What is it about Bruce? Why does he do it for a lot of us? Not long ago, at a local pub, I was talking with Pat Lewis, a fellow Middlebury dad, and a buddy with whom I share many interests. Our conversation turned to music. We ploughed coins in the juke box as we talked of our favorite bands from The Beach Boys to The Replacements. Assuming he would love him I venture, “And what about Springsteen?” Pat kind of grimaced and said, “I don’t know. I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid.” That felt like a punch to the gut. How could Pat Lewis not like Bruce? Which made me think, what is it about Bruce that does it for so many of us?
When Bruce plays, you get the feeling that he’s earnest. Jon Stewart, hosting the Kennedy Center Honors, said of Springsteen, “Bruce doesn’t just sing, he testifies.” With Bruce, you never get the feeling he’s doing it for a paycheck. I think of the Dimaggio quote when Joltin’ Joe talked of why he gave his best every game, “Because there’s some kid in the stands, that’s the only game he’s going to see me play.” It’s that same passion you get from Springsteen, he’s up there, Proving it All Night, for you.
I remember when downloading music over the internet started happening, I was genuinely worried that we would lose our artists. My fear was that the future Lennons and McCartneys might not choose to go into the music business if it meant they couldn’t cash in on their rock star dreams. No reason to have worried though because real artists, are going to have to sing, or play, no matter what. If Bruce never made it big, Bruce fans know, he’d probably be working a 9 to 5 gig in some office complex on Route 1 in Jersey. But you could rest assured he’d be playing on the weekends in some local bars down the Jersey shore. He’s got this rock and roll in him, these songs, and he has to get them out.
And what a gift it is. Whatever music does it for you, from Sheryl Crow to the Counting Crows, we have to take a second to thank the artists. How hard it must be to write a song, from the lyrics to the melody, damn, I don’t know enough about it to even sound like I
know what I’m talking about. I’m just glad they pursue their dreams, they give their blood, sweat and tears, for us really.
I tell my students, I teach 8th grade, that I might not have survived adolescence, were it not for the music of Bruce Springsteen. I can picture myself in my bedroom, gingerly placing Darkness on the Edge of Town, the album, on my Hitachi stereo turntable. Those of you of a certain age will recognize my hi-fi; an all-in-one unit I bought at Macy’s. For $220 I got a turntable, cassette player and AM/FM stereo. Throw in some milk-crate-sized speakers and I was rocking out in my room; much to my Dad’s dismay. Early on I felt a strong connection to Springsteen’s songs. He was cool and vulnerable at the same time. In the same song you got the feeling he could kick your ass or he could be getting his heart crushed. The Boss’s music was the perfect lyrical elixir for an adolescent finding his way in the world. I can still picture 10th grade, in the room I shared with both of my brothers, singing along with Bruce to an imaginary girlfriend I hadn’t even met yet. “Well if she wants to see me! You can tell her that I’m easily found. Tell her there’s a spot out ‘neath Abram’s Bridge. And tell her, there’s a darkness on the edge of town.”
Bruce fans stick together, those of us that are actually drinking the Kool-Aid. I got a call this past week from Glen Gruder, one of my East 4th Street cronies. He called to let me know that I HAD to pick up Springsteen’s recently released multi-disk set. Glen turned 50 this past summer but I could hear the excitement in his voice as he talked about this new version of “Candy’s Room” on the new disk. Our connection goes way back.
Early on, we made Bruce our own. It felt cool to know about Bruce before other people, before he got big. “Darkness” came out in ’78 and there started to be a buzz about this Springsteen guy. Gruder and I were the big Springsteen fans on East 4th Street, buying vinyl versions of The Wild The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle in our local record store on 13th avenue.
It was Glen actually, who took me to my first Bruce concert. In 1980, G-man won 4 tickets to Springsteen’s New Year’s Eve show at the Nassau Coliseum. Springsteen was still relatively unknown or unappreciated in our circles. Actually we couldn’t even get two other friends to go with us. Springsteen on New Year’s Eve! We wound up scalping two of the tix, interestingly enough to Cathy Cavanaugh, a friend of ours from the neighborhood, who happened to be outside the Coliseum, looking for tickets.
When I got a counselor job, at YMCA Silver Lake in New Jersey in 1980, the Springsteen tattoo became permanent. Much to the chagrin of my co-counselor, Jim-Bob Mitchell, I bought a cassette of “Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ” at the Sussex County Fair. That whole summer in Cabin 17, I played that cassette over- and over. “Billy slammed on his coaster brakes and said, anybody want to head on out to Greasy Lake?” Even if the lyrics didn’t fit, I made them fit, Greasy Lake? Silver Lake? “Princess cards she sends me, with her regards...” Bruce’s songs are narratives, telling stories that seemed somehow to work for me. “For you, for you I came for you
but you did not need my urgency…” thinking of a certain girl at camp, someone I have a crush on but she doesn’t know.
One of my other camp buddies who is “drinking the Kool-Aid” is Steve Swierczek. Every once in a while, after the kids go to sleep, the phone will ring. When I answer, all I can hear is crowd noise. Then I can hear Bruce singing “Night.” Swierczek knows, this is the first song I heard Bruce sing live. He calls so I can share the concert with him, me on my couch in Connecticut and Steve in some stadium, thinking of me when he hears, “And the world is bustin’ at its seams. And your just a prisoner of your dreams…” Those calls always mean a lot to me.
After 9/11, Bruce released an album of healing, “The Rising.” It was upsetting at first to listen to it, but eventually it became cathartic. No better artist to write that album except maybe Billy Joel. During “The Rising” tour, I joined Swierczek and a group of his Rutgers buddies for a tailgate before one of the summer shows at Giants Stadium. I had no ticket so I had to scalp a single. Tough to sit by yourself but I just had to go to this show. Second song in, I am surrounded by fellow Bruce fans, but strangers none the less, and Bruce goes into “The Rising,” a haunting tune about America picking itself up after 9/11. “I see you Mary in the garden. In the garden of a thousand sighs. There’s holy pictures of our children...” My mind flashes to people I know, and the horrors of that time and I feel a raindrop. I look up into the graying summer sky and there’s another one, not a deluge, just a few, like tears, falling slowly.
Maybe for you it’s not Bruce? Maybe it’s The Beatles? The Stones? Whoever it is that moves you, give thanks that they followed their muse. When you hear that song that gives YOU goosebumps, take a second to say Thanks to the artist for putting it out there for us, for sharing their humanity with us.
