ANDY'S ROOM: 40 Years Down the (Thunder) Road

FINALLY sitting back down here at the keyboard, after what's been about a month-long hiatus now. My apologies for not chronicling the remaining escapades of the Cook family on their Western voyages, but at this point, I'd say it's time to move on to greener pastures. For anyone still wondering how we fared in Yosemite National Park and the City by the Bay, keep a watchful eye on my dad's A Wicked Good Blog - you're probably in better hands over there anyway, they don't call him the Blogfather for nuthin'.

Besides blogging, there's a slew of other things the two of us also overlap on: running, comic book geekiness, and dashing good looks (just to name a few), but one particular area of shared interest is celebrating a milestone birthday today, and that's just what I'm here to talk about.

Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen's landmark Born To Run album turns the big 4-0 today... yes, that's four whole decades since Columbia Records released one of the most iconic pieces of Americana ever created by the music industry into the hazy heat of a late August afternoon in 1975. The world's become a different place since then, and the man behind that album has changed and grown accordingly with the times; nevertheless, something about this particular album was lightning in a bottle, and I'm gonna try here to find out why. Now, I get it: to most people my age, Springsteen is A) the title of a crazy popular country song that I've never personally been a fan of but has spawned infinite Instagram captions regardless, or B) that guy your dad listens to at barbecues with friends where everyone's wearing their best pair of dad jeans (any bespoken dads offended by that, just trust me, I'm on your side here). But don't go away just yet - this is a story both personal and epic in its scope, and I have a feeling it's gonna be a good one...

Let me set the scene: it's early 1975, and at this point, Bruce has released two studio albums. He's an unshaven, rag-tag Jersey shore tramp, with a backing band of similar origin (and appearance). His first album was created largely with the use of a rhyming dictionary, to be honest, and even though the second album was critically hailed as genius, it was a big commercial flop. In other words, that's two strikes; in the music business, that's one strike away from oblivion.
So, Bruce takes pen to paper, and after making a few key lineup changes in the band, composes eight songs that put his personal troubles and anxieties on full display for the listening public. This is it - it's his "last chance power drive," a Hail Mary full-court press that will either make him or break him. He bought his first guitar at age thirteen from a pawnshop, and now, at age twenty-six, he has no plan B. Either this album succeeds, or the dream that's consumed literally half of his life thus far comes to a crashing end. Forty years later, we're lucky enough to say the rest is history.

The E-Street Band, circa 1973 - a bunch of Tramps if ever there were any

The E-Street Band, circa 1975.

The E-Streeters gang, circa 1988 -- but wait, my bad, this is a different group of guys. Looking at you, Patrick Cook et al. To be honest, these guys look like the shadiest of the entire lot.

The album's set in a nameless (read: any) factory town in New Jersey with the bright, glittering lights of the Manhattan skyline beckoning from across the Hudson, hailing from the same universe as Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront or Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets; mobsters, waifs, and perfumed beauties continuously drift in and out of the lyrics. Musically, "guitars flash just like switchblades," there are sweeping piano riffs, and the whole thing is held up by the earth-shattering saxophone notes of the Big Man, Clarence Clemons. If such thing as a cinematic album exists, this is it.
The veneer of the album centers on efforts to escape, get out, leave this confining hometown environment behind, and I actually wrote my college application essay on this subject. Lowell has the kind of blue-collar background that Springsteen would appreciate, and the 17 year old kid about to embark on his college adventures empathized with this "time to see the world" mentality. But now that I'm HAPPILY back in Lowell (and plan to be for a while) and a few years wiser, I think I have an even better appreciation of the album beyond its preliminary "we gotta get out of this place" ambition. At its core, I think Born To Run is about passion. Not "passion" in the *adopts French accent* "ma cherie... my love for you... it is a flame... A BIG, ROARING FLAME," kinda way, but in the sense of "that thing that you were put here on Earth for."
Springsteen's passion, the thing that literally got him out of bed every morning - and still does, probably - was music, and he imbued the recording sessions for BTR with every possible ounce of energy and effort he could muster; he had a spark, and he was gonna keep it alive at all costs. Hearing some firsthand eyewitness accounts, he was an utter taskmaster and a nightmare to anyone who got in the way of that vision. But all that taskmastery (yes, it's a word, I've decided) was simply another manifestation of all the times in his lyrics where he tries to leave the factory life of New Jersey behind: an attempt to keep this passion alive. To stay or to settle is to have it crushed, to become just another cog in the machine, to have his dreams sacrificed... now that's something anyone can sympathize with.

Bruce would go on to write about what happens if these dreams aren't realized: in Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, he learns to make do with "adult" life, living for the weekend, as it were, and later stuff like Nebraska and Born in the USA makes beautiful art out of bleakness. But for Born To Run, Springsteen's optimism is still there (if only just), riding into the sunset in a blaze of glory. "If I play my chips just right," he seems to hope, "and if I have the right person there in the passenger seat with me, then maybe, just maybe, this dream's still got a chance. Let's ride."

Forty years later, and the ride hasn't stopped for Bruce. Born To Run transformed him into a household name, especially on the merit of his live shows; a kind of catalogue of epic tall tales surround Springsteen's concert career over the decades, from the time he "broke a stadium" in Sweden for packing in too many people and playing too hard, to the time he allegedly "ended communism" in Germany by playing a concert to both the East and West factions (these all may or may not be true, depending on which rock historian you talk to). It's believed that The Boss burns about 5000 calories per concert; with sets that last about four hours or so, it's not hard to see why. I saw him play in Orlando back in 2008 on an ordinary Tuesday night, to an audience that was full but not quite sold out (Florida's never been Boss central...their loss); in short, it would have been pretty understandable if he had simply played to par. We had seats one row behind the stage, so we were able to see him exit once he'd finished for the night. Springsteen emerged from beneath the stage literally dripping sweat, his eyes shut, all but stumbling down the tunnel to his room. To an unremarkable Tuesday night crowd, he had just emptied his tank 1000%, left it all out there for everyone to see, and was utterly spent now because of it. THAT is passion, ladies and gents. THAT is the thing that he was hoping for back in the summer of 1975, and that's kept him going all these years later.

I had a professor at school who saw him in 1975 promoting Born To Run - in his words, "It was like nothing I'd seen before. He was James Dean with a guitar."

Now. This has all been very long-winded and pedantic, some of you may be thinking. Heck, it's probably even delved into a bit of hero worship. But what started as an heirloom interest from my dad has turned into something that's significantly shaped my own worldview. I and several million other wide-eyed, idealistic graduates have recently entered into "the real world," every one of us nourishing our own little passions and dreams. Well, "the real world" can be a nasty, harsh place - I think Born To Run knows that, deep down. But you don't have to like that fact, or accept it. Dreams are some of the most important things worth having, and they need to be fought for. It's very easy to be cynical, or pessimistic, and more often than not, "Just give up and lie down, it's easier" seems to be the prevailing viewpoint. But BTR is a celebration, a last call to arms, for passion, to show enthusiasm for that thing (whatever it may be) that matters to you more than anything else in the world. Dress that message up with the most lavish wall of sound this side of Phil Spector, and THAT'S something I can (and do) buy into - in Springsteen's own words, "THAT's rock'n'roll!!"