Is Bruce Springsteen a one-man Traveling Wilburys?

The Traveling Wilburys is the kind of musical magic that we will probably never see again. It might have been unthinkable to get the biggest names in classic rock together under one roof, but their music was actually far better than many probably expected, taking the traditional tropes of rock and roll and channelling it into songs about everyday people. They may have just copied their favourite records, but there’s a good chance that the most worthy successor of the supergroup already existed in Bruce Springsteen.

Wait, hold on a minute, I hear some of you saying. Surely, Springsteen can’t be on the same level as a band that includes Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and George Harrison under one roof. I mean, he’s good, but is he really good enough to take out every one of those rock icons in one fell swoop?

Well, have you listened to the music Springsteen made before The Wilburys were even an idea? And I’m talking about things beyond what you were hearing on Born to Run. There were more than a fair bit of traditional Springsteen songs on his early records, but most of his lighthearted material ended up fitting pretty well into the Wilburys’ wheelhouse.

When looking at almost every song on the supergroup’s debut album, there are subtle hints of where Springsteen had been before. A heavy emphasis on the classics? Check. Songs about people being unlucky in love? Check. A song about carrying on with pride in your chest as you head towards something daunting? That pretty much encapsulates the entire Springsteen playbook.

The songs in question are ‘Rattled’, ‘Last Night’, and ‘Heading for the Light’, respectively. Since Jeff Lynne created the rockabilly basis for ‘Rattled’, it’s hard not to hear it as a successor to something like ‘She’s The One’, having the same Bo Diddley beat but a more lighthearted tone.

Petty never minded talking about Springsteen’s knack for lyrics, and his ‘Last Night’ may as well join songs like ‘Glory Days’ as sad songs that put on a happy face. Whereas Springsteen’s track talked about the old souls who let their glory days pass them by, Petty’s is much more literal, telling a story about going upstairs with a beautiful woman only to find himself at knifepoint.

And if you discount Harrison’s unique melody, ‘Heading For the Light’ sounds like it could have been written by Springsteen directly. Even when the band didn’t indirectly channel ‘The Boss’ on a song like ‘Not Alone Anymore’, the fact that it’s being sung by one of Springsteen’s vocal idols, Roy Orbison, is enough to put it in the same genre conversation.

It’s not like the legends didn’t acknowledge being influenced by Springsteen a little bit. In the song ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’, Dylan spends most of the lyrics telling an old wise tale referencing Springsteen left and right, from his muse being a Jersey girl to singing about ‘Thunder Road’ in some of the verses.

While the band may have been poking a bit of fun at Springsteen with that song, ‘The Boss’ may be carrying on what the group couldn’t all these years later. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s take a listen to his 2000s output.

Outside of trying his hand at writing positive songs in the 1990s, his run of albums, starting with The Rising, took the same template of growing older and trying to make the best of what you still have, just as The Wilburys had. It might sound a lot more like dad rock than normal, but that doesn’t that the songs have to be all bad.

More than anything, Springsteen has the same Wilbury mentality as the band did back in the day. Compared to other artists who are making music as a job now, Springsteen is still up there playing because he just loves the idea of playing with his friends. He may not like the idea of taking over for rock royalty, but given the amount of miles he’s put on his soul, he’s at least in the same conversation as the Dylans and Pettys of the world.

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