I Pulled That Bothersome Thread
The idea that “art” is somehow separate from “commerce” seems quaint when viewed through the lens of the modern world.
Is “content” art? Some of it, probably? There’s a shitload of content, that’s for sure. I make it; you make it; Bruce Springsteen makes it. His new music video sits on my Twitter feed between a smart-ass joke about an old TV show and an invitation to some Zoom reunion for an old movie.
“Commerce” implies earning money for goods or services. How does a musician even conduct commerce today? If you’re Springsteen, you’ve made your pile and you’re probably not sweating it. For everyone else, commerce has forced commodity, and commodity has evaporated revenue. Record sales and concert bookings have been supplanted by pennies from streaming and a couple bucks in a virtual tip jar on Instagram Live.
These aren’t necessarily things Springsteen is talking about in his new single, “Letter To You,” but they’re hanging in the background. He brushes these concerns aside as he illuminates the heart of what he has always done — the struggles and accomplishments of a writing life.
The clarity is stunning; through simple metaphors, Springsteen is describing his work, the effort he’s taken up for decades to write this “letter” to all of us. And it’s always been work inclusive of art, commerce and just about everything in between. I keep coming back to that amazing rap caught in 1978 and immortalized on Live 75–85:
“But anyway, my father’d always say, ‘You know, you should be a lawyer. You know, you get… get a little something for yourself.’ You know? And my mother, you know, she used to say, ‘No, no, no. No, he should be — he should be an author. He should write books. You know, you should… That’s a good life, you can get a little something for yourself.’
“Well, what they didn’t understand was… was that I wanted everything.
<audience voice: you got it!>
“And so, you guys, one of you wanted a lawyer, and the other one wanted an author. Well, tonight youse are both just gonna have to settle for rock ’n’ roll.”
His parents wanted him to deploy his gifts in pursuit of commerce, to take up law or writing as a way to transmogrify whatever special something was inside him into a pursuit that the material world would recognize and reward. Springsteen never wanted that, but he didn’t necessarily want the life of an artist either; he yearned too much for connection through his gifts. He wanted everything.
He found it in rock ’n’ roll — the art, the commerce, all wrapped into a package that the world could understand and appreciate. And he found it through his songs.
He finds those songs by pulling on that bothersome thread, the thin indestructible line that leads him to inspiration. It’s the same one that connects him to everyone who hears and appreciates his music. He has put himself in those songs, but more than that, he’s put what he’s learned and determined into those songs too.
That’s part of the work too; it’s not just collecting gifts in a mental basket and offering them up with a bow to a waiting world. He has plowed his own fields to uncover each lyric and verse. If it’s a hell of a lot easier than plowing a real field to grow a sellable crop; that doesn’t mean it’s not been real work.
“Letter to You” takes the full measure of Springsteen’s working life and encapsulates it in a simple, beautiful lyric. His letter is his music, the work of his life. He tells us how he found it and what it took to deliver, the ink and the blood. And every time we press play, that’s what we give back to him.
