“Inyo”: stories and sounds from the border between California and Mexico

Registered between 1994 and 1997, “Inyo” is one of the most enigmatic and fascinating albums of the “Lost Albums” box. Born in parallel with “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, but never completed or officially announced, it is a concept album that travels geographical boundaries – those of California with Mexico – and inner, with characters who live between past and present. Stayed unknown to the publication of the box, it is a musical and political journey in the heart in America’s “borderline”.

History

Springsteen begins to write and record these songs in 1994, while working at “Streets of Philadelphia”, and continues during the “Tom Joad” acoustic tour, often writing in the motels between one stage and another. Unlike other unpublished records that the fans had had a hint, “Inyo” was literally unknown: the only public clue was a fleeting reference to “The Lost Charro” in a post by Patti Scialfa. Yet “Inyo” was a project with a strong thematic coherence: border stories, border, migration. Springsteen is directly inspired by the song “Across the Borderline” by Ry Cooder – who has sang live several times, starting from the 90s – and builds an entire narrative universe around that atmosphere.
The title refers to the Californian county of Inyo, theater at the beginning of the twentieth century of the so -called “water war” between Los Angeles and local farmers, conflict at the center of the title track “Inyo”. But the border told in these songs is also personal and spiritual, as always in the boss’s repertoire.

What it contains

The disc is an itinerary between deserts, frontier towns and forgotten suburbs. In “Inyo”, Springsteen tells the clash between farmers and water speculators. “Adelita” celebrates the Soldaderas of the Mexican Revolution, while “El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)” is one Murder Ballad in which an immigrant gardener remembers the lost daughter in a shooting.
“Ciudad Juarez” faces drug trafficking and border violence, “The Aztec Dance” combines spirituality and history in a ritual dance, “Indian Town” is a story of friendship broken on a Hopi reserve, and “Our Lady of Monroe” brings the border to New Jersey, with the portrait of a tired policeman looking for peace. “One False Move”, on the other hand, is a Texan deviation full of narrative tension, and “When I Build My Beautiful House” closes the album with a melancholy sweetness.
Musically, “Inyo” mixes the minimalism of “Tom Joad” with Tex-Mex influences, Mariachi, and folk-rock hints. Acoustic guitars are intertwined with Latin winds and rhythms, evoking Ry Cooder, Jackson Browne and Los Lobos, but always remaining in Springsteen’s personal style.

Why listen to it today

“Inyo” is perhaps the most surprising album of the whole box: not only because nobody knew its existence, but because it shows Bruce Springsteen struggling with one of his most literary, political and cinematographic projects. It is a record that tells a lateral America, made of invisible faces and uncomfortable stories, but does it with delicacy and empathy, without ever losing the sense of the story. Today, in a world still crossed by migrations, borders and injustices, “Inyo” sounds like a current and necessary work, one of the deepest among those that the boss has left for years in a drawer.

Tracklist

1. Inyo
2. Indian Town
3. Adelita
4. The Aztec Dance
5. The Lost Charro
6. Our Lady of Monroe
7. El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)
8. One False Move
9. Ciudad Juarez
10. When I Build My Beautiful House