Music

Bruce Springsteen: We Shall Overcome–The Seeger Sessions (2006)

On this album Springsteen joins an astonishingly accomplished group of folk musicians to play a set of traditional songs, including “My Oklahoma Home,” “Old Dan Tucker,” “John Henry,” and “Jacob’s Ladder.” The songs were recorded in one take, without rehearsal in an old farm house, so as to try to preserve the immediacy of the folk genre.
Some of the strongest songs are spirituals, blending a realistic portrayal of life in a sadly broken world with a certain hope that justice someday would be done.

Well one of these nights bout 12 o’clock
This old world is gonna rock
Pharaoh’s army got drownded
O Mary don’t you weep

Well Moses stood on the Red Sea shore
And smote’ the water with a two by four
Pharaoh’s army got drownded
O Mary don’t you weep.

(“O Mary Don’t You Weep”)

Blending horn, accordion, bass, violin, banjo, guitar, percussion, organ, piano and harmonica, the music is both deeply grounded and wondrously performed. It’s hard to listen without tapping your foot.