Brooooce
and "the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, earth-shocking, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, love-making, Viagra-taking, history-making legendary E Street Band.”
For our millionth wedding anniversary last summer, our family pulled together and gave us Bruce Springsteen tickets. The Boss’s pearls of wisdom and wit were the perfect gift—because we already live by them.
“Talk about a dream, try to make it real.”
“You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.”
“One day we'll look back on this, and it will all seem funny”
And this one, which I framed for Dave’s Nth birthday:
"Now the jokes comin' up through the soles of my feet"
The day of the concert happened to be the first day of Dave’s spring break and we took BART to the City and made our way to the huge new basketball stadium, which we’ve been too disgruntled to visit since they left Oakland.
The merch line was a love-fest of fans comparing show notes going back 40 years. I posed for a photo with a kid wearing the same t-shirt—her mom had “grown out of it” just like Dave had “grown out of” the one that is now the most valuable item in my drawer.
Not everyone knows this, but I was married in the Church of Bruce.
“I'll love you with all the madness in my soul.”
“Bruuuce” (They’re not booing, folks) was a bit of a meme to me before I married Dave. The beer cans, the baseball hats, the butt with the bandana against the American flag. He stood for a certain type of insular male reality, where mom=apple pie and revving engines are more emotional than operas.
But when I went to my first show, I understood the adoration. “He’s so tiny,” I remarked from the top of the hill—observing him on the stage far away through binoculars—“but he’s sooooo happy.”
The year we fell in love, Bruce fell in love. The first year we lived together, his album Lucky Town came out, and its depth and beauty resonated with, even defined the way we felt about the magic of creating a partnership. We played “Book of Dreams” at our wedding.
When you go to a Bruce concert with Dave, he gets this look on his face you only see at Bruce shows—little dimples appear here and there. He sings along with every song, right up close, at the top of his lungs, and not always in tune. At first this was a bit awkward, but it was cathartic for him. I recognized the chorus of the two hit songs in the show, but the rest were these long winding stories with musical hooks that came out of nowhere.
But every time Bruce put out a new album I’d find we had thoughts in common. He did an album about poverty. He did an album about folk songs, like the ones my dad used to play. He wrote the songs that helped us start moving through the shock and into the spirituality of 9/11.
The first song our son heard when he arrived on this plane was Born to Run. (Or Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, can’t remember; I’ll have to dig up that cassette.)
Bruce sings words about hope, about love, about dreams and death and loss and longing, about playfulness and sex, from a a very male human point of view. From the POV of a good man, a goof of a man. Like my man. A friend who’d known us for years went to a show with us said, “I’ve finally been to the Church of Dave.” In a world where men have as hard a time being their full selves as women do, I can see why Bruce is a religion.
“Everything that dies some day comes back”
We didn’t mind the seat behind the stage. The last time we sat behind the stage Bruce made eye contact with me. (I’ll never forget it. I’m sure there was a connection. Dave says “If Bruce ever knocks on our door and says with that underbite, “I need to see Kristen in the back seat,” he’d step aside. I felt sure in that brief instant that day it could happen.) Unfortunately, at this show, a mountain of a man took the seat right in front of me, and stood up the whole time. That’s what I mean about that insular male reality. There were twenty or two hundred white guys in the rows in front of us, baseball caps and $20 beers, hugging and swaying. One of them lit up something up, and the smoke stung my eyes and there it was, that entitlement, that not giving the slightest thought to the people around you. But I knew this man couldn’t help being a mountain. And I knew it meant as much to him as it meant to me to be there.
I love the rock shows with the lasers and explosions, but this was pure music. There’s nothing that can match the intimacy of one voice, a few guitar chords and 10,000 close friends. Bruce loves his band, sings in their faces and sometimes kisses them, when things get revved up, on the lips, and not just his wife Patti either He only swears once when he describes the “bellyache” (a peptic ulcer). Can you imagine, a stadium show these days without swear words, explosions or tattoos?
Bruce was a little extra sad this year, it seemed. He lost his mom not long ago. Dave lost his mom a year ago, and Bruce, who we haven’t seen since before the pandemic, before Trump, helped him finally have a cry.
“Should I fall behind, wait for me.”
At this show, I knew every song. I sang along to all of them. I was sobbing when the lights came up, my heart busted open, realizing many things. Like how precious this was, to know a person’s words so well he’s in your head. Like what a gift we all receive when an artist achieves his or her potential. And how much has happened, how much has changed in the past few years. And after our parents dying, that I really can’t take Bruce for granted like I used to, and how every show could be his last. (I mean the guy is 73 now! He’s only got another decade or two of doing knee slides.)
And I realized I didn’t really know the man I’d married until years later when I learned all the lyrics to Thunder Road.
I could fangirl about Bruce ‘till the sun comes up; I haven’t even gotten started about the E-Street Band and the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah and how his nephew keeps the vibe alive. But I’ve already missed my Friday deadline by several hours and I really need to stop typing and close these eyes and never stop seeing...
“I’ll see you in my dreams.”
A few announcements:
April 11th - Last chance to sign up for Fiberlicious!
Classes will start mid April at a time chosen by the group. Spaces are limited. Did the 3 secrets get you thinking? Register here, your mind will be blown even more than that colon. You will never look at avocados the same way again.
April 18th 9:30pm EST - “Dear Brain, From Heart”
My long-lost composer Michael O’Dell has resurfaced and will be performing two of our songs from The Souls of Her Feet at a retrospective in (what’s left of) New York City. See it live or livestream at The Green Room 42! Grab your tickets here. It should be quite amazing, with a cast of 20 voices!
Now…after the jump, a singalong.
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