Born to Run

by Bruce Springsteen

Then, I drift to sleep tucked inside the greatest and saddest sanctuary I have ever known, my grandparents’ house.

Her mission became my ultimate protection from the world within and without. Sadly, her blind single-minded devotion would lead to hard feelings with my father and enormous family confusion. It would drag all of us down.

We were pretty near poor, though I never thought about it.

My house, my backyard, my tree, my dirt, my earth, my sanctuary would be condemned and the land sold, to be made into a parking lot for St. Rose of Lima Catholic church.

I am alienating, alienated and socially homeless . . . I am seven years old.

I haven’t been completely fair to my father in my songs, treating him as an archetype of the neglecting, domineering parent.

I still can’t read music to this day,

I was considered toxic in front of a microphone, my voice the butt of many of Tex’s jokes, and years later, after selling millions of records, I would visit Tex and he would take grand pleasure in sneering at me, “You still can’t sing. George is the singer.”

I’d finally met someone who felt about music the way I did, needed it the way I did, respected its power in a way that was a notch above the attitudes of the other musicians I’d come in contact with, somebody I understood and I felt understood me.

Danny hailed from Flemington, New Jersey, and was the same bemused, nonchalant character I would stand next to on his deathbed many adventures and forty years later.

Woman + booze + man + booze + second man + booze = brawl.

Garry said he knew a guy named Clarence Clemons.

Lesson: In the real world, ninety-nine cents will not get you into New York City. You will need the full dollar.

I was generally a merry drinker simply prone to foolish behavior and occasional sexual misadventure,

Who were all those strangers buying my music?

The rock death cult is well loved and chronicled in literature and music, but in practice, there ain’t much in it for the singer and his song, except a good life unlived, lovers and children left behind, and a six-foot-deep hole in the ground. The exit in a blaze of glory is bullshit.

“The screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways”—that’s a good opening line, you can take it anywhere.

From there it’s all night, the city and the spiritual battleground of “Jungleland” as the band works its way through musical movement after musical movement.

but I could never hate Mike; I can only love him. His motor mouth walked me into John Hammond’s office.

I can’t stomach the sound of wind chimes to this day. They sound like lies.

I determined that there on the streets of my hometown was the beginning of my purpose, my reason, my passion. Along with Catholicism, in my family’s neighborhood experience, I found my other “genesis” piece, the beginning of my song: home, roots, blood, community, responsibility, stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive. Sweetened by cars, girls and fortune, these are the things that guided my musical journey. I would travel far, light-years from home, and enjoy it all, but I would never completely leave.

Off the road, life was a puzzle.

(I did go with Pete Townshend a few nights after our Brighton show to a London club, where a young band with their first album out was playing a powerful set; they had an unusual name, U2 . . . better keep a lookout over my shoulder.)

On the Irish side of my immediate family, saying no was in our DNA. No doctors, no cities, no strangers, no travel, “the world is out there and it’s a monster, waiting to eat you alive. You’ll see.” It’s yes that doesn’t come very easy to us.

I walk in; look into the eyes of a kindly, white-haired, mustached complete stranger; sit down; and burst into tears.

Patti Scialfa had it all. We met, flirted, had a drink and became bar pals.

I was always busy, as Patti would later say, “looking in other fields.”

Together, Patti and I’d made one and one equal three. That’s rock ’n’ roll.

She is a one-woman, red-haired revolution: flaming beauty, Queen of my heart, waitress, street busker, child of some privilege, hard-time Jersey girl, great songwriter, nineteen-year New Yorker, one of the loveliest voices I’ve ever heard, smart, tough and fragile. When I look at her, I see and feel my best self.

The night I fell in love with Patti’s voice at the Stone Pony, the first line she sang was “I know something about love . . .” She does.

Luckily for parents, children have great resilience and a generous ability to forgive. My wife guided me in this and my son taught me.

I once sat next to a lovely woman who pointed to Jess and asked, “Is that your daughter?” I said, “Yes.” She then pointed to the stage, where an on-the-cusp-of-fame Lady Gaga, dressed in a white tutu, was singing her first hit and said, “That’s mine.”

Suddenly, he said, “Bruce, you’ve been very good to us.” I acknowledged that I had. Pause. His eyes drifted out over the Los Angeles haze. He continued, “. . . And I wasn’t very good to you.” A small silence caught us. “You did the best you could,” I said. That was it. It was all I needed, all that was necessary. I was blessed on that day and given something by my father I thought I’d never live to see . . . a brief recognition of the truth.

Everyone had found their own way but no one had found—and they wouldn’t, not now or ever—another E Street Band.

There was one show in America that stood out as not only one of the finest of but one of the most meaningful of my work life: New Orleans.

Here on the boardwalk I now play the role of the ghost of Christmas past as the city and its exciting new development passes me by.

But we do . . . we do play together and every night at eight we walk out onstage together, and that, my friends, is a place where miracles occur . . . old and new miracles. And those you are with in the presence of miracles, you never forget. Life does not separate you. Death does not separate you. Those you are with who create miracles for you, like Danny did for me every night, you are honored to be amongst.

As I held up that big body night after night and we slowly made it down the stairs, he often whispered, “Thanks for letting me be here.”

Clarence’s hands were always like heavy stones but when he placed them upon your shoulders, the most comforting, secure feeling swept through your body and heart. Very, very strong and exceedingly gentle—that was C with me.

I strummed my guitar gently to “Land of Hope and Dreams” and then something inexplicable happened. Something great and timeless and beautiful and confounding just disappeared. Something was gone . . . gone for good.

There is no evidence of the soul except in its sudden absence. A nothingness enters, taking the place where something was before. A night without stars falls and for a moment covers everything in the room.

“Let me get this straight. You are coming in to audition for Clarence ‘Big Man’ Clemons’s seat in the E Street Band, which is not a job, by the way, but a sacred fucking position,

The blues don’t jump right on you. They come creeping. Shortly after my sixtieth I slipped into a depression like I hadn’t experienced since that dusty night in Texas thirty years earlier.

A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show.

The only thing that kept me right side up during this was Patti. Her love, compassion and assurance that I’d be all right were, during many dark hours, all I had to go on.

We remain in the air, the empty space, in the dusty roots and deep earth, in the echo and stories, the songs of the time and place we have inhabited. My clan, my blood, my place, my people.

This, I presented as my long and noisy prayer, my magic trick. Hoping it would rock your very soul and then pass on, its spirit rendered, to be read, heard, sung and altered by you and your blood, that it might strengthen and help make sense of your story. Go tell it.