1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 405. Bruce Springsteen – Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)

I don’t know how true it actually is, but it feels to me that Springsteen very much has a go-to set of themes for his songs. This album feels like a companion piece to Born To Run, either people in the circumstances that lead to them hitting the road to escape their humdrum lives, or afterwards when the excitement of the escape has worn off and reality sets in again. 
It’s a lot more grounded. Some might say cynical and dejected when you get, for example, lyrics like

“Well, you're born with nothing 
And better off that way 
Soon as you've got something they send 
Someone to try and take it away“

in Something In The Night, which feels like a sequel or a dark mirror to Born To Run where “But they caught us at the state line, burned our cars in one last fight“.  

Not necessarily more depressing even though the songs are once again largely about people stuck in dead-end lives, since they still carry within them the seeds of hope, to be found in the eponymous Darkness On The Edge Of Town.

Musically it’s a little less grandiose than Born To Run. The songs are shorter, Roy Bittan’s piano and Clarance Clemens’ sax are more muted or sometimes entirely absent, making it more of a guitar-based album. There are traces of other musical influences. Van Morrison feels ever-present, as does the general Americana of The Band. The Promised Land feels very Dylanesque, a feeling enhanced by Springsteen’s harmonica playing. Candy’s Room feels a little like late-Ziggy era Bowie, and I could imagine him singing it while I listened. This makes it more varied than Born To Run, and probably the stronger, more mature, album for it.