In respect to the man's career, I am a fairly new fan of Bruce Springsteen. My Dad, born and raised in Jersey, was a lifelong fan, while I was a dopey kid who sang along to his Top 40 hits from the 80's but had no IDEA about the magnificence and genius that is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
One day shortly after 9/11, I was driving home from school and listening to the radio. "My Hometown" was on and I imagined Bruce Springsteen, a year younger than my dad, growing up in New Jersey in the 1950's, in another town a few exits down the turnpike. The DJ mentioned The Rising tour and I had a brilliant idea. For my Dad's birthday, I bought a pair of tickets to see Springsteen at Giants Stadium in E. Rutherford, New Jersey.
As the show drew closer, I started to listen to The Rising. The album blew me away. The raw emotions of September 11th were matched with empathy and an appropriate amount of optimism. I learned that the song "City of Ruins" was actually written about the deterioration of Asbury Park, New Jersey, but with the release of the album less than a year after September 11, it was impossible not to associate the imagery in the song with the tragic attacks. Regardless of the context, the song is a lovely offering of inspiration and perseverance.
City of Ruins by Bruce Springsteen:
There's a blood red circle
on the cold dark ground
and the rain is falling down
The church doors blown open
I can hear the organ's song
But the congregation's gone
My city of ruins
My city of ruins
Now the sweet veils of mercy
drift through the evening trees
Young men on the corner
like scattered leaves
The boarded up windows
The hustlers and thieves
While my brother's down on his knees
My city of ruins
My city of ruins
Come on rise up!
Come on rise up!
Now there's tears on the pillow
darling where we slept
and you took my heart when you left
without your sweet kiss
my soul is lost, my friend
Now tell me how do I begin again?
My city's in ruins
My city's in ruins
Now with these hands
I pray Lord
with these hands
for the strength Lord
with these hands
for the faith Lord
with these hands
I pray Lord
Come on rise up!
Come on rise up!
Rise up
This video clip of Bruce & co. performing this song gives me chills.
In July of 2003, my dad and I hit the I-95 towards New Jersey and watched in amazement as a NJ man in his mid-50's hung upside down from his mic stand, danced around the stage for a couple of hours, and sufficiently rocked our worlds. My dad reminisced to the songs that he knew while I got to experience first hand the energy that simply must be witnessed live.
Since then, I have become very well-acquainted with Springsteen's catalog.
I am a wistful and idealistic and angsty, all at once. I know these traits can sometimes get a bit out of hand and I need to focus on reality. But before I do that, I will wallow in the depths of my emotions and bury myself in lyrics that understand. Listening to "Brilliant Disguise" after an argument with my husband is actually painful.
When I am angsty and staring at the clock in my office, I will hear "The Promised Land" and escape for a few minutes with Bruce as he vents my frustrations with his song.
I've done my best to live the right way
I get up every morning and go to work each day
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold
Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode
Explode and tear this town apart
Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart
Find somebody itching for something to start
Songs like this and The River and Badlands, may have a tone of melancholy, but the beauty of music is the ability to rock it all out. Whatever angst or pain I am feeling is immediately relieved when I have a musical outlet... and thankfully, there are others out there far more talented than I, penning the soundtrack to my life.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E. Street Band at First Mariner Arena in Baltimore (jack). The man is 60 years old, but he is just as vibrant and animated as the spry 50 something that I saw several years ago. I'm sure audience members were making the same comparisons to the Bruce that they may have seen in the late 70's or early 80's.
In the middle of "Hungry Heart", Bruce ran around through the GA seats, grabbed somebody's beer for a quick sip, and then crowd surfed back to the stage. I simply cannot talk myself out of working out when I know that this machine of a man is still rocking out like that at the age of 60 - for THREE AND A HALF HOURS!
He played the Born To Run album in it's entirety which is pretty damn cool. It isn't my favorite of his albums, but as he said himself, it was the album that started a 30+ year conversation between The Boss and all of his fans. After the setlist was complete, Springsteen continued his fairly new tradition of performing sign requests. He would point to a sign that caught his eye and ask that the fans move the sign towards the stage. He would take the sign and parade it around the stage for all of the band members to see and then place it in front of his mic. Three seconds later, everyone had better remember how to play that song because it's going to start. With 4 decades of music to draw from, this is a pretty amazing feat.
While City of Ruins was the song that made me want to know him more, it's his live performance that leaves me (and I'm sure thousands of others) needing his poetic, soulful songs like air. The concert felt more like a spiritual revival; but instead of instilling the fear of hell in the congregation, the music inspired everyday people to emerge from the hell of everyday life. Is there anything more beautiful than the power of rock n roll?
I am ending this post with a clip of Bruce and the legendary band from a performance in 1975. This is one of those songs that epitomize the invigorating energy of this band. This is also a song that I used to sing embarrassingly wrong. (Tell the devil in the freezer aisle?)
