Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/22/the-enduring-power-of-bruce-springsteens-music-a-fans-journey.html
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I’m not the superfan you are, but I do like his music a lot, and he seems like a good person. I live not too far from where he grew up. About once a month or so, I go shopping at the nearest Sam’s Club, which is in his hometown of Freehold. Every time I go through there, I think, “This is where Bruce Springsteen grew up. This is the place he’s talking about in My Hometown. Cool!”
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But seriously folks, it’s kind of amazing how some of his best work has happened in his later years. The Rising was a masterpiece meditation on the mess of 9/11 and Western Stars is, for my money, one of his most beautiful albums. Kind of weird how a Jersey kid can write about the west with such clarity. There’s also a subtle subtext perhaps implying that America’s cowboys really only ever existed in Hollywood.
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I love this story of his.
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I didn’t delve into Bruce fandom to quite your extent (I think we’re about the same age), as I missed out on his 1978 tour, but by 1979 I vowed to catch him at least once on the following tour, and saw him several times on the River tour. When he toured solo for Devils and Dust, I took my father, and when he toured with the Seeger Sessions Band, I took my son, and finally my spouse got me to see him “one last time” on the last tour before his book came out. I have many bootleg concert “tapes” now, and I listen to them as I run.
His later work tends to be uneven, but there are masterpieces (Wrecking Ball, Western Stars) in there, both as songs and as albums, and I very much appreciate the wide variety of music he creates as we age together.
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