REVIEW: They Ain't No Senator's Sons

Better make room on Mount Rushmore.

Made in America, mad at America, Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty stand sentry on the covers of their new albums, ready to rock, rage and run for office on the "Music or Lose It" ticket. You think I’m kidding? Why else would they drop politically amped discs tomorrow, the Boss’s Magic, Fogerty’s Revival, on the very same October Tuesday? If these aren’t clarion calls from our new prez and VP — they ain’t no senator’s sons! — I don’t know what is.

Talk about the populist vote. Springsteen, 58, and Fogerty, 62, allies during 2004’s string of Vote for Change concerts, are in full-on crowd-pleasing mode, ready to whip the nation out of a funk and into a fervor. Springsteen is once again taking rock ’n’ roll call with his E Street Band — Clarence (check!), Nils (check!), Max...Max...c’mon, Max, try to keep up (check!). It’s no coincidence that there are moments on Magic when you swear he’s sampling Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out. Bruce figures the best way to wake the populace, the best way to connect us all, is to rock our collective socks off.

Not only does Fogerty call his album Revival and name one number Creedence Song, but he choogles up a swamp stew that sounds very much born on the bayou. Creedence Clearwater Revival tore up the lives of two brothers, John and Tom Fogerty, and led to lawsuits. But John has made peace with his past, which gives him more energy to take aim at the present.

For all their robust strengths, Magic and Revival are are not perfect albums, mind you. Bruce’s lyrics are sometimes hamhandedly opaque. Plus his song Your Own Worst Enemy is a cloying blend of Brian Wilson and Phil Spector, with the singer moying like his toe’s caught in a mousetrap. Fogerty piles on too much vitriol at points. Plus his notable clunker, Summer of Love, clumsily "borrows" riffs from Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love.

Still, these guys are in sweet shape to steamroll the White House. And just wait ’til they get on the campaign trail. These albums are built to thrill in a live setting: plenty of Big Man sax solos (especially on You’ll Be Comin’ Down), plenty of guitars cutting through Fogerty’s songs like Louisiana lightning.

Whereas Fogerty’s lyrics are as muscular as an arm-wrestling contest, Springsteen’s songs drip with a tricky twilight, as the middle-aged icon looks back and ahead, gauging the state of his country and himself. If that sounds like a drag, it’s not. After the pensive beauty of 2005’s Devils & Dust and last year’s old-timey Seeger Sessions, the Boss is reborn to run. Album opener Radio Nowhere, with its final plea of "I just wanna hear your rhythm," sets up Magic’s pervasive theme of disconnectedness, political and personal. It also sets up the album’s sonic assault, as Nils Lofgren puts a sinister tone on his guitar line, Clarence Clemons blows a throwback solo and Max Weinberg snaps a drumstick or two.

Last to Die is a lethal indictment of our leaders — "We don’t measure the blood we’ve drawn anymore / We just stack the bodies outside the door" — that just happens to be framed in a dino groove. Equally rousing is Long Walk Home, in which Springsteen struts down the streets of memory: "In town I passed Sal’s grocery / The barbershop on South Street / I looked in their faces / They were all rank strangers to me." It’s confessional — it’s also kicks major tuchus.

There are lovely quiet moments on Magic: the blood-brothers-in-arms sorrow of Devil’s Arcade, the title track’s spooky condemnation of smoke and mirrors. But Springsteen is most effective in anthemic mode. And nowhere does he achieve more pure visceral oomph than on Gypsy Biker. The song reads like a lament for a lost friend. But by the time it reaches its magnificent blood-pumping crescendo, I lose interest in deciphering lyrics. Roy Bittan and Danny Federici dueling on the 88s, Lofgren and Little Steven dueling neck and neck — what joy, what uplift in unity. For me, that’s the real magic.

Using brass-knuckles instead of a guitar pick, Fogerty is far more direct in his pursuits. He’s still trying to find someone to stop the rain — not to mention persecute the people who started it. On the snarling Long Dark Night, he sees stormy skies for years to come: "Georgie’s in the jungle / Knocking on the door / Come to get your children / Wants to have a war." On the hellbilly punk of I Can’t Take It No More, he lashes out, "Stop talkin’ ’bout stayin’ the course / You keep-a-beatin’ that old dead horse."

But just like he did decades ago, Fogerty uses his ire to inspire music that reverberates deep down in your gut. Backed by a killer backing band including drummer Kenny Aronoff and B-3 whiz Benmont Tench, Fogerty uncorks what may be his most consistently intense solo record. Some songs are so good at jumpstarting your engine, even Republicans might pump a fist or two.

Fogerty’s whiskey-yodel yelp remains unchanged, which means it still sounds like it’s on the verge of blowing out. The man can shriek and wail for sure, that hunting-dog howling for trouble. But on such porch-swing dreams as Don’t You Wish It Was True and the woe-is-me of Broken Down Cowboy, he can also soothe and lament, a hunched barstool prophet telling us how things oughta be.

And then there’s Fogerty’s guitar playing, that twangy, boot-scoot pluck that knifes through the kudzu. It inspires not just air-guitar, but pure life-affirming joy. And that, my fellow Americans, just might be the whole dang point of these albums. The music, the rhythm, is the catalyst. That’s the key to connecting us. So listen closely, do a little dance, and don’t forget to vote.