Get well soon, Boss....(pt I)
Free column today. Pt II coming next week, so maybe you’d like to become a paid subscriber? I can’t do this without your support, and appreciate it very much.
With the news of Bruce Springsteen having to cancel more concerts due to what we now know is Peptic Ulcer disease, I’ve been thinking back on my own history with the Boss. I trust Bruce is gonna be fine, but I guess I still need to be reminded that he’s a 73 year old man still out there proving it all night.
This announcement did that in a major way. Get well soon, Boss. We still need ‘ya…
I’ve followed him since I first noticed his large, pensive mug on the cover of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle, which I discovered when rifling through my sister’s combined record collections. I was only able to do this when they were out of the house, of course. What a record looked like used to be as important as what it sounded like. We devoured the notes and the lyrics and the credits the same way we read the cereal boxes during breakfast. There was something in that cover shot that made me want to hear what the guy was up to. He looked like he had some serious shit on his mind.
It was (and still is) a wild ride. Hearing Rosalita for the first time left you dizzy, like jumping in the car with someone who drove way too fast. And then there was a song about the circus that featured a tuba, another about the Jersey shore boardwalk that featured an accordion, and a few long tracks that sounded like Dylan and Van Morrison had joined Fight Club. It certainly didn’t sound anything like Led Zeppelin, who mostly dominated my hormonal thoughts in those days. While listening I continued my searching (my sister’s had records in order), and noticed another badass cover photo…..the same dude hanging onto the shoulder of a large black saxophone player. This pic was too large to be contained. It had to be continued on the back. And then another…..this time the same guy looking like he just rolled out of bed and didn’t own a comb. And here was one that looked like a postcard you’d find at the rest stop of the PA turnpike. Who was this guy? Every time my sisters were out of the house (which was often, they were popular, unlike me) I’d play these records, careful to put them back exactly where I found them, lest they discover my snooping and lock them away. I was 13 years old, an anxiety and acne-riddled mess all too often reminded that girls were hopelessly out of reach. I hadn’t had ANY of the experiences this guy was singing about, but I wanted them. I was rooting for the guy to coax Rosalita out of the house, and to break out of the death trap town he was in. I wanted to drink warm beer in the summer rain and make love in the dirt too. Bruce Springsteen sounded like the same level of sinner than I was. Zeppelin and the Stones sang of things unattainable. Unworldly even. But this guy had pared it all down. There were no Vikings or Valhalla here…..just guys trying to hold on to the same things their Daddy’s had.
Which was pretty heady shit back then for a barely-teen raised on the Doobie Brothers and Aerosmith 8 tracks tapes.
All this was before Bruce broke into top 40 consciousness. In 1980 Hungry Heart did that, surely the most innocuous sounding song about a guy abandoning his family ever written. It was featured on yet another record with a cover featuring Springsteen’s real-sized face. The River was part roller derby and part unemployment office, an almost schizophrenic double album that had you either dancing or crying. This would soon join my sister’s record collection, but also mine. It was the first Springsteen record I bought on my own. Things were getting personal now.
But now everybody knew who Bruce Springsteen was, which was kind of a drag. He was a pop star. He was back and forth on the charts with Air Supply and The Captain and Tennille. There was an east coast touring tribute band called Backstreets that would pack Gallagher’s Bar in my town, to the point where the fire marshal would need to intervene. I’d never heard of a tribute band before (they are STILL around, now calling themselves the BStreet Band. My sister used to crush on the sax player).
You started to wonder where Bruce could possibly go to get out of his own way.
He must have thought the same thing, because his next release was an album of demos he recorded alone in his bedroom. Nebraska was s record of nightmares and dead-end violence inspired by a nearly 10 year old Terence Malick film, surely not the record the brass at the record company was expecting after cashing all those Hungry Heart checks. It was almost perversely non-commercial, akin to Stephen King following up The Shining with a cookbook. But it was also a stunning collection of narrative songs that could have been dug up from the Library of Congress. Springsteen was barely 30 years old, and if he never released another note of music, Nebraska was enough to create the legend.
But of course more was to come. A lot more…..
In a bit…
—tf