r/BruceSpringsteen • u/rollotomasi07071 • 8d ago
Misc Tunnel of Love was released on this date in 1987. "Springsteen wrote about the promises people make to each other and the way they renege on those promises, about the romantic dreams we're brought up with and the internal demons that stifle those dreams"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_of_Love_(album)67
u/Double_Jab_Jabroni 8d ago
āGod have mercy on the man who doubts what heās sure ofā.
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u/UseTerrible9587 8d ago
Always loved that line and really understood what it meant when my first marriage ended. Couples applying for a marriage license should be required to listen to the ToL album before being approved.
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u/MarvinWebster40 8d ago
When I look at myself I donāt see, the man I wanted to be. Somewhere along the line I slipped off track. Devastating writing
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u/InternationalYard665 Devils & Dust 8d ago
I was so disappointed in this album when it came out. I was 19 and cut my Springsteen teeth on BITUSA. I thought we were getting another record just like that one, and instead got this moody, depressing, stark collection of ballads that a 19 year old with a hot girlfriend, a fast car, a party lifestyle, and hardly a care in the world could understand.
Well, over the next 30 years life started throwing punches. That hot girlfriend dumped me soon after, the car was gone, my mother and grandfather died, I got married, had a kid, and divorced. Met a woman who most people thought it was scandalous when we started dating. Ive been with her for 20+ years, married for 12 of them.
Long story short (I know, too late), i absolutely love this album. Every track speaks to some experience in my life. When I lost my dad in '23 I listened to 'Walk Like A Man' 10 times in a row and wept. My dad never recovered from losing my mom 35 years prior, and I watched him become a shell over those years. "I was young and I didn't know what to do when I saw your best steps stolen away from you. Now I'll do what I can, and try to walk like a man." On of my favorite lyrics in all of music.
This album is a masterpiece.
Thanks for listening. š
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u/oedipus_wr3x 8d ago
āBobby said heād pull out, Bobby stayed in.ā
ā¦not as deep as the other quotes, but itās very economical storytelling.
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u/Tough_Caregiver248 8d ago
Imagine being his wife at the time and hearing these songs
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u/MolaMolaMania 8d ago
Bruce needed therapy to get his head straight.
His childhood and youth were loaded with trauma that would stick with you and tear you down your entire life unless you dealt with it. He saw how his father and mother couldn't get along, and he said in a live performance that "home didn't see to me like a place to spend time."
It's great to see that he did the work and was able to give home a special meaning for himself, at long last.
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u/coneofconvergence 8d ago
Yes!! Saw this tour in Philly and had great seats. Julie and her fam were seated behind us. You could see Bruce and Patty had so much chemistry onstage! I turned around and Julie had leftā¦
Edit: Julianne
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u/Home1Plate2 8d ago
Love this album. It's the one I come back to most. Bruce, on top of the world professionally, personally, newlywed; to the world, a man with everything. But, what if everything isn't what it's cracked up to be? What if, after years of chasing the top, you get there, and look in the mirror, and see that you aren't the person you hoped you would be? That the love you hung your hat on isn't true? And what if you realized you didn't have any of the answers, just doubts and questions? This one didn't resonate for me until after life and heartbreak- we were all fantasizing about being Born to Run and getting out on Thunder Road, that Darkness and The River is stuff that happened to other people, that Born in the USA had an uplifting message under the bleakness....but no. Tunnel is personal and true and the most soul baring work that an artist standing on the top has ever dared to share. Thank you, Bruce, for showing that perception has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Character matters, and holding yourself to your own higher standards is more important than anything else.
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u/Double_Jab_Jabroni 8d ago
I always thought this era would have made a much better biopic. Very personal though of course so I understand why that never happened.
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u/smokesignalssouth 8d ago
Born to Run has always been the album for me, but the older I get, the more I want to call this album my favorite.
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u/MolaMolaMania 8d ago edited 8d ago
"Valentine's Day" is subtly gorgeous. I have been listening to it a lot lately. Such a simple melody and yet it builds something softly transcendent near the end.
Bruce was just beginning to contend with the fraught notions of family and home life, which due to his childhood, were not appealing because they had long symbolized fear, worry, and instability.
He wisely went to therapy, was able examine and process all that trauma, and finally make home feel like a place in which he could spend time that would be loving, safe, and a place of strength.
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u/smokesignalssouth 8d ago edited 8d ago
I listened to the whole album on my commute home last night, and hearing the synth chimes at the end of Valentine's Day as the sun set on an early October night nearly moved me to tears. That song (along with many others on this album) are up there as some of the Bruce songs closest to my heart. I was listening to this album a lot around the time I met my wife a decade ago, and after getting married earlier this year, the whole thing has a new charm added.
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u/MolaMolaMania 8d ago
Yeah, those chimes get me every single teary-eyed time. They sound like shooting stars. Something magical streaming down like a bendiction.
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u/Sunnyday1775 8d ago
Might be my favorite Springsteen album. I just love listening to it so much.
One step up is a masterpiece
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u/wideworld_1260 8d ago
Day 1 acquisition. Upon first play of total CD, I immediately thought, "That marriage [to Julianne] is in REAL trouble."
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u/GaonOfBayonne 8d ago
I really disliked this effort when it was released. It took time for me to grow up and understand.
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u/FamousX516 8d ago
My personal favorite. The themes and lyrics on this record are among his best. Walk Like A Man wrecks me.
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u/Chadhammer4282 8d ago
Such an underrated album!
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u/Sea_Pianist5164 8d ago
Last month this sub had it as his worst of the 80s. I'm still scratching my head over that.
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u/Chadhammer4282 8d ago
Absurd
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u/Chadhammer4282 8d ago
But of course I also cringe at Bruce shows when people go crazy when he plays Dancing in the Dark, which is one of the worst songs he's ever written.
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u/Sea_Pianist5164 8d ago
I love Dancing and the whole pop thing but TOL and Nebraska are extraordinary pieces of work. Nebraska does get the credit it deserves but I feel often TOL is overlooked. I think that's a shame.
One of the highlights of my concert attending life was when he cracked out Cautious Man one night. Several folk in the audience were somewhat confused but I was in my element.
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u/415Cocktails 8d ago
Well, it just has fierce competition. River, Nebraska, BITUSA. I can understand people thinking all 4 are incredible but something has to be 4th if u HAVE to rank? It might not be MY 4th but I wont judge if ppl have those 3 above.
Now- if they had WOAD or HT aboveā¦ we are judging!
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u/Longwalkhome2006 8d ago
Underrated by whom?
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u/Sea_Pianist5164 8d ago
A fair few on Reddit. As I wrote above, it was voted worst of his 80s output in a poll last month. Doubly surprising as there was an option to choose "non applicable" for the decade. To me there were no "worst" Springsteen albums in the 80s.
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u/Florida_LA 8d ago
Pretty sure most people just did not read the post and realize n/a was an option.
There are also Reddit people who get annoyed at it constantly being called underrated by people just getting into Bruce. A little like Beatles fans calling Revolver or Rubber Sole underrated. But thatās just reddit things
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u/415Cocktails 8d ago
Ahhhh- I didnt see this before I responded to your other comment. NA was correct. Fact!
We agree- there was no worst.3
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u/BT_Artist C'mon, Wendy. 8d ago
Keep in mind that way too many people on Reddit just treat "underrated" as a meaningless buzzword. Artists with multiple platinum-selling, critically-acclaimed albums often get called underrated if their hits took place before a poster was born.
(Side note: I've seen Tunnel rated as his best album by Ultimate Classic Rock.)
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u/Plane_Public_83 8d ago
In the US, the album hit stores on Tuesday, October 6, 1987. Release days were on Tuesdays back then.
Iām not sure when the 10/9 date became tied to the release. Maybe EU?
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u/mplynch1835 8d ago
I was in high school when TOL came out, grew up with older siblings so was BTR, Darkness, River educated. TOL was the first Bruce album I could call my own. Would listen with my first girlfriend and it meant so much. As the years have gone by no album has meant as much to me as TOL. Its meaning and impact has changed as i have grown older. When I listen now, in my 50s, after being married to the love of my life for almost 30 years, I credit this album with helping guide me through my own demons and shortcomings. In my 20s I identified with songs like Tougher then the Rest and Aināt got you but now the songs that move me are When youāre alone and Valentineās Day. The progression of these songs in order on vinyl almost have followed me in my life in the same order. Thank you Bruce for giving me an emotional and inspiring set of songs to help me grow and try to be a better manšš¾
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u/Live_Past_8978 8d ago
Even as callow youngsters back in uni... We all agreed it was the best hangover album ever. It sounds like wistful regret, shame and pride and high hopes both dashed and reaffirmed all at the same time.Ā
And of course as a middle aged dad you listen and it hits like a middle linebacker.Ā
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u/RudeConfusion4866 Reddit's Only Human Touch Defender 8d ago
Spent too much of my life severely underappreciating this album. Once I hit my 30s, with enough heartbreak and life experiences behind me, I gave it another chance, and my god I love it now.
Easy top 3 alongside Born to Run and Nebraska.
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u/avdillard 8d ago
Top three Bruce album for me. What it lacks in bombast it makes up for with some of his best written songs.
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u/brunello1997 8d ago
āWhen I look at myself I don't see
The man I wanted to be
Somewhere along the line I slipped off trackā
What a haunting lyric. Simple but strikes right at the heart of the realizations and hard truths we face as warm dreams meet the chill of reality. All our experiences become the jacket that helps to mitigate that chill.
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u/ConferenceOld9788 8d ago
Perhaps someday will have a release with a DVD from the tour and outtakes.
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u/Acceptable-Weird-205 8d ago
Would absolutely love a Concert Video Release of this tourā¦Tunnel of Love is arguably my favourite Bruce album and the tour including the horns would be soo good to have (if a full show was captured on video).
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u/rtduvall Darkness on the Edge of Town 7d ago
This album released the day I entered the US Navy.
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u/RichRichieRichardV 7d ago
I joined the following June, and was lucky enough to see him on this tour, 1st of many times seeing him live, before heading off to Boot Camp.
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u/sashaverde 8d ago
While they were rehearsing for this tour on a sound stage in HW I had the best gig ever building guitar cables for the E Street Band watching them run the set over & over again over a few daysšš¤øš¾šš¤øš¾šš¤øš¾š
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u/Last-Gold2284 8d ago
One of the most overrated and terrible singers in musicians of our lifetime.
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u/JustThatDemonLife 7d ago
Found the MAGAt. ā¬ļø
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u/Last-Gold2284 6d ago
You are a complete Reddit retard. I am very liberal. I can be liberal AND think that Springsteen absolutely sucks & is overrated. And always has been. Go back to typing on your keyboard in your momās basement, loser.
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u/LeonNorasGiGi2316 8d ago
You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above. šø