Tunnel of Love
A mostly solo album of synthesizers and drum machines about love and its difficulty.
Bruce Springsteen, 1987
- Released
- 9 October 1987
- Label
- Columbia
Springsteen played most of the parts himself, often with drum machines and synthesizers, and members of the E Street Band appear on only some tracks. It is not officially counted as an E Street Band album. Of nineteen songs known to have been recorded, twelve made the record. Jon Pareles wrote in the New York Times that he had turned inward, writing about love gone wrong as his marriage to Julianne Phillips was crumbling.
It went triple platinum in America by April 1988. Brilliant Disguise reached number five, Tunnel of Love number nine and One Step Up number thirteen, and Tunnel of Love won a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo. Meiert Avis directed the videos, and the one for Brilliant Disguise is a single shot with no edits. The album finished second in the Pazz & Jop poll. Steve Pond wrote in Rolling Stone that the battleground had moved from the streets to the sheets.
Track listing
- Ain't Got You2:11
- Tougher Than the Rest4:35
- All That Heaven Will Allow2:39
- Spare Parts3:44
- Cautious Man3:58
- Walk Like a Man3:45
- Tunnel of Love5:12
- Two Faces3:03
- Brilliant Disguise4:17
- One Step Up4:22
- When You're Alone3:24
- Valentine's Day5:10
Personnel
- Bruce Springsteen vocals, guitars, mandolin, bass, keyboards, harmonica, percussion, drum machine
- Roy Bittan acoustic piano on Brilliant Disguise, synthesizers on Tunnel of Love
- Danny Federici Hammond organ on three tracks
- Nils Lofgren guitar solo on Tunnel of Love
- Patti Scialfa backing vocals on three tracks
- Max Weinberg drums on three tracks
- Toby Scott engineering
- Bob Clearmountain mixing
More from Bruce Springsteen
Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973), The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973), Born to Run (1975), Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), The River (1980), Nebraska (1982), Born in the U.S.A. (1984), The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995), The Rising (2002)
Sources
- Tunnel of Love (album), Wikipedia
- Tunnel of Love (release), MusicBrainz