Married in the U.S.A.

BY NOW, no doubt, all of the five million or so people who wanted to buy Bruce Springsteen's new album, Tunnel of Love, have already done so and formulated their own opinions about it. I don't need to add mine, especially since anything I could say about this lush, polished and beautiful album would only add to the mania. I don't want to encourage a new plucking of parvenus to roll onto the Springsteen juggernaut, a movement that in the last few years has already picked up every eight-year-old and his grandmother.

But, to be fair, I will say that this album is good--real good. Even great. Great in a peaceful, easy way. Not in the blockbuster, gangbuster, rootin'-tootin', anthemic terms of Born In The U.S.A, terms that defy even the terms that I've just used. That album was larger than life, larger than Springsteen, and therefore it made Springsteen larger than himself.

If anyone doubted that the Bruce icon had become more puffed up than the well-muscled man behind it, they need only have recalled the comic-relief point of the 1984 presidential campaign when Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan quibbled over which side of the ballot the Boss was on. (Springsteen, to his credit, refused to comment). And when the message of the title song got jumbled from vehement Vietnam-vet outrage to raucous jingoism, it was clear that enough was enough.

And it was clear that Bruce had to tone down the hysteria with his next step. He needed to release an album that was more absurdly anti-commercial than Nebraska to alienate some of the excess audience.

But that's not what happened. What happened was Live 1975-85, last year's most given Christmas album. I don't own a copy of the collection because it makes me sick to think that Columbia has the audacity to release a five-record set of live material that any true fan already owned on bootleg. But clearly, good taste was not the point. The project was so profitable that it merited an article in Time Magazine's Economy and Business section.

WELL, THE toning down at last has arrived in the form of Tunnel of Love, an album too good to be true, too smooth to be Bruce, too rough not to be. It is likely to win back any old diehard devotees whose faith has been shaken in recent years and win over any remaining skeptics. It is very heartful, somewhat soulful and completely there. Which is to say, it's a self-aware album.

Tunnel of Love doesn't deal with the topics the Boss has already tackled repeatedly--hard times, hard work and hard playing. As the title reveals, Tunnel of Love is about love and romance and working it out, a topic which AIDS, herpes and everything else about post-modern existence have brought back into vogue.

This album is so of the moment, it's almost cocktail-party talk. The first thing I thought of while listening to Tunnel of Love was a conversation I had with a 38-year-old man I know who is at last getting married and settling down. (So what if it's with a 21-year-old recent graduate of this institution). We were talking about other friends of his who were moving in with their girlfriends or taking their vows. "It's in the air," he said. "Everybody who's in their 30's and should have gotten married a long time ago is finally doing it. People are learning to deal with each other again."

The new Springsteen album is about dealing. Of course, this concept is nothing new--many rock stars have done the happily-married theme before. Even Springsteen has hinted at serious commitment in songs such as The River's "I Wanna Marry You" and "Two Hearts (Are Better Than One)." But he was still insisting to biographer Dave Marsh that he was "not ready to write married music yet." Girlfriends like professional groupie Karen Darbin, photographer Lynn Goldsmith and actress Joyce Heiser came and went.

Then in 1985, model Julianne Phillips married the Boss and the sound of broken hearts could be heard all the way down the New Jersey shore.

Here comes the married music.

PRIOR TO Tunnel of Love, the best album about grappling with getting married was Lou Reed's Legendary Hearts, made in 1980. The parallels between the two LPs are most striking in the title songs. Reed sings of "Promises to keep/I never should have made/I was not meant for this/I'm good for just a kiss/Not legendary love." Similarly, Springsteen says, "Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us/You me and all that stuff we're so scared of." But at the end of his song, Reed concludes that "You've got to fight/To make what's right/You've got to fight/To keep your legendary love." Likewise, in his last line Springsteen declares, "You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love."

But unlike Tunnel of Love, Reed's album was no masterpiece, except insofar as it represented a turning point for him artistically, from heroin addict to happy husband. (Go figure). But to its credit, Legendary Hearts was way ahead of its time, before the New Romance of late. Perhaps that's why it didn't sell well while Springsteen's album is destined for multi-platinum. One of the primary differences between Reed and Springsteen--besides everything--is the former's ability to be unfashionably early while Bruce is always perfectly punctual. Reed may have his finger on the trigger--and the syringe--but Springsteen's got his on the American pulse.

THE MESSAGE of the album is put forward on the second song, "Tougher Than The Rest," my personal favorite, better even than the brilliant single "Brilliant Disguise." What the Boss wants to say is that love is something you've got to be ready for and ready to fight for: "If you're rough enough for love/Baby I'm tougher than the rest," he sings, while millions of teenage girls swoon.

And the album tells the stories of many people who are tough enough--of unwed mothers ("Spare Parts"), abandoned lovers ("When You're Alone"), and of people who stick around long enough to make love last ("Valentine's Day"). A lot of the songs are too pop, too danceable and too accessible. But they're also irresistible and lyrically intelligent. There are also some screechy rockers ("Spare Parts") and plenty of dirge-like ballads ("Cautious Man") to keep the depressives satisfied.

Springsteen plays most of the instruments on Tunnel of Love, with occasional help from the E Street Band. The album amounts to Springsteen's first truly personal statement. As the man himself puts it, "The road is dark/And it's a thin thin line/But I want you to know I'll walk it for you any time." This is an album full of drippy romantic notions renewed that finally concludes that love is tough and tender, a sacrifice worth celebrating.