You cannot read Eric Alterman's weblog for very long without getting out your Springsteen CDs and putting them on. And I cannot listen to Springsteen CDs for very long without going out and buying another one--in this case, a three-CD collection of Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band live from 1975-1985.
The music is wonderful.
The CDs also include a lot of stories--Bruce Springsteen tells stories before, in the middle of, and after songs. The stories are mostly about growing up, and about fighting with his father as he grew up. Back at the start of the 1980s, when I was 20 or so listening to concerts in the old Boston Garden, my sympathies were all with Bruce Springtsteen--wanting to make his career with his "god-damned guitar" in the face of a father who wanted him to become a lawyer, get a little something for himself, and stop being such a hippy freak.
This time, however, I'm not 21: I'm 42. I'm not terribly interested in stories of people establishing boundaries vis-a-vis their parents and shaping their own lives. Frankly, I'm now on the other side. My heart goes out to the elder Mr. Springsteen, clearly keenly aware of how small the chances that his son would become a successful musician were, and desperate to keep his son's life from crashing into the ground. You can't not react when you see your kid taking a chance where the odds are 1000 to 1 against.
We want them to fly high. We are desperately eager for them to try their wings and learn to soar. And we are terrified that they are too young, too stupid, too inexperienced, too short-sighted to understand how to make their own way and achieve their own brand of success in the world.
Posted by DeLong at September 05, 2002 05:47 PM | Trackback