"I want my country back, I want my dream back, I want my America back." These were Bruce Springsteen's words at a Cleveland rally for Barack Obama last November. When he followed with a new album called "Working on a Dream," out now, I feared it might be full of slogans.

"I spent most of my life as a musician measuring the distance between the American Dream and American reality," he told the crowd at that rally, adding a full endorsement of Obama.

The album isn't a Democratic call to arms, though it does evoke a spirit of "Yes we can" optimism. Springsteen's impassioned words suggest that the 59-year-old star could have a second career as a speechwriter for the president if the day job went pear-shaped.

On the strength of this latest outing, released Tuesday, and as Springsteen appears at the Super Bowl today, however, there seems little chance of that. "Working on a Dream" shows an artist who has found a new sense of musical purpose and is back to making rock for the sheer pleasure of it.

As he once put it in a song called "Ain't Got You," he's about to get "paid a king's ransom for doin' what comes naturally."

One of the key tracks, "My Lucky Day," says it all, with an upbeat kick that takes us back to "Dancing in the Dark." The Boss is growing reflective, thanking his lucky stars for those 120 million records sold and the 18 Grammy awards.

PERSONAL RECORD

"Working on a Dream" is no State of the Nation address. It's Springsteen's most personal record in years, an odd mixture of one-take songs knocked off in minutes and crafted tunes that recall the wall of sound of his "Born to Run" heyday of 1975.

The opener, "Outlaw Pete," is a strange shotgun marriage that pairs Sergio Leone with a skewed allegory about frontier justice. It recalls the likes of Bob Dylan at his weirdest on the 1978 LP "Street Legal."

The soundtrack cut, "The Wrestler," a Golden Globe winner that is tacked on as a bonus at the end, is almost worth the price of the recording on its own.

Springsteen has produced a commercial work that is likeable if not too demanding. It's a welcome contrast to years of sober albums that pondered the sour side of the American dream.

It would have been easy for him to make another "Magic" or any of the downbeat records that have punctuated his career and would be right in tune with the spirit of the economy: the acoustic "Nebraska," the austere "Devils and Dust" and "The Ghost of Tom Joad."

TOUGH TIMES

Even devout fans would have to admit that Bruce has made some of his best songs out of depression. Take "Downbound Train" from the "Born in the U.S.A." album. It just about sums up the life story of his blue-collar anti-heroes: "I had a job, I had a girl/ I had something going mister in this world/ I got laid off down at the lumber yard/ Our love went bad, times got hard."

This time around, and 16 original albums into a career, there's less of the pain and reflections on aging ("Life Itself" is as dark as he gets, pleading for love). There's more celebration. On "Kingdom of Days," he repeats "I love you, I love you, I do." However superficial and slapdash this seems, Springsteen sounds like he means it, and throughout the CD he has fun with cellos, calliopes, and Beach Boys and Byrds harmonies.

"Working on a Dream" isn't groundbreaking. Even flawed, though, it's always of interest and Springsteen's optimism is infectious. This is the first major rock record of the Obama era.