Bruce Springsteen
Harmonica Solo on
The River

About

Bruce Springsteen's harmonica solo on "The River" is the only solo on this emotionally devastating title track from his 1980 double album. Playing at 119 BPM in E, the harmonica evokes the folk and country traditions that inform the song's spare, storytelling approach. The wailing, plaintive tone of the harmonica channels the song's themes of lost dreams and working-class reality into a wordless lament, its raw simplicity standing in contrast to the more produced arrangements elsewhere on the record. The solo connects Springsteen's music to the folk tradition of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, artists who used the harmonica as a vehicle for unadorned emotional expression.

Bruce Springsteen was 29 to 30 years old at the time.