Loose Change (1998) – Bruce Springsteen

To me today’s featured song Loose Change will always be the sister song to another Bruce song from the same record called Happy. These two songs are an awesome couplet from Bruce’s collection that I treasure. I could listen to them both all day long and not distill one from the other. They are a match made in Heaven.

When I recollected Happy, I wrote how it wooshed me back to living in Northcote, Melbourne cerca 2005. When I hear Loose Change, it’s just the same…. I had a girlfriend called Claire who was a clairvoyant (at that time and place)….I don’t think we ever had chit-chat, rather a fully transcendental conversation about the big questions in life.

I was smitten…Us two lost souls hang out a lot in her big yellow family-house beside the train-tracks and we shared moments in time that just clicked.

[Verse 1]
Met her at a friendly little bar down along the coast
She said it was her birthday so we had us a nice little toast
Drove around for a while, smoked a few cigarettes
Took her back to my place, she slipped off her party dress
She sat for a while on the edge of the bed just talkin’

[Chorus]
Loose change in my pocket
Loose change in my pocket

[Verse 2]
Pint of gin in my boot cuff, I’m drivin’ for a drink and a dance
Sittin’ on the next stool, Miss a little time on her hands
Yeah, I knew she was trouble, but trouble sure was lookin’ fine
When I pulled her close, what I knew kinda slipped my mind
We lay in bed and watched the moon come up crawling

Loose Change always reminded me of a slow – tempo arrangement of a Bob Seeger song like Against the Wind. Loose Change comes from Tracks, a four-disc box set by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released in 1998 containing 66 songs. This box set mostly consists of never-before-released songs recorded during the sessions for his many albums. I wrote about this set recently on the Lonsesome Day article as it seemed to provide a welcomed relief after a lengthy drought of Bruce output since his Human Touch and Lucky Town records.

Loose Change is an internal story, not an external one.The lack of a melodic instrumental accompaniment helps to create the sense of isolation and alienation that pervades the song, a bit like Happy.

Springsteen toured Dublin, Ireland this May: his Irish ancestral roots. Bruce Springsteen just casually singing “My Hometown” in a local Ireland bar…nothing to see here lol. Can you imagine being there?

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand