The Songs - Mainstreet

This is another entry in my ongoing “songs that visited me and decided they wanted to stay” series. I hope you like these enough to become a paid subscriber, because I really need you!

Mainstreet - Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band

And the poolhalls, the hustlers, and the losers
Used to watch 'em through the glass
Well I'd stand outside at closin' time
Just to watch her walk on past

Unlike all the other ladies
She looked so young and sweet
As she made her alone down that empty street
Down on mainstreet

We always took the man’s greatness for granted (and misspelled his name as often as we got Fogerty wrong….it ain’t FogArty). As great as Springsteen’s Born to Run album is, Seger’s (NOT SegAr) Night Moves album might be even better…..a near perfect evocation of sexual awakening and midwestern grit that hasn’t dated in almost 50 years. And by the way, as great a SONG as Born to Run is, the song Night Moves might also be better. It remains one of the high points of 1970s radio, and has somehow entered the “classic rock” pile without being played nearly enough. I did not think that was possible. You had no idea that you could see him live and sing along to every lyric until you were actually doing it. Bob Seger was the guy whose name is tossed into the conversation almost as an aside. “Shit, I forgot about him….he’s great!”