For You: My Letter to Bruce Springsteen
And The Ties that Bind
Dear Bruce,
I am not your biggest fan, not even close. But I was riding my bike (singing Johnny 99 in my head) the weekend after I went solo (I fall into that category of fan) to the final show of your 2016 River tour at Foxboro, and I could not stop thinking about how much your music has touched my life over the past 38 years.
This is not one of those love at first sight (sound) stories.
My Growin’ up occurred on the Jersey border in Spring Valley, N.Y., with hearty portions of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and a side of Rolling Stones. Music was the least harmful expression of my adolescence.
In 1975 when one of my best friends Frankie, showed me his brother’s new favorite album, Born to Run, I could not imagine what all the underground fuss was about. I felt no musical void to fill, so paid it no mind.
Fast forward to my 1979 freshman year at the state college in New Haven, CT where we shared an off-campus apartment with these guys who blew in from the swamps of Jersey (Lakewood). They plastered your poster on the wall, and unapologetically replaced the vinyl on my turntable with sides of your recordings.
I was not an immediate convert, but the transformation seemed to infiltrate me on some cellular level. It wasn’t just the raucous fun of Rosalita, or the “that could have been us” Spirits in the Night, it was the meaningful and deliberate tone of how the lyrics were expressed.
When my mother took me to visit her aunt Sister Rosalie at her convent in New Jersey, I played Darkness the whole ride there — relating the lyrics of regret, angst, adversity, commitment, perseverance…lost but not forgotten, from the dark heart of a dream
In a way, I was using your soundtrack to say everything that my mother should know about me, but didn’t know how to ask. So when Sister asked me about my common adolescent sins I did what teenage boys do when confronted by a nun — I lied.
I realized I would have to face my own demons before exposing them to others.
My first live show was the original River tour at the New Haven Coliseum. I can’t say that I knew all the songs — like so many, I came to hear my favorites. This must have been the first time I stood for over 3 hours at a concert, and as Bruce-cliché as this is — the energy and stage presence and audience engagement of this rock n’ roll baptism granted me my union card.
I met my wife Diane in 1983 and we’ve been married since 1986, but the day Born in the USA was released almost wrecked our destiny. My skin was crawling with anticipation as I ripped the plastic off the album cover and put it on the turntable of her cheesy little apartment stereo and blasted it beyond its reasonable acoustic limits.
Her concern over the neighbors’ mid-afternoon right to peace and quiet were in stark contrast to my primitive rock impulsiveness. This became the first of many reconciliations between the three of us.
It helped a lot when I went to the first of your two Hartford shows in 1984, scalped tickets for the next night, and took her (on my 23rd birthday) to see what I have always considered one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, felt, been a part of.
As you were rocketing to your well-earned place among rock legends, I got busy with the life of work and family — the margin for live entertainment became a luxury we couldn’t always afford; but I was always listening.
Our pivotal reunion was in 2005 when I took my neighbor Todd and my brother to your solo show in Hartford. Todd was a Gulf War veteran who became a paraplegic in a jeep accident. He was such a huge fan — he loved to tell the story of being at one of your shows and sitting in front of Little Steven when he wasn’t doing the E-Street Band thing.
I had heard so many fans say that it’s just not as good without “the band”. But that was the show that me and Todd came to see and absorbed every moment of heartfelt words and how you sung and played them.
When you played Wreck on the highway, Lost in the flood, My hometown — that awesome encore version of Promised Land, I came full circle to what I loved most about your music.
Todd died of pneumonia the following year and his wife gave me his framed collage of all your album covers.
When I made that leap to accept and appreciate every song you chose to play (and stopped holding my breath for that treasured classic), there was no turning back.
As my boys were getting older, life settled down enough for us all to enjoy your shows. I saw every subsequent tour, using friends, birthdays, co-workers, even my boss to spin “excuses” to take them all to see yet another show. My wife finally gave in and dubbed my man-crush hopelessly unavoidable.
For what it’s worth, here are some of my personal favorite moments as I recall them:
· Dancing through the isles with my college buddies during the encores of that first Hartford show in 1984 — pretty sure you played CCR’s Traveling Band.
· The first time I heard you play The Rising during the album’s tour at Rentschler Field in Hartford in 2003 — and when you played it during your solo show in 2005, I loved the way you did your own background vocal with a dream of life through that verse…and the emotional power of may I feel your blood mix with mine.
· For his 18th birthday I took my nephew to the Working on a Dream show in Hartford when you tacked on Cadillac ranch to the end of the set after Born to run. We made a dash to get closer for the encores, and when you played Tenth avenue freeze out (the best Super Bowl halftime show opening song ever), I hit that rock n roll nirvana moment.
But when you closed with Rosalita and I was by the corner of the stage, I wanted so badly to hop over the barrier and join the dance party on the floor.
That was the last time I saw Clarence play.
· I took my eldest son to the opening leg of the Wrecking Ball tour at MSG, where we had center stage floor seats, and when you played Thunder Road I sang every word arm in arm with some woman around my age, and later assured my son “that was just a Bruce moment”.
· I went solo on the second leg of the Wrecking Ball tour in Hartford and you opened up with Held up without a gun. I looked for an opening down the stairs and got a spot with a couple from Boston in the 2nd row (behind a couple from Jersey), arguably the best seat in the house.
I felt a little bad about how much everyone else had paid for those seats, but I want you to know those were the most intimate hours of my music loving life. We sang For you and Incident on 57th street together. You took the Pink Cadillac poster and joked about how glad you were that they wrote the lyrics on the back, I had that 1984 flashback — I was alive out there.
· On the first leg of the 2016 River tour I was sitting with my wife 10 rows from the side of the stage when at that relatively hushed moment at the end of Stolen car I so wanted to yell out “let’s roadhouse” in anticipation of Ramrod, then you did it — I was so locked in.
· I went solo to that tour finale at Gillete Stadium. As I was walking in I saw a woman with a poster for Janey don’t lose your heart, and I said to her “I saw him play that in Hartford once”, and she told me the story of how you played it for her friend Janey that night — she since died of cancer. She showed me the photo you graciously took with her and Janey that evening, and my rock karma told me that I was in the right place at the right time.
Then you did the 1978 style Prove it all night guitar solo and went into those incredibly soulful renditions of your root songs, followed by all the poster requests, and held the band back while you so heartfully took us through Sandy.
At the opening notes of Jungleland I cried, just enough for only me to know, because I last heard it in 1984 and I wasn’t sure if we’d ever do this again, and it meant so much to me, and it was perfect.
And then I read Born to Run.
And now on the eve of our 32nd wedding anniversary, with Diane in her first year of unfathomable Alzheimer’s, we have balcony seats to your Broadway show, for the three of us to enjoy together, perhaps one last time as I long for her blood to mix with mine.
How am I going to possibly comply with theater etiquette as we sing every word together? Guess I’ll just let the music flow and see where it takes me (us).
