Who Is Bruce Springsteen?

Did you listen to any tracks?

Yup. I got through five songs before I went back to The Roots.


What's the criteria for being Bruce Springsteen? Other than an unmatched live show, does he have any other unique characteristics that are completely his?

I kind of naive working class outlook.
Like When Cougar was the new Springsteen.

Those may be the two most poorly-constructed sentences ever posted. I'll have to save this for the next time an English poster criticizes anyone over their use of the Mother tongue.

Alright calm down!

Springsteen possess a naive working class outlook.
A similar trait was held by an early Cougar,
Whom critics professed as a new Springsteen.

Good enough for you!

This is only a website. It may be the single most important, and exciting thing in your life. But not everyone is as finicky as you are.

Thanks for your brilliant contribution as usual though.

I think that should be possesses.

ha ha damm it your right!

I'm too tired for this shit!!

could be the Springsteen's possess -

His dad had the same outlook!

True. But regardless, why would you want to write like a retard?

I hate to break it to you, but no, it could not be the Springsteen's possess, but the Springsteens possess.

No you're both right, I have no defence. I was writing like a retard!

I don?t normally though honestly! Just tired and moody today.

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'I'll have to save this for the next time an English poster criticizes anyone over their use of the Mother tongue.'

Sorry just noticed - tired like I said.

English! Mother Tounge!

anhyddysg twpsyn!!!

Do I call you Canadian?

I've told you before he's Welsh not English

Exactly!!

Being a retard is considered a good career move in parts of South Wales!

Sometimes, in times of doubt, I think that what makes Springsteen unique is Performance and Charisma. When other artist do Springsteen covers or earns the ''if you like Springsteen, you'd love this..' tag, it puts it all into perspective. 99.99% of the time, they are pure garbage.

But then I listen mentally to the notes and lyrics blueprint in my mind of WIESS or Bornt to Run or Darkness or Nebraska, and my faith gets renewed.

The working class outlook of Springsteen...Do we have any working class members here? Except from a short stint at a surfboard factory in his teens, I don't think Bruce have ever done a decent, honest day's worth of work in his life. He's made a living from the music from day one, free to pursue a romantisized lyrical expression of some imaginary troubled upbringing in working class hell. Always portrayed as some kind of working class rock n' roll spokesman, but all he's ever done for the working class is to portray their livelihood as some soul-destructive, miserable living hell you need to escape from. Talk about being patronizing. And it gets worse when you read interviews of working class people, written from a middle class critic perspective with very leading questions. ''He's giving us something to believe in, to believe in our dreams...'' etc.

This is something I've never understood as well. He gets lumped in with lunkhead working class artists like Mellencamp and Seger, yet his music is so different from theirs. Has Springsteen ever written a positive song in regard to the working class? All of his albums from 73-84 have to do with characters who hate their lives and want to escape from their shit hole towns and jobs. While he draws attention to the lives of everyday people, he doesn't turn their everyday lives into something extraordinary as some people claim, but rather illuminates the fact that these people must be dissatisfied with their INFERIOR lives.

I think the one thing you have to remember about Bruce is his father. From what I've read, Springsteen seemed to have considered his father a person full of anger and sadness, due to the fact that he was only a bus driver/janitor or whatever the hell he was. The fact that his father's life revolved around the television seemed to have bothered him to the point where his father became the basis of his working class characters. And in no way can his characters be seen as hero's unless you define a hero as one who keeps getting shafted by the man and just learns to deal with it.

As for who is Bruce Springsteen? I don't know what would establish the label of "the next Springsteen." Maybe someone who's passionate about their music to the point that when they go on stage, it appears to be a matter of life and death. Maybe it's someone who's expresses their thoughts and ideas through stories and character study. Unfortunately though, that's not what constitutes the new Springsteen. Working class/bar band lyrics, piano, and a huge wall of sound. Read a review of an album that draws Springsteen comparisons, and that's what they'll be talking about. A fucking wall of sound. Bruce's legacy. It's a shame.

I agree up to a point, but I also think it is how the individual interrupts those meanings. I see your point in songs like Factory and Night, that there are no positives in the protagonists working lives, but in my experience of doing working class jobs, there very rarely is. You do it to get money / support your family etc. Not for a career. You see faces filled with hate and self loathing as described in Factory. The fact Springsteen has no direct experience of this only makes it more remarkable for me.

I love these songs; I know a lot of people don't. I remember years ago I had a shit job that I used to work at night; I used to play Night before I went and it meant something to me. I really don't care if Bruce has never had a working class job in his life. Who says you have to be working class to right songs about ordinary folk? This is why Bruce got round to feeling all guilty about this shit in 92 and did those awful albums and songs, like 57 channels. Charles Dickens wasn't working class and he is a pioneering example of someone writing with a working class conscience. I may be wrong but I don't believe Steinbeck was working class either.

Then there are his other types of working class songs - about having fun.
Out in the street, Sherry darling. Working hard all week and then just letting it all out on the weekend. That happens, every Saturday night up and down the country, it?s has always happened.
Drinking a lot, trying to forget that Monday is just around the corner, to me it all sounds completely genuine.

If any song is patronizing it is Lennon's ?Working class hero?.
Springsteen's just telling a story; Lennon is telling me what to think, and believe.

'They hurt you at home an they hit you at school'

Did they? Thanks I'd forgotten.

It's tough to define Stud's original question. Every once in awhile, and it hasn't happened in a long time, an artist comes around that either breaks mold or brings something to the table that is unique. Springsteen, even though his was created in Dylan's shadow (with a great sense of 60's music, CCR, Them, Mitch Ryder, etc) stood out among many contemporaries because of his live show and solid original songs. He became someone that others are measured up to, similar to Dylan but on a smaller scale (Dylan was revolutionary in the 60's).

So, Who is Bruce Springsteen? Well, due to his icon status, he is what is his (duh, but think about it). Can there be a new one? The answer is no, there can be pretenders, but to truly be the "next Springsteen" one would have to be different and set their own path. There might be another artist who contributes as much if not more than Springsteen, but then they would become their own catagory too.

Probaby, doesn't make sense, but Im still half asleep.

I like Shaggy's working class negativity thing. That makes sense and provides some distance from other "working class" musicians.

I think it's hard to define him because he guards his image so well. The difference is that he used to let pieces of himself out in songs, but now it almost never happens. That's a big reason why a lot of fans refuse to acknowledge the new stuff being anywhere close to the old stuff.

Agreed. His working class characters are vastly different than his contemporary?s. There is no pride in their existence and they don?t preach.
Just compare a song like Factory to Cougar?s ?Rain on the Scarecrow.?
The former is a sombre tale of everyday working life, the latter a remonstration about how the government has affected the Protagonist?s proud family traditions, and working life.

The BOSS.

Agreed.

Who is Bruce Springsteen? in 75 he was the next big thing, In 2006 he is one of the last originals. Born to Run was his nadir in the studio, It was a matter of a music career life or death, and he gave it one last shot. On the stage he is unsurpassed with live shows of up to 4 hours. Bruce in later years has focussed on the song writing from the brilliant oscar winning Philidelphia to the first musical response to 9/11 The Rising.
He now wants to experiment with the music, he tried in the early 90's but wasn't too happy with the outcome but in 2006 has stumbled across the critically acclaimed Seeger Sessions project, which has been very well received, particularly in Europe.
The Bruce we read about in 1972 was a young naive lad, writing what his imagination led him to, with personal experiences thrown in for good measure, The Bruce of 2006 is often writing in the third person, because his own life is 'normal', wife & kids etc and who wants to sing about this?
Bob Dylan mentions this in chronicals, he sets about deconstructing his own myth, stating he wasn't the saviour of a generation, he just wanted to take the wife & kids on holiday and live a normal life, I think thats where Bruce is at, his problem is finding subject matter that is authentic to his own life, which he can sing with passion and honesty.

Can't completely agree with that: I think we do get glimpses of Springsteen in some of his more recent songs.

For example, My City of Ruins. We all know that it was released following 9:11 but that it was really written about the sadness he felt about the decline of Asbury Park, which has its own special place in his history.

Also, what about Devils and Dust? Long Time Coming was definitely opening his soul. The Hitter - a lost relationship with the narator's mother (although it always seemed that his relationship with his mother was good, so perhaps that's not such a good example...?). Silver Palamino, written about a family's loss was about a family he knew/knows and the pain doesn't just seem to be the son's but Springsteen's too.

I think there is a trend of being dismissive about him because of the WSO album/tour, but I think we should see it for what it is: not some new evolution in his music (because none of the music is his) but, rather, a man who is so confident in his own identity and that of his music that he can go out and play some 'old time music hall' - type stuff just because he loves the fun and childishness of it and to entertain his audience and himself.

I can't see him doing more of that because it is a project that seems completed to me. I think we'll see more of his own stuff next.

Now whether that's Joad-style which visits similar territory as songs like Oklahoma Home or D&D-style (Matamoras Banks), only time will tell.

So, who is Springsteen? The same person but now mature - he can't write so much about himself, because his life is settled, he is happy and he doesn't have the angst of striving to serve his muse, but writes instead in the first person about other people's strife-ridden lives.

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I think there is a trend of being dismissive about him because of the WSO album/tour, but I think we should see it for what it is: not some new evolution in his music (because none of the music is his) but, rather, a man who is so confident in his own identity and that of his music that he can go out and play some 'old time music hall' - type stuff just because he loves the fun and childishness of it and to entertain his audience and himself.

I think the point Springsteen was making was about how strong the song writing was, some of these songs were a couple hundred years old and yet were relevant today, people losing homes (new Orleans) and sons (Iraq) but Bruce has been writing songs that highlight the plight of others for many years, his last personal album was Better Days.

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'his last personal album was Better Days'.

Wow. Where can I buy that album?

Nothin wrong with better days, its Human touch your'e thinkin of

I actually think it may be Lucky Town you are thinking of!

I like all three of those songs....but then again, I am a girl....

You got me.........but you know what I mean!

Perhaps it is enough that he draws attention to their lives by putting into words and music what those people feel every day of their lives. Many of those people are angry, sad, and alienated. If you are one of those people, you might be grateful to have someone express what you are unable to express yourself, and to express those feelings to a wide audience. Plus, I never understood the characters in some of these songs to view themselves or their lives as "INFERIOR." They might be alienated, sad, or unsatisifed with where they are at a particular point in their life, but I don't know that I would use the word inferior to describe their lives or how the characters feel about their lives. Also, there are other songs in which these same characters possess the faith, determination, and hope to lead a more satisfying life. So in that way, the songs as a group do portray these characters as heroic, for they do not lose the spirit and determination to perservere through difficult times and improve their lot and lead a satisfying life.

I think this nailes it right on..

Clever and deep

Fair enough. You've outlined why Bruce is perceived as the voice of the working class and why he is often referred to as a working class hero or poet. But in terms of whether or not he portrays the commoners in a positive or negative light, I would have to point out that while he's giving them a voice, you have to consider why he's giving them a voice. As I said before, from Greetings to BITUSA, pretty much every song he wrote about the working class consists of characters who are unendingly displeased with their lives. Why? Is working class life that bad? Well it must be because the only feelings it seems to instill in one are those of "anger, sadness, and alienation.?

That's all I'm getting at. Yes his characters persist with faith and determination, but it's the fact that they have to persist in the first place that lends support to my argument. But I will say that I do see the flip side of the coin on this one. Why do all his characters want to escape their lives? Maybe it has nothing to do with their given circumstance but rather the fact that they suffer from eternal restlessness. Also, Bruce is a fiction writer. He has focused on telling stories about the working class, and of what interest would those stories be without conflict? It's just that his ability to paint such an intricate picture of constant dissatisfaction and struggle among his characters is so well executed, that I am left with the perception that his characters are in the midst of the fight of their lives. Since they belong to the working class, that fight appears to be against the hell of the working life.

He does seem to have a Marxist view of the working class.

You know what? I've been thinking about what you've said and I would have to agree that Springsteen's view of the working class is a positive one.

He may consider the working life a hell, but the fact that he does shed light on the fears and dreams of the working class does indicate empathy, and therefore his beliefs regarding the proletariat could not be negative. Speaking of the proletariat, associating Bruce with Marx is an interesting comparison, which I think backs your views as well. Think of Nebraska. You would need to have extreme compassion for the working class and intense leftist principles to write that song and album. The characters hardships are not of their own doing. It was society, the class system, the Government etc. that put those people in that situation in the first place. Therefore if he views the life as negative or even inferior, that still would not mean he views the people with the same indignation.

Well for my ten cents worth, if you are proclaiming someone as the next Springsteen, I want them to have a song bag of between 500 and 1000 numbers, I want shows that go on for hours and are inspired-by-circumstance different in a very positive way every night. Look how varied the nature of the tours have been every year between 2002 to now. Hell, you could make that since 1972 if you like. Bear in mind also that to some extent the newer work has come from the unavailability of Steve with the Soprano's contract, and Clarence and his health. This is an astonishing devotion to entertaining the likes of you & me.
On the working class thing, I am working class of origin, self employed now. Unskilled work is shit. When I lived in Ireland we had farmer neighbours who worked 100 hour weeks, drove 10+ year old cars and got beat down by markets for the food they produced. People in working class jobs buy all the lottery tickets, looking for escape. The quality of being working class is not what makes springsteen write in a way that working class people are comforted and inspired by. It is that he can identify with and be insighful when writing about anyone outside of the comfort zone.

You've said it much better than I did.

Geez, isn't he just trying to make amends with his Pop?

I don't think it's any deeper than that.

It's all based in the fact that he loves(d) his father very very much, despite all the rhetoric, and the only way he could express it was through his songs about/for him. Every working class anthem he wrote was just another 50 minutes on the couch, in somebody else's world. But in central jersey, with long hair and no job, he just had a guitar. No Doug. No Bruce. He probably would have been a pretty decent bar-band guitarist on the jersey shore though. I know a lot of incredible guitarists who couldn't write a song if their lives depended on it. And they're still playing for 50 people a night.

In Bruce's case, I think his life did depend on it. And so he wrote them.