What moved you to shoot in black and white? Though that might have been the more captivating move considering this … The blood moon has rose once more. The studio is blessed with both the present and the past, and this creative energy, and light — the light spilling into that studio, and the use of black and white — became this metaphor for me. And if putting such a fresh spin on themes so true to the essence of his work isn't an instantly great Springsteen song, then I don't know what is. It's an image not just of music and the love thereof, but a metaphor specifically for the harmony between people that can be provided through any type of human connection but, for our purposes here, especially through the arts, especially music. I don't think it's a stretch to say many people were hoping for and/or expecting another "political Bruce album" at some point - hearing something that was to Trump what Magic was to Bush. "—a song that espouses the value of art and human connection in the face of love, loss, God, and tyrants—makes for an effective mission statement for Bruce's entire body of work. My favourite - from the opening piano to the end. DarcyFarrow. Share. Click down the hall but never arrive". “House of a Thousand Guitars” describes a concert as a place to “tally my wounds and count the scars”; “The Power of Prayer” depicts a … × Springsteen himself likes it so much he fires it up a second time. There is not a wasted note, a wasted lyric, nothing. “House of a Thousand Guitars” No, “House of a Thousand Guitars” is not a Willie Nile cover. Bruce Springsteen unleashed a force of nature into the ethos a few days ago, as Letter to You, a new studio album recorded with the E Street Band is now available everywhere, and is worth listening to (if you are reading this, though, we assume you have). Again, let me reiterate: "House of a Thousand Guitars" is literally a direct sequel to "Radio Nowhere", wherein the writer has, at long last, FOUND the thousand guitars, the pounding drums, and the million different voices speaking in tongues. I'm sure Bruce could have found a more mellifluous way of expressing the same idea.  Unfortunately "guitar" itself is a clunky word. "House of 1,000 Guitars" is kind of a weird song. That would be an exercise this board could undertake someday. The final song on the album is an absolute masterpiece, where Springsteen looks death between the eyes and tries to make enough sense of pain and loss and does the enviable — he turns it into a battle cry. Rating all the songs on a 5 star scale, like some recruiting services do with high school football and basketball prospects. It was my favourite song on the album when I first heard it, and it still is. Bruce's focus is now more internal, more interpersonal, and more focused directly on art in itself, and so, too, is Letter to You. When Bruce sings "The criminal clown has stolen the throne, he steals what he can never own", whatever anyone here may believe, for, I don't think it's a stretch to say many people were hoping for and/or expecting another "political Bruce album" at some point - hearing something that was to Trump whatÂ, Bruce's focus is now more internal, more interpersonal, and more focused directly on art in itself, and so, too, isÂ, The hopeless isolation of "Radio Nowhere" may feel, at times, very real, for very good reasons...Â, It's not just an over-the-top image; it is, in a song that opens withÂ, It's an image not just of music and the love thereof, but a metaphorÂ, If there's one theme Springsteen has been singing about since album 1, track 1, when "some fresh-sown moonstone was messin' with his frozen zone to, And with its distinctly community-driven approach and explicit references to the fanbase, Somewhere in the swamps of Northern New Jersey. The Rising was an album that posited that maybe, through the power of community, optimism, love, and positive human connection, we as a society could effect a positive change in the world, "pull strength out of that black hole on the horizon", and create something positive out of the negative. 2 runner up for my "best chorus" designation. Count the band in then kick into overdrive, By the end of the set we leave no one alive, Evan Macy And the House of a Thousand Guitars became the studio in my mind. I'm not saying that he doesn't sing it with feeling or anything (he definitely does), but it just sounds rather uninspired musically speaking to me, and not to mention how clunky the title phrase for the most part sounds when sung (...And it's sung quite a lot). From the opening drums to Springsteen telling his fans "I hear the sound of your guitar," the song starts with a slowly building tenseness that will eventually manifest in the aforementioned chorus that you'll memorize within one listen. House Of A Thousand Guitars (2009) is the sixth studio album by singer/songwriter Willie Nile. Restore formatting, × It sees Bruce Springsteen looking forward and back. While some of the lyrics I immediately took as references may just be coincidences (is the "mystery ride" in "Last Man Standing" a callback to the "mystery prize" of "Walk Like A Man"—or is it a coincidental overlap by a guy who's written hundreds of songs? Reply. The lyrics are dense, but the melody is on point and catchy. That's all good, but I can't enjoy a song more because of logical qualities when it doesn't have the Emotional qualities I want from a Bruce song. Wonderful song. I mean, he's already done The Rising and Magic; past that, what more is there to say? Share. If there's one theme Springsteen has been singing about since album 1, track 1, when "some fresh-sown moonstone was messin' with his frozen zone to remind him of the feelin' of romance", and has especially started emphasizing in the past decade, it's the redemptive, healing power of love and interpersonal connections. While it wasn't even written by Bruce, I've thought for a couple years now that "How Can I Keep From Singing? Get all the lyrics to songs on House of a Thousand Guitars and join the Genius community of music scholars to learn the meaning behind the lyrics. November 29, 2020 in The Circuit - Bruce Springsteen. While some of the lyrics I immediately took as referencesÂ, While it wasn't even written by Bruce, I've thought for a couple years now that "How Can I Keep From Singing? Which is nice if you choose not too many; quite some people chose 10-15 songs, or even more, which to me is a little bit ridiculous. There aren’t 40 times to clock or pitch speeds to measure. But clearly, that's not what Bruce is interested in writing anymore. For me it's a song that needed more refining, and the main problem is the phrase "house of a thousand guitars".  Ironically it's not musical.  It doesn't flow.  In case I'm being too abstract, let me make it clear: And it's one wherein our narrator has found his rhythm. That recording Letter To You took just four days is not a knock against its quality. When Bruce sings "The criminal clown has stolen the throne, he steals what he can never own", whatever anyone here may believe, for Bruce, we all know who he means. Report. Instead of musing on with a cliche review of the album, we've decided to — like we do in the sports section of PhillyVoice all the time — hand out a few superlatives. In the face of mounting political pressure and diseases in society both literal and metaphorical, where "Radio Nowhere" responds by collapsing inward, "House of a Thousand Guitars" finds the hope and strength "Radio Nowhere" could not, and emphasizes reaching outward to those around you to help comfort, support, and uniquely uplift each other. ) songs with the same amount of passion... then yup, they would each deserve 5 stars! Song Meanings and Facts. 1968Hoya46. 12. “House of a Thousand Guitars” No, “House of a Thousand Guitars” is not a Willie Nile cover. [..] With the pain and the hurt love sometime brings in the house of a thousand guitars. He revisits a trio… A simple, sad statement of a man who feels lost, confused, and betrayed—not only by his fellow man, but by his community. Those three songs are the high point of the album for me...and that's the sort of thing which in my opinion makes this album so special. House of a thousand guitars, as a musician especially, takes on a hugely symbolic meaning - we all want to be in the house of a thousand guitars, especially right now I'd be just as happy to be in the House Of A Thousand Songs. From the sheer grief of "Devil's Arcade" and "Gypsy Biker", crushing commentary of the latter track, foreboding threats of "You'll Be Comin' Down", "Magic", and "Livin' in the Future", and sheer, fiery, cyclical nihilism and tragedy of "Last to Die", the album basically runs the gamut of what you could want a protest album to say or do. They're the three songs longer than six minutes. All rights reserved. Upload or insert images from URL. Change one letter out of a song title to change it's meaning. I saw a few outlets complain about it, with one even calling the song the worst on the album. Display as a link instead, × It's absolutely incredible that a 71-year-old man is creating the bone-chillingly perfect vocals that Springsteen does at the end of the song. And one of the things that unites, well, everyone, is the inevitability and mysteriousness of death. “House of a Thousand Guitars” “Rainmaker” “If I Was the Priest” “Ghosts” “Song for Orphans” “I’ll See You in My Dreams” “Janey Needs a Shooter,” “If I Was the Priest” and “Song for Orphans” are new recordings of older songs not included on previous studio albums. On April 23, 2013, at a ceremony in Leeds, UK, Nile was named Legacy Ambassador for the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2009 CD release of "House Of A Thousand Guitars" on Discogs. "—a song that espouses the value of art and human connection in the face of love, loss, God, and tyrants—makes for an effective mission statement for Bruce's entire body of work. I dare you to listen to "Ghosts" and not sing along with the ear-wormy chorus: Alive, I can feel the blood shiver in my bones. It's been too long since I've posted on here. The result is Magic, an album that I (hot take impending) consider an absolute modern classic and even a top 5 Springsteen album of all time. But, from what I have seen, it seems some of the initial response to "House of a Thousand Guitars" was... not negative, certainly, but maybe lukewarm, compared to the rest of the album. My wedding band is inscribed with "you've got my love."   Your previous content has been restored. And with its distinctly community-driven approach and explicit references to the fanbase listening to the song itself, on a level really only matched by "Land of Hope and Dreams"; with its utterly grand, absolutely beautiful, "Jungleland"-esque imagery of people spilling out across the world into music performances to find and form connections with people who feel the same way they do; and with its meta status as a direct sequel to an incredibly bleak song that suggested the exact opposite, I'd argue that "House of a Thousand Guitars" is one of the best and most beautiful songs in the "one plus one makes three" tradition to date. So who am I to be making these claims about music, as a sportswriter and not a music critic? And that, of course, is as Springsteen as it gets. That is, in various forms, LOHAD, "Valentine's Day", "The Ties That Bind", "Frankie Fell in Love", "Thunder Road", "Dancing in the Dark", "All the Way Home", and heaven knows how many others. Kind of clunky, kind of generic. WILLIE NILE > House of a Thousand Guitars by Brian T. Atkinson April 30, 2009, 1:58 pm 2 Comments At his best, Willie Nile cuts lines as … Clear editor. We damn sure didn't "ask questions before [we shot]." This is a man searching for an identity, and for a community. And I believe that, to those of us who know our Bruce history, "House of a Thousand Guitars" asks that same rhetorical question. Through a purple haze you can hear the song in the house of a thousand guitars. Because it's a true rock album, and one of the best works of art to come from Springsteen in his illustrious 45-year career. Hangs on the back of my bedroom door Sure. House of A Thousand Guitars (Springsteen) 0 Kudos 728 Views 0. Is it idealistic? The store I am also a fan of the "Letter To You" riff, and the "Ghosts" riff. We find ourselves in similar times today, for obvious reasons. Hear him ask "rock of ages come save me now," and try not to feel something. There is something for everyone in it. Well, I have impeccable Springsteen credentials. Maybe that's not the case anymore, but at any rate, I think this song's purpose—on the album, and in the broader context of Bruce's work—has gone unappreciated, at least by some... and it's one of my immediate favorites off the new album... so, let me take a second here to highlight it. Or stated otherwise, the “house of a thousand guitars” is where the singer, addressee and “all the souls from near and far” congregate to ‘shake off their troubles’. His 20th album features all the members of the E Street Band and was produced by Springsteen and Ron Aniello. Â. "I'll See You In My Dreams" is, in this writer's opinion, the most beautiful opus about death ever put to music (a close second is Say Anything's Cemetery). [..] With the pain and the hurt love sometime brings in the house of a thousand guitars. In the 18 years since then, I've seen The Boss in concert around 30 times, including seven on one tour (in 2012) and twice on Broadway. House of a Thousand Guitars Jimmy Hendrix plays all night long in the house of a thousand guitars. Letter to You is the twentieth studio album from Bruce Springsteen; it marks his first new studio album with his regular backing band the E Street Band since 2014's High Hopes. Refashioning a classic hype line from shows as a metaphorical, social, and really even rhetorical question, our desperately isolated narrator asks, "Is there anybody alive out there? As Letter to You centers around his metaphorical letter to us, as written and released over the past half a century, it's full of tie-ins to his previous work; look no further than not only the three 1970s songs dusted off for a 2020s Bruce and a 2020s audience ("Janey Needs A Shooter", "If I Was the Priest", "Song for Orphans"), but, indeed, the direct connection between "If I Was The Priest": "In a buckskin jacket, boots and spurs so fine". The look on Bruce's face himself as he sits down and hears the song is very moving. Guitar and pen Who. His vision of "a blood moon rising in a sky of black dust" from 5 years earlier has proven painfully, painfully accurate. October 28, 2020 “House of a Thousand Guitars” by Bruce Springsteen. But so's friggin' "Thunder Road", and that's the best one of them all, so y'know. The songwriter who, even when "waist-deep in that black river of doubt", aspires to "rise and WALK"? Boots and the spurs you used to ride On a 5 star scale, I’d give it a 3. I still have pages upon pages of, Maybe that's not the case anymore, but at any rate, I think this song's purpose. Because of course they are. "Ghosts" is one of the best songs Springsteen has written in decades and it will surely bring the house down when it is finally performed live — hopefully safely in front of 30,000 people, hundreds of times, in 2021. The blood moon shines across the veil Bells ring out through churches and jails I tally my wounds and count the scars Here in the house of a thousand guitars The criminal clown has stolen the throne He steals what he can never own May the truth ring out from every small town bar We'll light up the house of a thousand guitars Well it's alright yeah, it's alright Meet me darlin' … Tagged: Letter to You . Best vocal performance: The end of "House of 1,000 Guitars" "House of 1,000 Guitars" is kind of a weird song. A man who doesn't want a drone. He doesn't want the lying, the emptiness, the overload, the loneliness. It's not just an over-the-top image; it is, in a song that opens with counting your scars even as a blood moon rises, and doing it with everyone from the churches to the jails (I know I don't need to provide a link for that one), a direct homage to one of the most acclaimed Springsteen songs of the new millennium to date. HOUSE OF A THOUSAND GUITARS Directed by Robert Noonan. The song is the only real political one on the album, urging listers to agree with Springsteen that "it's alright yeah it's alright," something that is easier said than done. Through a purple haze you can hear the song in the house of a thousand guitars. Here Nile demonstrates the diversity of his song writing and performing abilities with an equal mix of classic guitar rock and an equal part of his deep and sensitive piano ballads. © 2021 WWB Holdings, LLC. You can post now and register later. I agree with this. PhillyVoice Staff, Doug Pederson's South Jersey home is up for sale at $2.7 million, Thousands of Philly residents inoculated at 24-hour COVID-19 vaccine clinic, Second COVID vaccine dose delayed? Anyway, "Letter to You" is a masterpiece, and here are some of the reasons why: We'll get into this song more a bit later, but the guitar riff after the chorus is kind of a throwback-sounding melody carried by the low-echoing guitar sounds that makes for quintessential Springsteen. For example: ... "House On A Thousand Guitars," Willie Nile originally "House Of A Thousand Guitars" Yvette Bristle House of a thousand guitars, house of a thousand guitars Brother and sister wherever you are We’ll rise together till we fire the spark That’ll light up the house of a thousand guitars. And I'm somewhere in between these two comments.Â. Those three songs kind of form their own little mini-album in the middle of the album, kind of like the Irishy songs on Wrecking Ball. From all-out rockers with meat on the bone like the title track and Doomsday Dance, to the chilling portrait of wars aftermath in Now That … MAY THE TRUTH RING OUT FROM EVERY SMALL TOWN BAR. Song information for House of a Thousand Guitars - Willie Nile on AllMusic I'm a sucker for well-crafted music about music, and this song is 100% that. "If I Was The Priest" is a ballad that more or less describes the hypocrisy of growing up Catholic (or really any religious denomination)— but in true Bruce fashion it takes place in a saloon in the old west. To this end, he wants to feel some rhythm—and, should you feel the same, he wants to give you rhythm. The give-and-take between human beings whereby 1 and 1 makes 3. The addition of the letter should still form a word, and the title should be humorous as a result. And then you'll picture a packed Meadowlands full of baby boomers (plus, of course, myself) all yelling "I'm Alive" in unison with fists pumping. As a typical Springsteen fan boy, I watched a handful of interviews with the artist himself during my intense dive into all things Bruce on the day the album dropped. For me it's a song that needed more refining, and the main problem is the phrase "house of a thousand guitars".  Ironically it's not musical.  It doesn't flow.  But it's actually fantastic, if you can get through the fact that it has a very unusual and more or less nonsensical chorus. Of the three, I really like Last Man Standing and could take or leave the other two. I also find that Last Man Standing, Power Of Prayer, and this song all rather merge into one. and "Ghosts", the very next track on the album: "Old buckskin jacket you always wore And "House of a Thousand Guitars" is, in its entirety, an allusion. Bruce explained that he has recently become the last living member of his original band The Castiles. Honored Social Butterfly ... Did you mean… House of a Thousand Guitars was released to positive reviews on April 14, 2009. It’s an OK song for me. HOUSE OF A THOUSAND GUITARS Directed by Robert Noonan. It's a song that cannot be analyzed in a vacuum... so let's set the clock back about thirteen years. (And more, when the need arises.). ‘House of a Thousand Guitars’ marks the transition to the part of the album in which the center of the songs is the community to which the main character belongs. Bruce Springsteen - House Of A Thousand Guitars (Official Audio) If you aren't sure which ones are the oldies (and can't tell from the titles), it's easy. By now, it's clear that Letter to You is a very meta, self-referential album, reflecting on Bruce's work, his band, his fans, and the connection between the three—both in general and, at times, specifically. But then, it is only entertainment; just like one man's 5-star (or 6-star) song is another one's 2-star song; one man's 'Holy Grail' at sign request another one's 'it was an outtake because it is not a good song'. Today, Bruce Springsteen announced his latest project, a new album called Letter to You due on October 23. There was a story he told in one about the real reason he wrote "Last Man Standing", the No. 1 Kudo 803 Views 0. Really, there are hooks in almost every song that get your head nodding — but we'll give the throwback song written in 1972 the "award" for the best riff. That’s Ok. It’s just music. I mean, again, that's just LOHAD for you. ", "A lost number in a file, searching for a world with some soul...". This track is vaguely reminiscent of a another song a legendary senior artist dropped in 2020, that being Bob Dylan’s “I Contain Multitudes“.