My Boss

As many of you may know I am a Bruce Springsteen fanatic. I have tried to seek counseling for this illness. And it is an illness, ask my girlfriend. You sort of get the hint you have a problem when you think of Clarence "Big Man" Clemons as your protector as well as Bruce's. Or lie awake thinking about just how great another E Street tour would be so you could go to every single show possible.

I go back and forth about which Springsteen album is my favorite. Most days its The Wild, The Innocent, And The East Street Shuffle (The city poet shit kills me). When I'm at my most melancholy (and I mean that in a good way) it's the Tunnel Of Love. Darkness On The Edge Of Town is my running album, fists in the air. And Born In The USA fits in when all the others fail. This week, though The River hit the spot. A double record I most often overlook but a classic of the genre. The album represents the cold beers on the hood of a car at the end of the weekday that Springsteen most embodies. It's got the rockers - Sherry Darling, Out In The Street - and the slower tunes - Point Blank, Fade Away. The only issue I take with that record is Hungry Heart, but ask Hendo that has more to do with a Japanese restaurant and a broken satellite radio (56 times we heard the first 45 seconds of that song with nobody doing a fucking thing about it). Below I have posted The Ties That Bind and Drive All Night, two tracks that really get at the essence of The River.

I don't know what it is about Springsteen, but his music sits so well with me. It has to be a mixture of the songs, the studio recording style, the words, the band and the man himself but for me it's the perfect combination. I have to admit when people talk shit about Springsteen or his music I get truly offended (see above for that illness thing (ed. (g-f) insert). It's the same as when people spout off about Dylan. You just know they haven't listened and if they have, they are fucking hopeless. An issue of Uncut that had musicians picking out their favorite Boss songs referenced a bunch of times, the story of a person that didn't like the music, or thought they didn't like the songs but then sat, listened and got sucked in. That said, if I really had to pack for a desert trip, he would make up the bulk of the albums I took so don't express your anti-views here because you know I won't have a kind word for you, though I will only express it behind your back.

Albums, to the music nerd, are special friends. In the High Fidelity vein, they are companions that travel with us all the time, in good and in bad and we remember them as such. We think of some of our favorites as if they were an actual, living and breathing person and that is something not too many people can understand. But for those that do we have so many more friends than the rest, even frat boys. Here are a few of mine:

The Ties That Bind
Drive All Night
If you are one of the aforementioned haters, take a deep breath and try to listen to the posted tracks. If you can't deal, no biggie.