Unexpectedly we watched.
“Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight,
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog, soldier in the night;
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.”
There are two songs I can think of, which have captured something so powerful that they make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. One is Bob Dylan’s ‘Chimes Of Freedom’. The other is Bruce Springsteen’s live 1988 cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Chimes Of Freedom’.
They’re so special to me, I even stop myself from listening to them too often. I ration them carefully in order to preserve their magic. Like a kid who has a first-issue comic book and only gets it out every once in a while to marvel at it, just in case it somehow disintegrates or bursts into flame.
It might sound strange, but I’m scared I’ll frighten them away.
The reason I’ve chosen to write about Springsteen’s cover rather than the original is that, although some would argue the original version, by definition, is the better of the two, I think it’s less interesting. Or rather, less surprising. Obviously, it’s one of Dylan’s many masterpieces. It’s hard-hitting, poetic and ahead of its time. The words are so clear, so sharp and so idealistic, that it’s hard to bear listening to the entire song if you’ve ever done anything bad in your life. And its bare-bones production and Dylan’s expertly timed delivery serve to highlight and nurture these powerful lyrics.
What Springsteen manages to do, is take the bare bones, throw a leather jacket on them, strap them into a 1960 Chevrolet Corvette and send them roaring into the night.
Unlike a lot of cover songs, it doesn’t lose any of the original spirit. Springsteen just uses it as a foundation to build on. The Byrds’s 1965 cover is the complete opposite. It’s true that Springsteen does appear to use this one as the framework for his own arrangement, but on its own, The Byrds’s version pales in comparison to the other two, and comes across as just another pop song that will be swiftly forgotten (although, they did manage a brilliant Dylan cover with ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ on the same album). It isn’t a fresh perspective. It fails at transcending the weight of the original and carving out a place for itself as something new. Something bold.
My point is - Springsteen does this. He achieves a perfect synthesis: Dylan’s unique songwriting meets the legendary E Street sound.
It starts quietly, a lone synth cutting through the cheers of the audience, Roy Bittan masterfully managing to epitomise the essence of the entire song with a few twinkly chord changes. And then, when the crowd’s attention has been fully and unequivocally caught, Bruce’s voice hurtles in from out of nowhere, smashing through the tension as he belts out the opening lines. Somehow, his words contain an equal amount of raw power and measured softness. This strange combination gives what he’s saying a huge amount of authority. A huge amount of weight - like a general rallying his troops to battle.
And you want to follow him. You would follow him. But you’re rooted to your seat, in awe.
For a whole verse, he speaks to you personally, the synth steadily twinkling away beside him. And then the stage explodes in the second verse with the energy of the E Street Band. Max Weinberg hammering the snare like it’s a war drum. Steve Van Zandt lending his guitar to the synth’s jingle-jangley wall of sound.
Before you know it, it’s the last verse. How long have you been sitting there, transfixed?
The band stop playing and you’re back at the beginning of the song, Bruce addressing you personally again. His voice accompanied only by “Little” Steven’s guitar. And the audience can’t help but start clapping along - perhaps involuntarily - trying to communicate to the band that, now, thanks to them, their lives will never be the same again.
And by the time Bruce is roaring the last four lines, you’re one of them. The damage is done – you’re not just a normal person listening to a song anymore, you’re a soldier, a legend, a hero crusading against all injustice in the world, and you have an ineffable feeling that everything is perfect in your life and nothing will ever go wrong again.
“Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed,
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse,
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe;
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.”
