A Thousand Words on Bruce Springsteen

Photo by Lynn Goldsmith

I grew up with SiriusXM radio in both my parent’s cars, and for as long as I can remember, I never understood why there was an entire channel dedicated solely to Bruce Springsteen’s music. Furthermore, I still don’t understand why my father decided that I should be subject to listening to at least one of Springsteen’s songs every single time I was in the car with him. 

For all of my life up until I was in about 7th grade, I had a distinct image of The Boss in my head to accompany the channel. For some reason, it was that of an elderly cowboy turned showbiz wiz, prancing around on a stadium-sized stage in red flannel, blue jeans held up by suspenders and ten gallon hat, complete with a mystical looking cane. 

This image only remained as entertaining as Springsteen’s music was, which was not at all. But what was even worse to sit through then the songs was the endless in-between chatter. I hated having to hear his annoyingly confident voice tell over-the-top stories about people he knew, his songs, and his life. If I had to hear him take three minutes to introduce Clarence Clemons one more time, I was certain I was going to snap and enter a state of Springsteen-induced psychosis. Even as a little kid, I had wished he had never picked up that microphone and started singing. 

Somehow, I tolerated him. I tolerated Springsteen for long periods of time during car rides, tolerated his stupid, pointless, endless stories, and I tolerated my father’s belting along with “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”, “Thunder Road”, “Jungleland” and countless others for years. At this point, I’ve unwillingly heard more of Bruce Springsteen’s discography than any self-respecting hippie ever should. Somehow, I have managed to avoid growing a healthy appreciation for his music. 

Occasionally, when you get exposed to someone’s music enough times over a couple of years, you might end up becoming a fan of theirs. The Cars, Led Zeppelin, ELO–the formula has worked a couple of times before for me. But Springsteen crossed the line. Springsteen was insufferable. Springsteen’s live shows from randomly selected years that were played over the air all hours of the day were exhausting to listen to. Springsteen was an old man beating a horse so far into the ground that it had resurfaced on another continent. And the worst crime of all, Springsteen was boring. 

I am aware that many bands have built up their own popularity by having a distinct “sound”, such as the three mentioned above. It is distinct sounds and styles that allow people to rise above the ranks of the dime-a-dozen flunkies that clog the system, and it is distinct styles that keep some bands from ever achieving those heights. And Bruce Springsteen certainly has a distinct style–it just so happens to be fucking terrible. 

How so many people have been subscribing to the ideas being spouted by the same old raggedy, worn-out Americana rag since 1973 is beyond me. How Springsteen has maintained his fame on an exceptionally vanilla and ubiquitous discography composed primarily of songs that, musically and lyrically, all sound exactly the same is one of the great mysteries of my life that I have yet to figure out. The man has seemed to only ever live one life experience over and over again, incapable of escaping the clutches of the idealized girl next door, highways and nonsensical late night adventures for the life of him. He even has a vanilla, ubiquitous image to go along with it. 

Whatever Bruce Springsteen has got going for him hasn’t yet worked on me. A highly specific image of masculinity that I wasn’t able to understand until I was in high school and suddenly surrounded by a bunch of country dopes who wore American flag and Budweiser t-shirts to school. 

Springsteen all but wishes he had been born in time to truly experience the 1950s. He presented himself in the most stereotypical garb he could think of–he lives in the sweat-slicked button-ups and denim of a gang-involved Italian-American youth from the rattier streets of New York–another failing he seems to desperately want to overcome, as he is from New Jersey, just one of the many things he cannot and will not shut up about. 

He longs for the nostalgic images of running amok in a southern suburbia with his friends, dropping cigarettes into drainpipes and cutting school to sneak into an Elvis Presley concert. His music is so synonymous with that of the American flag–and all the bigoted connotations that come with it–that I’m surprised he hasn’t yet declared his undying devotion to all the weight that it carries. The only thing separating Springsteen’s macho image from the threatening, violent kind so displayed by contemporaries such as Ted Nugent is a friendly smile. 

If I didn’t know anything about Bruce Springsteen, and I saw a young version of himself walking down a dusty back road in Pennsylvania, I would probably feel at least mildly threatened by his presence. But I am blessed with that knowledge that behind that butch veneer is some fragile, troubled teenager who desperately wanted to belong and somehow found the most boring way to do it. 

The least I can do is give props to the man for knowing how to properly pair an image with a sound–his songs are just as riddled with nostalgia as his beat-up clothes are, and no song commits this sin like “Glory Days”. 

I hold the same distaste for “Glory Days” as I do Bowie’s “Golden Years”, with the intensity of that distaste turned up to eleven. “Glory Days” is the sickly sweet nostalgia that people carry with them for their younger years, though it is a thousand times more uncritical than that of the average person’s. “Glory Days” is a love letter to everything people hate and critique and tear apart about nostalgia and letting it rule you, and here Springsteen is absolutely reveling in it–nostalgia for the good old days, for things he only imagined and dreamt of doing, is all Springsteen has. 

In my time of hearing his songs over and over again, I’ve managed to grow a healthy appreciation for “Dancing in the Dark”, “Sherry Darling”, and, on a good day, “Hungry Heart”. But Springsteen’s discography primarily contains love-lorn letters to an America that never has existed and never will. How critics the likes of Dave Marsh have practically built their careers by operating as myrmidons, hell, as boot-lickers for this man is a mystery that boggles my mind to this day. The most interesting thing he ever brought us was Nils Lofgren--who was better solo and in Grin, anyways.