Easy Money

by Gregg Chadwick

Easy Money

(Song by Song Review of Bruce Springsteen's New Album -  Wrecking Ball)

In 1958, The Coasters slyly sang in Yakety Yak about bringing in the dog and letting out the cat. In Bruce Springsteen's Easy Money (Listen Here), off of his new album Wrecking Ball, a couple finds themselves letting out both the dog and the cat on what might be their last night on the town. 

Gregg Chadwick

The Mirror Dreams

40"x30" oil on linen 2012

A percussive stomping beat drives the song, playfully making light of the downtrodden couple's last ditch attempt to pull off a score:

There's nothing to it mister

You won't hear a sound

When your whole world comes tumbling down

And all them fat cats they'll just think it's funny

I'm going on the town now looking for easy money

Like bluegrass played on a summer's night, fiddles and acoustic guitar swirl and twang. But the  song turns ominous when Springsteen sings:

I got a Smith & Wesson .38

I got a hellfire burning

This .38 is pointed at a bigger mark than the couple imagines. Wall Street is the target of Springsteen's venom. Class warfare has never sounded so soulful, as Easy Money builds into a sort of Irish soaked, down home sing along. 

William Powell in Jewel Robbery

Like William Powell in the pre-code comedy, Jewel Robbery, the would be gunman in Easy Money seems destined to turn the tables on the wealthy fat cats. Robbery in this instance seems to be no more violent than a bad loan or a defrauded investor, but the human cost remains to be tallied. 

 All lyrics from Easy Money -  Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

More Song by Song Reviews of Wrecking Ball:

1. We Take Care of Our Own

2. Easy Money

3. Shackled and Drawn

4. Jack of All Trades

5. Death to My Hometown

6. This Depression

7. Wrecking Ball

8. You've Got It

9. Rocky Ground

10. Land of Hope and Dreams

11. We Are Alive

More at:

"Bruce Springsteen's widescreen vision of America on Wrecking Ball is filled with terror, tension, tenacity and above all else, triumph which may not replenish your bank account, but it will replenish your soul."

-Anthony Kuzminski, Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball, antiMusic

"What was done to my country was un-American."

Shackled and Drawn

Jack of All Trades

Death to My Hometown

From Down Under: Sean Sennett Talks With Springsteen About Wrecking Ball

All Things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly

The Working Man's Voice - The Wall Street Journal

A More Chaste Review of You've Got It by Jonathan Lack

Parsing the Samples and Quotes on Wrecking Ball

Bruce Springsteen, Théatre Marigny press conference, Paris, February 2012