So Tuesday was the day the 30th anniversary edition of Born to Run hit the stores. One of the rare ‘first day must haves’ for me. I don’t recall an album that had a bigger impact on me, and has stayed with me all these years. I can hear any part of any of the songs inside my head any time. Funny how the songs that stuck out more to me weren’t the mainstream choices; put a gun to my head and I’d rank Night as the best cut followed by Thunder Road and Born to Run.
I got the box at lunch time and listened to the CD all afternoon. Records were much shorter in those vinyl days! At home I watched the Hammersmith Odeon concert. Terrific visual quality considering the raw stock allegedly sat in canisters in a warehouse until a couple of years ago. Two big surprises for me: Bruce didn’t strap on a guitar until the fifth song, content to dance and sing before that, and–fuck–they cut out all the patter. He used to talk and joke and tell stories, sometimes pretty long and involved, between songs or as the band played extended instrumental breaks, and I know he was still doing them in ’75. Interviewers later on asked where the tall tales went and he said they were better as material for his songwriting but to me this was the one big mistake in assembling this film.
Watching I realized something that had been in the back of my mind for a long time but never quite materialized. From the first record through the end of this tour, the E Street sound was funky and massively danceable. Not in a disco sense but like great R&B. Gary Tallent’s bass lines, Clarence’s sax, Max’s drumming, they added up to the world’s best bar band sound. Who am I to look inside another person’s mind, okay, but I think the big lawsuit with Mike Appel (his first manager) that started after this tour changed Springsteen into a more serious man, made him grow up. Look at the music of Darkness on the Edge of Town, the next record he made, and Nebraska soon after that, much more about being an adult in a walled-in world than an exuberant, playful kid who spouted joyful, optimistic, thousand syllables a minute juke joint tunes. Not that I don’t love them too but they come from a different world view, and this concert is a last great memento of that kid.
When events like this special release come around, politicians often try and share some of the spotlight with resolutions and proclamations. Canada, for instance, gave Shania Twain the country’s highest award on Friday, the Order of Canada, for her efforts to end child poverty. The divisive, vindicative, small-minded Republicans we have in charge these days, on the other hand, blocked a resolution by both of New Jersey’s (Democratic) senators to honor Bruce even though such things “usually pass by unanimous voice consent” because, of course, Springsteen was a vocal, visible Kerry supporter in last year’s elections.
BillSaysThis 