Springsteen Challenge Day 1: Favorite Bruce Song

It was inevitable that I’d undertake the 30 day Springsteen challenge, and quite apropos – yesterday was the 30^th anniversary of the release of Nebraska, one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen albums – one that is dark, and brooding, and overlooked by casual fans.

The 30 day Bruce Challenge can be found, by the way, at http://fuckyeahtheboss.tumblr.com/post/908819375/30-day-bruce-springsteen-challenge

The 30 day Bruce Springsteen Challenge consists of 30 days of writing about your favorites with regard to Bruce Springsteen – song, album, moment, live performance, lyric.  All of them.  They’re in there.  I won’t completely rip off that website – click the link to see what each writing prompt is.  I’ll preview the following day’s post at the end of each post.  I’ll be writing these a few days in advance, so that, in case something happens, I don’t miss a day.

This is the quintessential Bruce Springsteen discussion among hardcore fans.  What is your favorite song?  Are you a Born to Run? A Darkness? A Valentine’s Day?  Do you like something from off of Tracks?  The B-Sides are a source of a lot of great material.  This ends up becoming, for a lot of people, the mood they’re in.

Heartbroken? Then maybe something off of Tunnel of Love.

Hopeful?  Try Working on a Dream.

Youthful and filled with joie de vivre? How about something from The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle?

For me, the song that grabbed my attention was Thunder Road.  For starters, there’s that name.  Thunder Road evokes a place a lot like the clenched fist of fire in your gut you feel when you listen to the poetry of Bruce Springsteen’s music.  The road is a way to escape; it’s a promise, and the hope from Pandora’s box.  The Thunder is the fight – the fury in your soul of the restlessness you feel when you can’t help but feel the weight of your restraints as you peer down the road.

Thunder Road is a song that, every time I hear it, it gives me a chill.  I spent several years just pondering everything from the screen door, the roses in the rain, or the open-ended nature of the song.  Bruce says “these two lanes can take us anywhere,” and in his VH1 Storytellers appearance, he says he intended Thunder Road to be an invitation – a welcoming to everyone to the Born to Run album.  The song brings you in, fills you with the promise of everything you could possibly want.  The story is one of preparing the listener for what the album will be.  There is no redemption other than the engine.  The engine is Bruce’s lyrics and music – they’re what drive the album.

I spent a good chunk of my late teens and early twenties angry at who I was, and who I wasn’t.  I felt like I wasn’t good enough.  Not just to anyone, but to myself.  I felt like I wasn’t thinking fast enough, wasn’t being mature enough, and wasn’t changing myself to become who I wanted to be.  Each day, during school, when I had a day that beat me more than I beat it, I would listen to Thunder Road.  As Bruce sings “It’s a town full of losers, and I’m pullin’ out of here to win” and the piano swells, my heart feels full again.  For a long time, I felt like listening to that song was the only way I could feel that full again.

Now that I can feel that way by spending time with my wife, relaxing in the knowledge of our love and companionship, my relationship with Thunder Road becomes more about the destination than the promise of “not here.”  I used to sit and think about the possibility of elsewhere when I was alone.  Now I think about the possibility of elsewhere as the terms of how our relationship and marriage will evolve as we move forward with our life and love together.

I realize that choosing Thunder Road as my favorite is kind of trite and cliché, given that Backstreets magazine conducted a poll a few years ago, to find out what is their readers’ favorite Bruce Springsteen song of all time.  The result?  By a narrow margin, “Thunder Road” over “Backstreets.”  Don’t get me wrong; I like most Bruce songs.  I’m not wild about “The Angel” or “Silver Palomino,” but Thunder Road is my favorite.

I am a fan of beginnings, and of possibility, and Thunder Road represents all of that to me.  The uncertainty of the ride, taken alone, is no longer pervasive in my life, but rather the unpredictability of my ride with whom I’ll spend the rest of my life.

Sit tight, take hold…

Tomorrow’s challenge: your favorite Bruce lyric.