[Dreams] die hard, if really at all, and that, inevitably, is what Darkness On The Edge Of Town is all about. "I lost my money and I lost my wife," murmurs Bruce on the cathartic title track, "somehow them things don't seem to matter much to me now." But that's hardly an admission of failure, or even of retreat. He's merely measuring his losses, emotionally and morally, and raising the ante for the next round. "I'll be on that hill with everything I've got," he concludes in a roar. "I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost." The implication, of course, is that Bruce has already paid the cost, but whatever the renewed price, it's still the only dream in town.

In the previous albums, Springsteen delineated a mythos and an ethos foremost, occasionally to the detriment of his characters' credibility. But where before those roles...