It was the perfect illustration of how fast time is passing: I bought the concert tickets on a grey morning in February and suddenly, in an instant, I was standing on the grassy field at Malieveld in The Hague on a cool, dry June evening. With about 65,000 Dutch fans and at least 2 other Americans (my friends who flew in from Boston), we were there to see The Boss. But after all our time together, I just call him Bruce.
People often laugh when I talk about my relationship (purely one-sided) with Bruce Springsteen. It began when I was 10 years old and under the influence of my then-best friend Traci. Traci and her Italian-American family were so unlike my own; her parents seemed young and impossibly cool. Her dad owned an auto repair shop named for his wife and daughters. All of their names were painted, graffiti-like, on the garage’s tow truck. He drove a 1978 Silver Anniversary Corvette. And he listened to Springsteen. (I mean, of course he did. Could Bruce himself have created a more perfect fan?) Anyway, thanks to her dad, Traci listened to Springsteen. And, thus, so did I.
When Born In the U.S.A. was released, I had my mom take me to the mall and I bought the album on cassette. Traci told me that when the tour came around that summer, she and her dad would get a ticket for me, too.
Brothers in arms – Bruce and Little Steven
It was not to be. Traci left our little Catholic school at the end of the term to transfer to the local public school. By the time Springsteen came to New Jersey in August for a 10-show stand, Traci had started making friends from her soon-to-be new school, and she left me out of the ticket count. (In truth, I have no idea if my parents would have allowed me to go.)
That summer I may have lost a friend, as often happens to girls at that age, but I gained a life-long obsession. Part of the appeal of Bruce was that everyone else in my family hated him. For a shy, goody two-shoes kid like me, listening to Springsteen was a small act of rebellion. I was too young to understand the nuance of his music, the ache that it carried. I liked the anthems and the up-beat tracks. I liked the idea of liking something that was unpopular in my home, even though, in 1984, Born In the U.S.A. was one of the most popular things in the world.
I hung in there with Bruce over the years that followed. I received Tunnel of Love as a Christmas gift in 1988. I listened to it almost as soon as I opened it, sitting alone in my grandmother’s sewing room where the turntable and cassette player were kept. I’ll never forget the adolescent shock of hearing the opening lines to “Spare Parts”: “Bobby said he’d pull out, but Bobby stayed in…”. In retrospect I don’t know what shocked me more: the lyrics, or the fact that I understood them.
My love of Bruce intensified alongside my first real relationship. My high school boyfriend was a serious Springsteen fan who introduced me to the music that came before Born In the U.S.A., which, I learned, is the really good stuff. Springsteen was ever-present; if the boyfriend and I were together, Bruce was there, too. We would drive back from the beach on a summer night in his crappy Mustang and sing the last verse of the crazy, stream-of-consciousness “For You”, loud and off-key. We saw Bruce for the first time together, making the drive to Jersey, tailgating in the parking lot at the Meadowlands. (After so many years of living with Bruce-haters, being in an arena with thousands of fans was a revelation: I was not alone.)
The boyfriend bought me Springsteen albums on vinyl. When we broke up I listened to “Trapped” over and over again. And when I found out, years later, that he had gotten married, I knew Bruce would see me through: I closed my bedroom door, put on my favorite acoustic version of “Thunder Road” and had a good cry. Not for the final, irreversible loss of the boyfriend, but for the final, irretrievable loss of one life I might have chosen.
Many people don’t “get” my love of Bruce. What they aren’t getting is what has kept me close to his music for more than 30 years. It is his ability to capture the emotions at the core of life’s transitions. These are hard things, and we don’t always handle them well. We have doubts, we feel alone, and so we make mistakes and are left to live with our regrets. But we can do better. There is hope. There is friendship and joy and love, and, if we’re lucky, there may be a shot at redemption.
And in between, there is escape, even just for a little while. There is a girl and a fast car and a long road and one last chance to make it real. Just enough promise to get you through.
After all these years of listening to Bruce, I still don’t know what I mean when I sing along to Racing in the Streets about “a ’69 Chevy with a three-ninety-six, Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor”. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s not just a song about a car. (It’s never just a song about a car.) It’s a song about life wearing you down, about the need to do and feel something big in the face of that weariness, to remind yourself just how little time we have for the things that matter most. So I really shouldn’t have marveled when, standing on that grassy field on a summer night, those 65,000 Dutch people joined Bruce in singing those mysterious words. They may not know what the hell Fuelie heads are either, but like everyone else on earth, they know about loss, disappointment, and loneliness. And still, they – we – come together to sing, dance, throw our hands in the air, and be led through a 3 1/2 hour revival celebration to remind us of a great truth: it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.
To Bruce and the Band (and to my friend Ellen and her Bruce for making the journey): thanks for another great night. See you further on up the road…
umbrellas inside-out and soaked our sporty summer shoes. We ducked into a church to wait out the rain, and not 10 minutes later, we emerged to blue and sunny skies.
Terrifically Lost 