When I saw this topic upon perusing the Springsteen Challenge list, I knew exactly which anecdote I would pick. I knew I liked Bruce Springsteen from the minute I heard him do a long introduction before a song. I tend to make semi-spurious connections between stories, and weird things trigger my memory, launching me in to bizarre childhood memories and stories that didn’t happen to me that I either attribute to me, or briefly set up. Discussions with me are like a choose your own adventure book where, in the end, all of the outcomes are being anywhere from bored to tears to mildly amused but over it. Bruce does this in a way more coherent way. His yarns before songs go anywhere from weird to incredible. Sometimes, he does it during a song, interspersing the performance with spoken word blank verse poetry. It’s one of my favorite parts of seeing him live. In fact, I’ve focused almost solely on Bruce, and his “artist coaching tree” – the likes of Kenny Chesney and the Gaslight Anthem in recent years that, when hearing a live album from someone else, it always strikes me odd that it’s not introduced with a VH1 Storytellers-esque treatise on the songwriting process and the underlying messages contained therein.
In the summer of 2004, I saw that Bob Dylan was going on tour with Willie Nelson, playing mostly minor league ballparks, including a stop at Doubleday field in Cooperstown, NY, which is not too far from where my parents live. We drove in – it was early August, and I’d been listening to Bruce’s Live in New York City on repeat for much of the summer. I knew all of the lyrics, spoken and sung, to Bruce’s Live in NYC version of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out. If you’re unfamiliar, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out is a song dedicated to the forming of the E Street Band including the part where the “Big Man joined the band” – Vini Lopez’s mother’s house was on the corner of E Street and 10th Avenue in Belmar, NJ. Featured on the Born to Run album, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out runs a lean three minutes and twelve seconds. On the CD version of the Live in New York City concert, it gets blown out to 16:09, including parts of “It’s alright to have a good time,” “Rumble Doll,” and an extended big tent revival preacher speech about the forming of the E Street Band from nothing. During Bruce’s extended intro for Clarence (“The Minister of Soul! Secretary of the Brotherhood! The Next Senator from the State of New York!”) he implored the crowd “say who!” to which they shouted “Clarence!” – this took a solid minute of time. My brother remarked “Dude… this is what I can’t stand about the Boss. He can’t let anything go!”
Flash forward to the following night at the Bob Dylan/Willie Nelson concert. First, Dylan and Nelson barely acknowledged one another. Second, Bob Dylan, outside his music, apparently wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful. After each song, Bob would come around his keyboard (he can’t play the guitar anymore due to nerve damage in his forearms), pose with his band, wait for the polite applause, and then return around the keyboard to select a harmonica, count out the beat, and then blast into the next song. When introducing his band, in the way you’d expect Bob Dylan to – that “how does it feeeeeeeeeel?!” voice from Like a Rolling Stone, he said, “that’s so-and-so, my bass player. He got a couple of bats – a Louisville slugger for his wife, and another for his daughter. Best deal he ever made!” I thought nothing of it. But my brother’s eyes got big enough to eat dinner off of – “Holy crap! This is my thirtieth show! I’ve NEVER heard him make a joke like that before!” Sorry, I realize this doesn’t have much to do with my FAVORITE Bruce anecdote, but I always enjoy how stark the difference is between my favorite artist, Bruce, and my brother’s favorite artist, Dylan. And, they are probably friends with each other in Colt’s Neck.
So, as a very brief aside for the rules of this, the Bruce anecdote has to be a personal anecdote, not something he wrote to enhance the understanding of the song. (As an example, Bruce spins a wonderful tale about Jesus when singing “Jesus was an only Son” – “the choices we make end up gaining meaning from what we sacrifice – I always thought there must’ve been a sweet little bar down in Galilee that they could’ve run. Jesus could manage it. Mary Magdalene could tend bar. I love bartenders. And, they could’ve had a bunch of kids, and felt the sun on their face, and the air in their lungs, and seen the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day…”) It should also be something I’ve heard in an official release, or live and in person. Not a recounting in Backstreets. The Reagan diatribe where he excoriates the president for misinterpreting his “Born in the USA” as patriotic (“blind faith in your leaders… or anything… could get you killed”) is great. But I have never actually heard audio of it, bootleg or otherwise.
Knowing the ground rules (900 words in…), here’re my top three:
3) 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) – Bruce suffixed this on the Devils and Dust tour stop in Buffalo, saying he wrote that song to be a hidden love song. He said his father used to tell him that all love songs were government propaganda; that their whole plan was to make people fall in love, get married, have kids, and pay taxes. He takes a pregnant (pardon the pun) pause, and says, “Works! S’Good!” It’s funny, because Bruce’s relationship with his father is extremely complicated. Obviously. That’s where all the angsty music comes from! But he does his best to remember the years before his father died, exploring the country together, making up for lost time, and finding a love and respect for one another that had been absent in the earlier years of their relationship. Something tells me he likes to play these songs to honor his father, and the effect his father had on his songwriting.
2) Chimes of Freedom – Chimes of Freedom EP. Bruce introduces this Bob Dylan classic with a brief anecdote about his involvement with the Human Rights Now! Tour. He says (this is from memory): “Earlier, uh, today, Amnesty International announced a tour to support the fortieth anniversary of the declaration of human rights. The declaration of human rights is a document that was signed by every government in the world forty years ago recognizing the existence of certain… inalienable human rights for everyone regardless of your race, your color, your sex, your religion, your political opinion, or the type of government that you’re livin’ under. I was glad to be asked to participate, and I’m proud to join… Sting, Peter Gabriel, Youssou N’Dour, and Tracey Chapman on a tour that’s gonna begin in early September, and’s gonna run for about… six weeks. I’d like to gedi… dedicate this next song to the people of Amnesty International… and their idea. So, when we come to your town, come on out, support the tour, support human rights for everyone now, and… let freedom ring.” He then launched into one of the greatest versions of Chimes of Freedom ever. This was important for me because I’d never had a way to verbalize how I’d felt about geopolitics before. I didn’t know that the Declaration of Human Rights existed, and I didn’t know that an organization like Amnesty International existed, but I knew that I supported those ideals immediately, especially from the description (race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, governmental affiliation, I could add a few more, but this was off the top of his head…) – but I knew that there was more to this world than living in it. I knew that my life had been so narrow and small up until that point. It was only later that I found an even greater cause in my mind: hunger and malnourishment. Bruce was again the person who opened my eyes to the idea of food banks. Now, I can’t not give if I’m able.
1) This is the best. This is the ultimate Bruce-Douglas Springsteen interaction. At the beginning of the Live 1975-1985 version of “The River,” Bruce begins the song with a tepid connection to the crowd. You know what? I’m just going to type it here. I told you this was going to be long. It still chokes me up when I hear it:
Audience is heard calling “Bruuuuuuuce!” Bruce begins strumming his acoustic guitar.
Hiya doin’ out there tonight?
The Audience cheers in response
That’s good. That’s good. This is, uh… When I was growin’ up, me and my Dad
used to go at it all the time over almost… anything. But uh.. I used to have really long hair. Way down past my shoulders. (Laughs; audience cheers) I was seventeen or eighteen, oh, man, he used to hate it. And we got to where we’d fight so much that I’d spend a lot of time out of the house. And, in the summer time, it wasn’t so bad, because it was warm, and your friends were out, but in the winter… I remember standin’ downtown, it would get so cold… and when the wind would blow, I remember I had this phone booth I used to stand in, and I used to call my girl like… for hours at a time, just talkin’ to her all night long (female fans cheer).
Then, finally, I’d get my nerve up to go home, and, I’d stand there in the driveway. And he’d be waitin’ there for me in the kitchen. And I’d tuck my hair down in my collar, and I’d walk in, and he’d call me back to sit down with him. And the first thing he’d always ask me was, what did I think I was doin’ with myself? And the worst part about it was, I could never explain it to him!
I remember I got into a motorcycle accident once, and I was laid up in bed, and he had a barber come in and cut my hair. And man, I can remember tellin’ him that I hated him, and that I would never ever forget it.
And he used to tell me “Man, I can’t wait ‘til the Army gets you. When the Army gets you, they’re gonna make a man out of you. They’re gonna cut all that hair off… and they’ll make a man out of you.”
And this was in, I guess… ’68. And there was a lot of guys from the neighborhood goin’ to Vietnam. I remember the drummer in my first band comin’ over to my house with his Marine uniform on. Sayin’ that he was goin’, and that he didn’t know where it was.
And, a lot of guys went, and a lot of guys didn’t come back. And the lot that came back weren’t the same anymore.
Now, I remember the day I got my draft notice. I hid it from my folks, and three days before my physical, me and my friends went out, and we stayed up all night. And, we got on the bus to go that mornin’, man… We were all so scared (his voice cracks with a combination of laughter, sadness, and fear).
And… I went, and, I failed! (Laughs)
(Audience smattering of applause)
That’s nothin’ to applaud about. But, I remember comin’ home after I’d been gone for three days, and walkin’ in the kitchen, and my mother and father were sittin’ there, and my dad said, “Where you been?”
I said, uh, “I went to take my physical.”
He says, “What happened?”
I said, “they didn’t take me.”
And he said, “that’s good.” (Nate sobs uncontrollably, as Bruce plays the harmonica opening to “The River”)
Obviously, my own creative liberties with the stage direction, and the emphasis at the end is mine. But that story is so well crafted, and so well told, even with the “uhs” and “ands” – I think they actually add to the youthfulness and cluelessness of the tale. It starts with the relationship he and his father had – his hair, his aimlessness. Douglas Springsteen was a hard drinker who was a “man’s man.” He wouldn’t abide his son playing the guitar without a goal or career in mind. Bruce was exactly who he wouldn’t want. Bruce had an accident which led to actions that culminated in Bruce telling his father he hated him. The story then reverts to a time when Douglas makes sure to tell his son he isn’t a man, and that the Army will fix that. Then comes the set up of Vietnam – friends, band mates leaving and not coming home, or coming home deeply, irrevocably changed. And Bruce failing the exam (chiding the audience to not applaud his inability to serve his country, despite his obvious reluctance to do so.) And, important to note though it isn’t stated in the story, the reason he failed is because of the motorcycle accident that led to his father cutting his hair off while he slept. But the reconciliation comes as the reality of his father’s claims hit deep:
-the Army almost did get me, Dad.
-what happened?
-they didn’t want me.
-That’s good.
There’s no better Bruce anecdote.
Tomorrow’s topic: Favorite Bruce Harmonica Solo (suffice to say… it’ll be less than a thousand words!)
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