Tunnel of Love | 
 enlarge | Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Label: Sony
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy Used: $2.64
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New (43) Used (53) Collectible (6) from $2.64
Rating:  88 reviews
Sales Rank: 7507
Format: Single
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 40999
UPC: 074644099928
EAN: 5099765129526
ASIN: B0000026E5
Publication Date: 1987
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Tracks:
| • | Ain't Got You | | • | Tougher Than The Rest | | • | All That Heaven Will Allow | | • | Spare Parts | | • | Cautious Man | | • | Walk Like A Man | | • | Tunnel Of Love | | • | Two Faces | | • | Brilliant Disguise | | • | One Step Up | | • | When You're Alone | | • | Valentine's Day |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
After several years at the top of the rock world, Springsteen pulled back the reins on Tunnel of Love--a lot, not just a little. Members of the E Street Band played on the album but seldom in full-band arrangements. Then, too, there are the deeply conflicted songs--"Brilliant Disguise," "Two Faces," "Tunnel of Love," "One Step Up"--that may have been written in response to the imminent failure of his first marriage. There's more to the album than divorce-court play-by-play, however. There's also the raw rocker "Spare Parts," the sprightly "All That Heaven Will Allow," and the bold declaration "Tougher Than the Rest." Overall, these are some of his most thoughtful songs and most intimate performances. --Daniel Durchholz
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| Customer Reviews:
 It's been 21 years, and still there's been few albums as well-crafted as "Tunnel of Love". September 27, 2008
L. Petit (Akron, Ohio USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One thing that consistently impresses me about Bruce Springsteen is how unwilling he is to sell out and put out pop album after pop album. It would be easy for him to do. After all, his catalogue has plenty of catchy hooks and choruses. It's not a bad thing, because sometimes you just gotta rock out. But, it's the more emotional, smart numbers that really make him The Boss. Sometimes epic, sometimes low-key, almost always leaving you with a "whoa" and the realization that that song just hit home in a way that no other song from any other artist ever could. Sometimes, he puts those two types of songs together and makes one big incredible album (1980's "The River"), sometimes he gets dark, solo, and acoustic (1982's "Nebraska"). And, sometimes he mixes those brilliant lyrics with the catchy hooks, making an incredibly deep, smart song palpable to even the most airheaded radio listener (1984's "Born in the U.S.A."). Which brings us to 1987's "Tunnel of Love".
"Born in the U.S.A." was an enormous success, and continues to be hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time. This success is entirely deserved. Springsteen didn't create a pop-rock album, he just made a record that sounded like one. It would have been too easy to follow that success up with a sound-alike record. But, true to his nature, and in drawing upon his marital troubles as inspiration, he instead released something that fell between "Nebraska" and "Born in the U.S.A." (and I'm not the first to point that out). Not that TOL is as stark and somber as "Nebraska", but it's a much quieter record compared to "...U.S.A.". The end result is an album that brilliantly details a marriage falling apart.
As a whole, it's a dark album, but not every song is bleak. In fact, it almost follows a concept format, with the meeting and courtship ("Ain't Got You", "Tougher Than The Rest", and "All That Heaven Will Allow", which is just about the most 'happy' song here), warnings as to what's about to come ("Spare Parts", "Cautious Man"), and finally the marriage ("Walk Like a Man", which also serves as another song about his father). It's the second half where the romance goes downhill and the album gets really dark. The title track details real trouble on the horizon, and everything afterwards details the romance falling apart. Few songs can match the pure brilliance that is "Two Faces" and "One Step Up", or the haunting "When You're Alone".
The end result is a record that only gets better each time you listen to it. Each song crafted in a way that only something as terrible as a failed marriage could allow inspiration for. It's a more solemn affair than the previous album, but it's also probably Bruce's last truly great record until 2002's "The Rising" (though arguements can be made for 1995's "The Ghost of Tom Joad")
Still, we have "Tunnel of Love", an album that stands in contrast to so many other works from the 1980's, an era dominated by empty, synthesized music that sounds good but leaves you with nothing, usually forgotten immediately after. TOL, on the other hand, not only sounds good, but it truly has a beating (and broken) heart there. Even today, it's a thought-provoking classic that hasn't aged a bit. Unfortunately, I'm afraid many listeners today will listen to it a bit, realize it's not anthemic, and turn it off. Such is the price for NOT bending to the public's desire. That doesn't change this record's stature one bit.
Well worth a purchase, and highly, highly recommended.
Tunnel of Greatness August 7, 2008
Zachary D. Furr (IN, Indianapolis)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are lookin for an album with rockin tunes than this not the album to get. This is the type of album that makes it a risky move on an artist who just had a lot of hits on his previous record. He still had two top ten hits. Brilliant Disguise and the title track. A couple of the songs he does by himself. Aint Got You, My Happy Valentine, Cautious Man and One Step Up he does byself, well, One Step Up does have backup vocals by his future wife. It is also the last album he used the E Street Band untill the 2002 album The Rising. Me personally, This my favorite bruce album. The song WALK LIKE A MAN is a song about a long obsession with his father, Aint Got You self-consious look about being a rock star. ONE STEP UP, TWO FACES, BRILLIANT DISGUISE AND TUNNEL OF LOVE ARE ABOUT reflections of his trouble marriage
A Trip Through The Successes And Failures Of Love July 21, 2008
The Footpath Cowboy (Kingston, NY United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After making numerous albums of songs chronicling the struggles of the working class, Bruce Springsteen turned inward on TUNNEL OF LOVE, describing how men and women fall in love and then lose their belief in it after a while. Several songs here could be seen as a discussion of the imminent failure of his first marriage, but this is not just a divorce album, as several songs deal with the happier side of romance, and the hard rocker "Spare Parts", which sounds like the Outlaws in some ways, is also here. Although members of the E Street Band play on this CD, they're rarely in full-band arrangements. However, this is made up for by some of Springsteen's most thoughtful songs ever.
Will move you to tears June 30, 2008
Job (Westchester County, NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an album, for anyone who saw love as it was dramatized on tv and movies. Like, love at first sight is real, and how you can love someone forever, and then......got stabbed in the back by it....and found yourself less of who you were before. From a failed marriage, came an album more personal, and more connecting than any of his others before.
aint got you, is an uptempo, elvisy type track. Bruce sings about how we always want what we dont have, and how we always have what we dont want.
"I got a house full of Rembrandt and priceless art
And all the little girls they wanna tear me apart
When I walk down the street people stop and stare
Well you'd think I might be thrilled but baby I don't care
'Cause I got more good luck honey than old King Farouk
But the only thing I ain't got baby I ain't got you"
Tougher than the rest, is a song about how we try to be the man, and even though we arn't a "hansome dan", or "good looking Joe", you gotta take what you can get. This song sounds very 80's in the production, but the message is still there.
"The road is dark, and its a faint line
but i want you to know i'll walk it for you anytime"
All that heaven will allow, is a fun, almost boppy song, in which bruce sings about the greatness of a new love, a chance to find happiness.
"I got a dollar in my pocket
there ain't a cloud up above
I got a picture in a locket
that says baby I love you
Well if you didn't look then boys
then fellas don't go lookin' now
Well here she comes a-walkin'
all that heaven will allow"
Spare parts, is a country, bluesy-ish tune, where bruce sings about the hardness of living with children without being married.
"Janey heard about a woman over in Calverton
Put her baby in the river let the river roll on
She looked at her boy in the crib where he lay
Got down on her knees cried till she prayed"
The dark, Cautious man, is about a working man, who doubts love and everything it stands for. He's caught between the feeling of love, and the fear that goes with it.
"On his right hand Billy tattooed the word love and on his left hand was the word fear
And in which hand he held his fate was never clear"
Walk like a man, is a song about how we try to follow in our parents footsteps, how we look up to them, but when they fail us, we have no idea what to do.
"Well so much has happened to me
That I don't understand
All I can think of is being five years old following behind you at the beach
Tracing your footprints in the sand
Trying to walk like a man"
Tunnel of love, is the most 80's rock like song on this album. It uses a carnival as a metaphor for love, and how sometimes, you go into it blind almost. He rides into the tunnel of love with his girl, himself, and the things he's scared of.
"It ought to be easy ought to be simple enough
Man meets woman and they fall in love
But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough
And you've got to learn to live with what you cant rise above"
Two faces, is another track in which springsteen talks about how we try to do things right, but sometimes, what we try to do, isn't what we do.
"One that laughs one that cries
One says hello one says goodbye
One does things I don't understand
Makes me feel like half a man"
Brilliant Disguise, is the best track on the album, both in lyrics, and in song. Bruce begs to know, am i looking at the real you, and...am i showing the real me. He falls in love, and gets married, all without knowing who he really married.
"Im just a lonely pilgrim I walk this world in wealth
I want to know if its you I dont trust...cause I damn sure dont trust
Myself"
One step up is a heartbreaking track about a man, who has a tough time letting go of old habits, and must fight a battle each day in this war of love.
"When I look at myself I don't see
The man I wanted to be
Somewhere along the line I slipped off track
I'm caught movin' one step up and two steps back..."
When your alone is a song saying that everyone gets dumped, and if you do, you feel a loneliness unlike anything else.
"But there's things that'll knock you down you don't even see coming
And send you crawling like a baby back home
You're gonna find out that day sugar
When you're alone you're alone
When you're alone you're alone
When you're alone you're alone
When you're alone you ain't nothing but alone"
Valentines day, which, so aptly portrays the nightmare of the soul that one feels when one is in love. Written, ironically, as a comfortable melody, his main anguish is "what scares me is losing you".
"They say if you die in your dreams you really die in your bed
But honey last night I dreamed my eyes rolled straight back in my head
And God's light came shinin' on through
I woke up in the darkness scared and breathin' and born anew
So hold me close honey say you're forever mine
And tell me you'll be my lonely valentine"
Bruce wrote these songs after he got married the first time. He had an afair, and got married again, this time, a more confident man then on this album.
But this album will stand as long as love will, because as long as love exists, so will the doubt and fear that goes with it.
A classic that i would recommend to anyone.
Sophisticated Love Songs- 4.5 stars June 16, 2008
K. Pascual
Technically this is an album consisting entirely of love songs. However, Springsteen has a way of adding texture and thickness to the music. It is more about trust and care that comes from a relationship, rather than the feeling of love itself. Each song is distinct yet they all reflect the same emotion and concept of the album: such as the quiet nature of the songs and how they all correlate that edge of uncertainty that accompanies anybody when entering a relationship.
The songs themselves have good melodies, but it doesn't compare to the earlier numbers Bruce had on the River or Darkness. The major flaw the album suffers from is that its sound is extremely dated. The 80's production is quite predominant throughout with synthesizer/keyboards extablishing the rhythm and as well as the obvious drum machines. Sadly, it is the same sound that is established in Human Touch/Lucky Town. The lyrics meanwhile are more simplified and repetitive compared to his previous albums, but I guess he is trying to reiterate the feeling.
In conclusion, it is strong pop album that holds well by itself, but do not expect it to be another River or Born to Run as there are rare traces of the E Street Band here. Tunnel of Love an interesting departure from his other great albums as it is extremely personal and reflects everyday people.
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