Okay, I (finally) got this album the other day, and until then, I was a very good girl and didn't download it
I've been listening to it almost nonstop since I got it. I really like it. It's not as good as Hot Fuss, but I like it, it has its own charms. I don't usually like to do 'early' reviews of albums, but this thread is compelling me. Perhaps I have an advantage to like it more, because I barely know any Bruce Springsteen music (my excuse being that until a few years ago, I had pretty narrow and often pretty bad taste in music, and am just now starting to make up for that, and I haven't gotten around to The Boss yet). That said, I'm also going to try not to compare it too much to Hot Fuss. They're two very different works of art.
The thing I noticed immediately was that the album
felt American. Perhaps I was influenced by the photography. The moment I saw Anton Corbijn's photos of The Killers standing around the desert looking glum with bad facial hair, I immediately thought of The Joshua Tree. But I wouldn't really compare Sam's Town to The Joshua Tree, outside of that.
The album paints a picture of America, particularly of the western part of the country. It's not something I've experienced myself, but I've seen it portrayed enough in movies to recognize it: the American lifestyle of the small desert town in the 1950s/1960s (mostly, anyway, I suppose you could take it almost right up to the present).
But it's not just that, the album is telling the story of a guy with dreams. He wants to leave behind the dreariness of his "two star town" and live his dream, a dream of fame. You can almost take the songs (or at least some of them) and rearrange them into a sort of chronological order. Like the way I (in a fit of insanity, perhaps) rearranged a number of Hot Fuss songs into the almost complete story of Jenny's death. To me, Sam's Town almost feels like the soundtrack of a movie. I can see it all in my head:
(Warning! I don't know how much sense any of this actually makes. I overanalyse, and I tend to ramble. I'll probably look back on this post in a few months and wonder what in the world I was thinking
)
Sam's Town:
The obvious opening, here we get introduced to this character that's had as normal a childhood as any other kid in his town. But he seems to have bigger dreams than everyone else (no one else seems to even have a dream at all). The song ends with the reminder that although he wants to leave, he'll still come back, because that's where he'll always be able to be himself. I'd like to add that the first time I listened to the chatter at the end, specifically "Please, I'm on my knees", I went "Who the hell let Bono into the studio?!" (I kid, I kid!
)
Enterlude:
Cheesy, but meant to be. It sounds like the lounge band in a hotel bar. And maybe this is sort of another chapter in the story, the character's first stab at a professional musical career is far from glamourous.
When You Were Young:
It's always harder to judge the first single after you get the whole album, because you're already so familiar with that first single. I always have this problem. But I'll do my best. This is sort of a departure from the main theme, but it could be written about a girl in the same small town, who might think her only way out is to wait for Prince Charming (or a saviour, ie. Jesus). She gets a guy, but he doesn't look a thing like Jesus, regardless, they make it work. But still, she remembers the place where she grew up, and hasn't turned her back on it completely.
Bling (Confessions of a King):
I must say, the title scared me, but thank god it's not as bad as the title might make it out to be. I haven't quite worked this one out fully in my head, but I think it could be seen as the journey out across the desert, making your way to the bigger cities where you have a chance of making it big. And mixed in with it is a sort of endless argument, the voice in the back of your head telling you to give it up, fighting with the perseverance, which wins over and breaks through in the "were gonna make it" crescendo.
For Reasons Unknown:
This bit would be the bit about the rise to fame changing you. He's getting a little bit older, a little bit colder, and a little bit closer to the goal, but noticing that it's also affecting him, and not necessarily in a good way. The one thing I really don't like about this song is the "open chair" bit... Does somebody want to explain that one to me? Because right now it makes no sense. Open chair?
Read My Mind:
Okay, this is where you rewind a little bit, back before he left the town. I suppose this could be considered the farewell. You can almost see it as a conversation between two people. The man who's leaving, and the girl he's leaving behind. She loves him enough that she doesn't mind him leaving, because she wants him to follow his dream. It's interspersed with a couple of verses highlighting the imagery of the town, and the desire to move beyond it "the restless heart, the promised land", "a world unseen", and my favourite: "a city wall and a trampoline" it puts to mind an almost cartoonish image of someone using a trampoline to jump over the wall and escape. It's a beautiful, beautiful song, and a little bit sad.
Uncle Jonny:
This is a slight departure from the rest of the songs. Not necessarily in style, but that I can't quite fit it into the story with the rest of them. I suppose it fits enough to be part of the same puzzle (the "American Tale", if you will), but I can't quite see where this particular puzzle piece fits. Listening to the song the first time, I actually started laughing at the second line. I guess I just wasn't expecting cocaine. Also, I have an uncle Johnny, what may have been why I was so amused.
Bones:
Okay, that "Come with me!" thing at the beginning annoys me so much. I like the song, it's the most sexual song on the album, and that's saying a lot, because it's not very sexy. I don't find bones to be a very sexy image. Also I love the "but I don't really like you" bit, even if it is just a sentence fragment, it goes into my lexicon of anti-love lines in songs (the best one being "while you were sleeping, I was listening to the radio and wondering what you're dreaming when it came to mind that I didn't care"). The song reminds me of Midnight Show (the watching the stars imagery), but it's not really similar besides that. Also, I had a laugh at the "never had soul" bit, that's not what you were chanting in All These Things That I've Done, Brandon
(once again, I kid
)
My List:
This is a return to the story, and a return to the town. The guy comes back to his small town, and to his girl for a visit. Like Read My Mind, this is a sort of conversation between the two of them. She's wondering if he really misses her when he's out there in the world, and he's assuring her that he does. The music at the crescendo bothers me, it sounds like some kind of epic 80s metal ballad. Also, the beats at the beginning of the song kind of remind me of the beginning of Brave New Girl by Britney Spears, which is disturbing.
This River Is Wild:
Rewind more, this song seems more like the decision to finally leave and follow the dream. But it also seems to be from the perspective of somebody advising a younger person to go follow the dream. Maybe you could almost see it as the future. Maybe the guy followed his dream, had a great time, then went back home, to Sam's Town, and settled back into a normal life. But now he's telling the younger guy that he sees himself in, that it's defintely worth going for the dream. The ending of the song is a little weird, it seems to drop out of nowhere, and it reminds me of the end of the song Santa Fe from RENT. It'd also like to add that the "and he's stuck on his mom, because that bitch keeps trying to make him pray" bit cracks me up. I wasn't expecting the word "bitch" to end up on this album, and certainly not in that context.
Why Do I Keep Counting?:
This seems to be after the fame is attained, but the desire to go back home, back to the ground, back to his old self. He's on a plane, and he's achieved his dream, but he's wondering if it's really what's best for him, so he wants to go back home, and find out for certain.
Exitlude:
Again, it's the hotel bar kind of cheesiness. But it also works really well as the end credits. In the "story" of the album, nothing really gets resolved, but we're told not to worry about it, it'll work out. Also, I'd add that going by my partial interpretation of This River Is Wild, that the guy went back and resumed a normal life, maybe Enterlude and Exitlude are showing that he decided he was happier in that small town, just playing the hotel bar.
Also, my favourite songs (so far anyway) are Sam's Town, When You Were Young, Red My Mind, and This River Is Wild, but I'll add that there's not a single song on the album that I
don't like.
I feel lucky to have seen them in such a relatively intimate setting.
I'd never have the patience to write such a long review! 
I agree with every word there! 
I thought I was the only one who didn't get all the hype about this album. That's my biggest complaint about RHCP, the songs are so similar that they bore me very quickly. 
