band’s sonic imprint and dominated by ballads.
Not that it was without its own pop successes. “Tunnel Of Love” and “Brilliant Disguise” were both hits, and are maybe the most enduring songs here. Despite sounding a little dated at times, much of the rest of it has aged well, and it remains, as many have credited it, one of Springsteen’s most mature albums. Maybe it’s tainted by knowledge of the history that followed (an uncomfortable tour, the dismissal of the E Street Band), but I’ve never been as into Tunnel Of Love as a lot of other people seem to be, and I rank it last amongst his classic-era output. And, truthfully, I’d sooner tell you to check out the ’70s outtakes from The Promise or Tracks, and I’d personally sooner listen to some of his ’00s material, but Tunnel Of Love is ranked where it is because of its legacy, the undeniable strength of its songwriting, and the important transition point it captures in Springsteen’s career.
