Shackled and Drawn

by Gregg Chadwick Shackled and Drawn (Song by Song Review of Bruce Springsteen's New Album - Wrecking Ball) In a recent interview session in Paris , Springsteen described the impetus behind the songs of Wrecking Ball : "My work has always been about judging the distance between American reality and the American dream." Like the music of Woody Guthrie, a core group of songs on Wrecking Ball looks at the status of labor in the United States. And the view isn't pretty. Bruce Springsteen's Shackled and Drawn ( Listen Here) is an homage to Guthrie and an ode to the dignity that hard work engenders. At the same time, underneath the rollicking music, Shackled and Drawn mourns for those who have lost their jobs in the current corporate drive to downsize, outsource, and maximize profits: Freedom, son, is a dirty shirt The sun on my face and my shovel in the dirt The shovel in the dirt keeps the devil gone I woke up this morn...