Springsteen Challenge Day 15: My Favorite Piece of Bruce Memorabilia I Own

This is more difficult than you’d think.  Many of you might assume that, as a Springsteen fanboy, I would own as much Bruce memorabilia as possible – towels he’d wiped his face with, old flannel shirts from the Born in the USA days, anything related to Bruce, really.  However, I actually don’t own tons and tons of knick-knacks related to Bruce.  Most of what I own from Bruce are albums – digital, CD, Vinyl.  I have magazines that have covered him in some way, shape, or form, and I don’t throw out my copies of Backstreets. I have bootlegs, tour programs, and concert ticket stubs, although, I must say, those are falling by the wayside with ticketfast – it’s way different to keep a large sheet of paper with a barcode on it than is to keep a small piece of cardstock… also with a barcode on it.  But I don’t really have all that much memorabilia.

My friend Erik and I have been to at least ten shows together. A few years ago, we asked each other “How much do you think you’ve spent on Bruce? Tickets, T-Shirts, CDs, books, DVDs – how much?”  I wasn’t particularly sure, because I hadn’t ever considered that there is a large portion of what I own that is specific to one person.  Plus, considering there are so many ways in which you can go to support or learn about a musician, far beyond the music, it becomes exponential.  If you really like the Harry Potter series, you have the movie tickets, the DVDs, the books, and maybe some pictures or art or something.

We sat in silence for a while mentally adding everything up.  I own most of his albums on CD – that’s ten or twelve bucks per album, on average, and 25 or so albums – around three hundred bucks.  I also have about 10 shirts at around 40 dollars a shirt (concert shirts, that is), adding another 400 bucks.  I’ve bought all the DVDs, a hundred and fifty or so into that.  Books – that’s another two hundred from all the Springsteen books I own.  My Vinyl gets expensive – I have all the studio albums save for The Rising and The Ghost of Tom Joad – probably around 500 spent on that.  I also have seen Bruce in concert 16 times, only once for free, and have paid over one hundred dollars per ticket – so let’s call that sixteen hundred.  Including incidentals that I am forgetting, but strictly on Bruce items, not food, transportation, or lodging, I bet I’ve spent around $4500.  All of that, and I have seemingly no takeaway – no memorabilia to call my own – to show off.  No conversation piece.

I would say that my Born to Run vinyl copy is my favorite piece of memorabilia, but, I am not actually sure that is true.  There’s no great story to my acquisition of it.  It’s actually quite banal.  Ready for it?  Here it is: I bought it on eBay.  I didn’t even know it was an original press copy.  When I got it in the mail, I saw that sticker.  Then, a few weeks later, I got Bruce’s Born to Run 30^th Anniversary Box set, and saw in the “Wings for Wheels” documentary that the original press copies had the issue on the sleeve with Jon Landau being spelled “John Landau.” So, I had gold in my hands, and didn’t even realize it!  And, it cost eight bucks.  I mean, I don’t want it to have cost any more.  I think I just bought it before Vinyl had any amount of resurgence, and before the seller knew what it was he was selling.

Overall, I would say my favorite piece of Bruce memorabilia is my 45 of “One Step Up” on Vinyl.  For whatever reason, I just really like that I have that single.  The B-side is Roulette, a song of which I’m not even all that much of a fan.  It’s a single that, by and large, I think gets overlooked, on an album that is ignored by non-diehards, and I own it on the album in a few formats, and as a single which I can play on my record player.  And, aside from the scratch when he sings “but we ain’t learnin’” that causes a bit of white noise hiss and snow, it’s in perfect condition. I have listened to it more than any other single I own.

Tomorrow’s topic: Piece of Springsteen memorabilia I wish I owned