There’s not much I can say about Bruce Springsteen that I haven’t already said (or that SOMEONE hasn’t already said, anyway). Today, on his 70th birthday, I’m going to share a two-part poem that I wrote a while back about what his music – especially live and in person – has meant to me over the years.
I’m going to post this as an image, because I’ve had bad experiences with people doing the old copy-pasta and passing off my words as their own. If you need an accessible version, though, please do drop me a note!
So happy birthday, Bruce Springsteen. Thanks for the music, and the life-giving, soul-shaking shows, and the community of friends I don’t think I’d have found anywhere else. From the first album I bought and set the needle down on (cue up “Thunder Road” … I went back and got the first two albums after falling head over heels in love with Born to Run back in nineteen-mumble-mumble) to the newest (Western Stars is truly a thing of beauty), it’s all been the best traveling companion an itinerant poet could ever have asked for. May you keep burnin’ down the road for many – MANY – more years.
We are here. We are alive. Ghosts and dust and screen doors, all the deepest parts of us. Blaze and thunder… still singing.
