Bruce Springsteen and the Meaning of Life

The Badlands loves The Boss. We named the blog after his 1978 hit “Badlands”, an ode to getting up off your feet and extracting the most from what surrounds you.

Lights out tonight — trouble in the heartland.
Got a head-on collision, smashin’ in my guts, man.
I’m caught in a crossfire that I don’t understand.
I don’t give a damn for the same old played out scenes.
I don’t give a damn for just the in-betweens.
Honey I want the heart, I want the soul, I want control right now.
Talk about a dream, try to make it real.
You wake up in the night with a fear so real
[You] spend your life waiting, for a moment that just don’t come.
Well, don’t waste your time waiting.

Badlands, you gotta live it every day.
Let the broken hearts stand as the price you’ve gotta pay.
We’ll keep pushin’ till it’s understood, and these badlands start treating us good.

The Boss has been creating music that inspires, invigorates, causes pause, and energizes — sometimes all at once — for over 40 years now.

Once heralded as the “next Dylan” (which is seemingly every critic’s favorite comparison) for his grandiose verbiage, Springsteen, more so than most rock musicians, puts sentiments, characters, stories, and themes central to his music. Of course, every artist does this, but I suggest that none have succeeded like the Boss.

Able to intertwine stirring narrative and philosophy with pulsing drums, squealing saxophones, and his signature Brucian gruff, Springsteen has earned his keep as “The Boss.”

Bruce Loves You

What are those themes and sentiments that Bruce so boldly proclaims?

To speak simply, Bruce’s music is about us. It’s about the seemingly insignificant moments that are indicative of storylines much bigger than we realize. Springsteen has taken the “little moments” platform to the mainstream in the most convincing way. He has found a way to convey deep, riveting, emotional stirring with simple narrative.

The little idiosyncrasies of life have weight, value, purpose, and are not to be overlooked.

(Before we go much further, I’ve alluded to the importance of the present, seemingly insignificant moments in this post.)

One of my favorite examples of this is found in “Used Car” from 1984’s Nebraska.

My little sister’s in the front seat with an ice cream cone.
My ma’s in the back seat sitting all alone.
As my pa steers her slow out of the lot for a test drive down Michigan Avenue.

Now, my Ma she fingers her wedding band and watches the salesman stare at my old man’s hands.
He’s telling us all about the break he’d give us if he could, but he just can’t.
Well, if I could I swear I know just what I’d do.

Now mister, the day the lottery I win, I ain’t ever gonna ride in no used car again.

Our narrator is revealing a to us a great deal from the time his parents purchased a used vehicle — more than what’s on the surface. Sadly (which doesn’t even begin to cover it), the narrator knows the only way he/she will ever be able to own a new car is if they win the lottery.

But what do we glean from that? To us, this passage pushes us to evaluate what matters in life. Are our futures too focused on grandeur and lofty social status? Do we care too much about material things? Or — dare I say the “p-word”? Do we need to sit down and evaluate our (oh no, I’m gonna say it) privilege?

Whatever meaning you extract from this song, one thing is abundantly clear and essential to the obtaining of your meaning: The little things have weight.

Another example, and one not so heavy, comes from that same album in the song “Highway Patrolman.” Our narrator is a small-town police officer, who’s brother is a trouble maker. The chorus of this song talks about the relationship he has with his brother.

Now ever since we was young kids, it’s been the same come down.
I get a call on the shortwave — Franky’s in trouble downtown.
Well if it was any other man, I’d put him straight away.
But when it’s your brother, sometimes you look the other way.

Yeah me and Franky laughin’ and drinkin’, nothin’ feels better than blood on blood.
Takin’ turns dancin’ with Maria as the band played “Night of the Johnstown Flood”
I catch him when he’s strayin’, like any brother would.
Man turns his back on his family, well he just ain’t no good.

This chorus is a quick, retrospective look at the relationship between these brothers. Instead of a long monologue about something so innately and immeasurably complex, like the relationship between brothers, all we get is:
- Lauging
- Drinking
- Affirmation that being with family is good
- Dancing with a girl they presumeably both had the hots for
- A song that brought those memories back.

It’s simple. And instead of large concepts in a place where they most definitely could belong, we get something tangible and oh so simple.

(kisses lips)

Again, Bruce is grabbing us by the shoulders and saying “the little things matter.”

There are examples upon examples upon examples upon examples of this in Bruce’s work. The reminder that everyday happenings can always reflect something much bigger than the moment itself.

This last major example is less pointed, I think, and lets the scene painted speak for itself. The message is as simple as “a great memory is worth writing about.”

This is from “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” on his album The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle.”

Sandy, the fireworks are hailin’ over Little Eden tonight, forcin’ a light into all those stony faces left stranded on this warm July.

Down in the town, the Circuit’s full of switchblade lovers, so fast, so shiny, so sharp, as the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark, and the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovers on the shore, chasin’ all them silly New York virgins by the score.

Coupled with the twinkling, glistening, accordian, this song is more cinematic than most movies. Springsteen’s own words capture this song’s purpose:

“I’d been evicted from my apartment above the beauty salon, so I moved on myself and was living with my girlfriend in a garage apartment, five minutes from Asbury Park, in Bradley Beach. This is where I wrote ‘4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),’ a goodbye to my adopted hometown and the life I’d lived there before I recorded. Sandy was a composite of some of the girls I’d known along the Shore. I used the boardwalk and the closing down of the town as a metaphor for the end of a summer romance and the changes I was experiencing in my own life.”

Saying goodbye to the place you consider your home is tough. Instead of creating a list of reasons why he loved it and starting that list with “this is why I will miss my home”, The Boss simply paints a picture for us full of — you guessed it — little details as if to say “See why I’ll miss it? Aren’t these little memories enough?”

And We Love Bruce

I’ve driven home this point hard enough 3 times over now, and I know you’re sick of it. Stick with me. This isn’t (of course) a post about Bruce Springsteen’s music. It’s a post about what we can learn from Bruce Springsteen’s music. And I’ll keep it short.

To wit: Go get a beer with a friend. Take a drive. Call your old college roommate. Buy someone’s coffee. Stare a little bit longer at that painting.

In an age where we are pulled in every direction at top speed, maybe we benefit more than we realize from naming, admiring, and relishing in the everyday happenings we so often forget.

The heart of life is not waiting for you behind your dreams. It does not reside on the opposite side of the mountain you’re trying to climb. The heart of life is here with the people around you. Thanks, Bruce.

Goodbye, Reader

I send you off with lyrics from my favorite Bruce song, “Thunder Road”, the opening track to his masterpiece Born To Run.

You can hide ‘neath your covers and study your pain, make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain, waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets.

Well now, I ain’t no hero, that’s understood.
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood with a chance to make it good somehow.
Hey, what else can we do now except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair?
Well, the night’s busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere.
We got one last chance to make it real — to trade in these wings on some wheels.
Climb in back, heaven’s waiting on down the tracks.

Who knew a car ride could mean so much.

Do us a solid and click that little heart down there, wouldya?