Springsteen Challenge Day 17: The song/album that turned you on to Bruce Springsteen

Ironically, it was “Love is a Battlefield” by Pat Benatar.  Kidding.  I didn’t get into Bruce until 2003 at the earliest. I know, based upon my deep and abiding love for his music, it would seem as though I had been listening to Born in the USA in the womb.  My parents are not really fans of Bruce.  My mom just isn’t much for soaring guitar riffs and brooding songs. My dad is a conservative and has no use for this hippie bleeding heart liberal crap. It wasn’t until I met my friend Erik that I started liking Bruce Springsteen.

Specifically, I remember, in 2002, looking at a copy of “The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle” album sitting on the counter, and saw that, on the actual disc itself, there were only seven songs listed.  I looked at the artist: Bruce Springsteen.  I turned to my friend, and figured, “I’ve got a good line here… I can tease him about Bruce because I know he likes him.”  So I said, “Only Bruce Springsteen could release an album with just seven songs on it.” He said, “Yeah, but he wrote all those songs, and the whole album fits together perfectly.”  I remember thinking “Whatever, dude.”

In May of 2003, as I was working pre-season at a water park in Northern New York with Erik, he was playing “Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ” in his car as we drove somewhere.  I said to him “What’s this song?”  He told me what it was, and I thought, “Hmm… I need to start listening to this guy a bit.”  I enjoyed it.  I didn’t think much else of it, but I figured, eh, I’ll get into it later.  I didn’t really listen to much more, other than what came on in Erik’s car.

At school, I found a website called “DeepDiscountDVD.com” and went nuts buying DVDs – I bought the Rocky Quintology, I bought “Outfoxed” – a documentary about Fox News and how they skew things for America.  I then discovered that they had a website called “DeepDiscountCD.com” as well.  My first purchase?  “Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits.” I figured, “Well, I’ll at least be able to hear that song I heard in Erik’s car that I liked.” Of course, I couldn’t really remember the name, but I figured, “Well, why not?”  I got the CD in late September of 2003, and started listening to it to figure out what I liked and didn’t like.  And to listen for that song!  I heard Thunder Road, Born to Run, Born in the USA, Streets of Philadelphia, Secret Garden, and This Hard Land – all songs I really like.  I decided I didn’t like “Atlantic City” and wasn’t wild about “The River” either (that has changed…).  But I didn’t hear the song I liked from Erik’s car!  How could such a good song not be on his greatest hits album?

Little did I know at the time, but Bruce didn’t include anything from his first two albums on his greatest hits album.  The song I liked got me in to Bruce was on his first album.  I figured “Well, I guess I’ll start liking this ‘Thunder Road’ song…” (obviously, it’s my favorite song…) and forget about that song.  I went back to the same water park for the summer of 2004, and again, during opening, We listened to music, but that song never came up!  I couldn’t imagine the luck – how many songs could Bruce friggin’ Springsteen have!  And, after all the teasing I’d given Erik about Springsteen, I felt like I couldn’t just ASK him…

Brief aside – this is in a period where it was not popular to like Bruce. In fact, a friend of mine at school was surprised to hear me say I liked him (based on seeing his greatest hits album).  She said, “You like… Bruce Springsteen?” “Yeah, he’s pretty good.” “Well, he’s never done anything that’s musically relevant…”  Now, I see people posting pictures of Bruce shows, talking about going to see Springsteen, all of that stuff.  It’s incredible, the turnaround that has happened.

Back to live action: We took a spontaneous trip to the nearest city (50 miles away) and I wandered through the Best Buy, picking up Bruce albums.  Erik said he was interested in getting in to Bob Dylan, so he bought “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II” – this is the one that is very bluish, and has Dylan silhouetted with a harmonica holder on, his hair all crazy in that Bob Dylan way. I picked up “The Essential Bob Dylan” and saw, right next to it, “The Essential Bruce Springsteen.”  Erik saw the Essential Springsteen and picked it up as well.  We kind of chuckled that we were buying the same album at the same time, so we put a person in between us in line because dudes totally don’t do that, brah.

We went out and hopped in the car, and popped in Essential Bruce: Disc 1.  I heard a bunch of songs, including “Blinded by the Light,” “For You,” “Rosalita,” “4^th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and then the usuals that I’d known.  But not this song that I was looking for!  Then, I looked at the liner notes.  In it, Bruce talks about how he had some hard decisions to make to get the album down to two essentials and a bonus disc.  And, there were some things left off.  He said, “(I know, ‘Incident’ and ‘Growin’ up.’ One man’s coffee is another man’s tea.  One man’s whiskey…)” And it gave me two things:

1)   A great saying to bust out (One man’s coffee is another man’s tea, one man’s whiskey is another man’s pee) when I choose something that others aren’t wild about.

and

2)   The song that got me interested in Bruce!  Growin’ Up!  I stood stone-like at midnight!  That’s what I’d been listening for!

From there, it blossomed.  I made successive trips and bought Live in New York City, the CD and DVD.  I bought The Rising.  I got Born to Run for Christmas.  I was on my way to loving Bruce Springsteen, and all it took was reading the welcome to the liner notes on The Essential Bruce Springsteen.

Tomorrow’s Topic: Favorite Bruce Music Video