Who’s The Boss?

I don’t like Bruce Springsteen. Let me rephrase that: I don’t like the music of Bruce Springsteen. Let me revise that revision: I don’t like the music of the E Street Band. I love Nebraska. I love and have many fine memories of The Ghost Of Tom Joad (and the live bootlegs we would carry and listen to at Wherehouse Records in East Lansing). I don’t care for the big, overblown sound of the E Street band, the honking of Clarence Clemons, the keyboards, and the whole shebang. Much of this I owe to being 10 at the time of Born in The USA and having that music saturate the airwaves of my youth. I didn’t like it then and it just doesn’t do it for me now. Years later when I heard the REAL version of “Born in the USA” (it was meant for Nebraska) I found I could appreciate it and really re-discover the song.

Now disliking the music of a certain artist can be entirely separate from respecting or even feeling an affinity for the artist. You see, I think Bruce Springsteen is really cool. When I read his lyrics, stripped of the sounds I don’t care for, I really respect his vision and what he is working to capture in his songs. I wish he would retire all those old songs, “Born to Run” in particular, or limit his audience to the current crop of people who are affected by today’s economy and crises. A friend told me about a Springsteen concert after he started touring again with the E Street Band full of 45-year-old men pumping their fists in the air and singing along. I expect it to be worse now, with people sticking their iPhones in the air to “capture the moment forever.” It has become pap, a commodity, a way to re-live a time when you were young, angry, passionate, and working towards something rather than paying 400 bucks for tickets, 40 bucks for a shirt, 40 bucks for gas, and 60 bucks for the nanny for the kids. I don’t fault Springsteen, but a maturing audience and a maturing artist will only diverge as time goes forward.

The last time I accidentally bumped into Springsteen on the tube, he was a guest on Elvis Costello’s incredibly addictive program Spectacle. I wish there was no live audience on the show, as every time they pan out to the star-struck and mewling faces I get a grouchy feeling. On one episode I saw Malcolm Gladwell and Steve Buscemi in the crowd, and something about that tandem distracted me. On the Springsteen episode, Elvis talked with Bruce and Springsteen said something that made me really like him about ten times more. He quoted a Costello song. Not “Alison,” not “Watching the Detectives,” nothing that anyone would know, but “Green Shirt,” from Armed Forces, and its line, “Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?” Then he donned a dinner jacket and sang Sam & Dave songs with Costello. At that moment, in my mid-thirties, I finally felt a connection to Springsteen. Coupled with a YouTube video I found of Springsteen singing “Keep The Car Running” with Arcade Fire, my level of respect grew. Springsteen is a music fan. Sure, he’s in the business, but he is a fan. And when he used that Costello line, he made me realize that he is a part of the club too. And somehow that took the sting and bile out of thinking about all those people with their cellphones. They’re all fans, they’re all a part of something bigger, and in that moment they’re happy. And there is really nothing wrong about that.