Me and The Boss.

I warn you now that this is a long ass blog. If you choose to stop here that's fine but don't say I didn't warn you! Right, on we go....

Right kids, it's confession time. Some of you already know this little snippet of information that I am about to impart and have already accepted it, some of you don't know yet.
I, Darren Alexander Wright, am a Bruce Springsteen fan. I know in some circles liking The Boss is akin to liking Fall Out Boy but I tend to ignore those kinds of people. And just for the record I don't like Fall Out Boy, I am just using them as an example!

But ever since I heard 'Born in the U.S.A.' in about 1984 I have liked him and his music so Springsteen even predates my metal birth by at least 2 years. It wasn't until '86 when I got into 'Master Of Puppets' by Metallica (an album which I am currently enjoying at an unsociable volume while I type this!) purely on the strength of the poster for it which depicted the album cover of a field of white crucifixes. I thought that by buying it then it would piss my mother off. Kind of a youthful rebellion thing. I was 13, young and stupid (as opposed to old and stupid which I kinda resemble now) and it did piss her off as she was fine with me liking other stuff but heavy guitars and angry lyrics didn't sit well with her strait laced view of the world. I, however, loved it! But I digress...
So there I am an 11 year old and I hear 'Born in the U.S.A.' on the radio and see the video on top of the pop's. I don't know why I took to the song or liked it so much but I loved the anthemic feel to it and the sheer level of emotion it holds. These are words the 35 year old me is using to describe feelings I didn't know how to convey at age 11. All I knew was it sounded real good when I turned the radio up and listened to it with the speakers right near my head!
Now I was too young to really understand the true meaning of the lyrics. They were, and still are on occasion, misinterpreted as patriotic or jingoistic when in point of fact the song deals with the effect of the Vietnam war on Americans returning home to a country that doesn't want to help them. It deals also with loss and is in no way a flag waving nationalistic anthem but that didn't stop Ronald Reagan from co-opting it for one of his campaigns. I won't go into that as politics simply bores me shitless!

But from that first exposure to Springsteen's music I was hooked and spent the time between age 11 until, well, now I guess, listening to and buying and enjoying his music all the while I am being Mr Metal. For a long old time I couldn't reveal my liking for New Jerseys own rocker to even my closest friends as I knew the ridicule that would follow. In time I learned to not give two fucks what other people thought about my musical tastes or any tastes come to that but during my formative metal years (doesn't that sound just so cheesy? Does to me!) I had to only like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Anthrax and all the other hard and heavy bands that were around, which was OK as I did like them and still enjoy most of those bands to this day. I have kinda lost Anthrax ever since they got their old singer back and played shit at Donnington a few years back!

I soon learned that my true friends accepted my liking for these songs and I forged on with it and delved into Bruce's back catalogue and discovered I loved most of them. If anyone ever tells you they like everything an artist has produced, however much they say they are their favourite artist, they are lying. We all don't like some songs on albums, some we consider filler and some we flat out don't like. If we liked everything then someone could just be farting into a microphone and it would get to number one. Although with the shit that populates the charts now it would stand a bloody good chance!
Albums like 'Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ' revealed the early incarnation of Bruce and the E Street Band, 'Born To Run' is just a flat out classic and I often listen to it, 'The River' was a cool album with lots of variety and 2 discs worth and 'Nebraska' was simply stunning being as it is just one guy and a guitar. A very sparse and bleak album but with such soul. It remains in my top 10 fav albums, maybe even top 5.
I wont go into his whole discography, I just mentioned those to give you an insight into how deeply I delve into something when I like it!

I got to thinking today while I was on the bus home why it is I like Bruce's music so much. I guess it's because he takes the mundane and makes it epic. He takes the small things that happen in our lives and turns them into mini miracles, snapshots of life that seem timeless. I will never know what its like to grow up in New Jersey, live through a war in which you lose many friends, fall in love in an era that I was only just born into but I can relate to the feelings of love, romance, longing, loss, desperation and sometimes hidden joy that the world contains. I like those feelings just as much as I like how I feel when I have 'Battery' turned way up loud and the windows are rattling and I just want to go break shit! Both styles of music remind me that I am alive and that I have a heart capable of feeling and a soul that needs to fly.

I'll leave you with some of the lyrics to one of my favourite Springsteen songs, which he opened the set with when I went to see him recently. Its from the 'Born In The U.S.A.' album and the song is 'No Surrender'. Fuck it, I'm gonna throw em all up here. Why not? This blog is fucking long as it is, might as well take the piss!

We busted out of class had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school
Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down

We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There's a war outside still raging
you say it ain't ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed
with a wide open country in my eyes
and these romantic dreams in my head
...

Those last 3 lines will stay with me forever as they are simply beautiful.

That's it. I'm done now. Off you go back to your lives. You are free....Till the next time I get the typing urge that is!