I picked this up in a charity store a few months back. I have never been a Springsteen disciple, but have always admired his music, so the chance to find out a bit more about the working man's poet seemed a good way to spend a few pounds.
In the end, given the news and views around Springsteen at the moment, this was an interesting time to read this book. This, for me, has turned it into a book of three halves.
There is the first bit up to Born To Run (the album) - a gritty, interesting recounting of a hard Catholic upbringing in 1950s and 60s America, through the lens of working class New Jersey. Then, the rest of the book takes us through Bruce's 'Glory Days' and his battles with his ego and drive. There is eventual acceptance of his fame and position on the global music stage, but also the darkness and depression that often comes with creative drive and band dynamics. There are personality battles, relationships torn down and repaired, and more than a few moments of redemption.
Then there is the third part to this, given that I have been reading this in 2022, while Springsteen has been accused of betraying his position as working class spokesman. If he is this working class bard from the bruised and battered industrial wasteland of New Jersey, why is he so seemingly indifferent and accepting of the way that the new Ticketmaster ticket pricing structure seems to be ripping off those same regular, blue collar people. The so-called 'dynamic pricing' system is seeing even some of the cheapest seats on his current tour going for $1,000 or more, putting them well out of reach of most.
His ambivalent response in a recent Rolling Stone interview will not have endeared him to many longstanding fans. "For the past 49 years or however long we’ve been playing, we’ve pretty much been out there under market value. I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been great for the fans. This time, I told them, ‘Hey, we’re 73 years old. The guys are there. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers.’ So that’s what happened.”
Back to the book:
As a narrator, Springsteen is an excellent guide. He appears to leave little out of the story, being equally candid and self-deprecating as goes through from those cold, hard Freehold streets, to the big stadia and comfortable living that success brings. He doesn't shy away from explaining the things that his family, his bandmates and he, got wrong along the way.
He says of his early life, "We were pretty poor, though I never thought about it." The church was never far away from that early life; "In Catholicism, there existed the poetry, danger and darkness that reflected my imagination and my inner self."
But it was the paradox of his family existence that defined him and crafted the personality that would drive him on for the next five decades or more - a vicious cycle of breadline living and traditions. "Work, faith, family: this is the Italian credo handed down by my mother and her sisters. They live it. They believe it. They believe it even though these very tenets have crushingly let them down."
His tumultuous relationship and how that evolves, is at the heart of the book. "Unfortunately, my dad's drive to engage with me almost always came after the nightly religious ritual of the 'sacred six-pack'."
As we now know, it was the music that got him through, and then out, of these cycles of poverty and family drama. As he describes the onset of rock n roll; "Then, in a moment of light, blinding as a universe birthing a billion new suns, there was hope, sex, religion, excitement, possibility, a new way of seeing, of feeling, of thinking, of looking at your body, of combing your hair, of wearing your clothes, of moving and living. There was a joyous demand made, a challenge, a way out of this dead-to-life world, this small town grave with all the people."
His early forays, through the Castiles and Steel Mill, of course led him eventually to form the E Street Band. While they are rightly renowned for their tight musicianship and the virtuoso playing of people like Clarence Clemons and Steve Van Zandt, Springsteen was clear from the off about the terms of the band. "In the beginning I knew I wanted something more than a solo act and less than a one-man-one-vote democratic band... I wanted good musicians, friends and personalities I could bounce off. I wanted the neighbourhood, the block."
His defining moment?
For most of us, the defining Springsteen moment was the release of Born in the USA, a monster album full of monster songs, that solidified Bruce as 'The Boss.' But as many of us are aware, it was also perhaps his most misunderstood record, as it so much more than just a bit of bombastic patriotism. "Born in the USA remains one of my greatest and most misunderstood pieces of music... its demand for a 'critical' patriotic voice, along with pride of birth, was too seemingly conflicting (or just a bother) for some of its more carefree, less discerning listeners."
As we get near the end of the book, I am brought back to the current context. Blue collar poet versus multi-millionaire musician, leaching a few more hard earned dollars off the faithful. His indignation about Wall Street and capitalism washes very thin in this newer light.
"After the crash of 2008, I was furious at what had been done by a handful of trading companies on Wall Street. Wrecking Ball was a shot of anger at the injustice that continues on and has widened with de-regulation, dysfunctional regulatory agencies and capitalism gone wild at the expense of hardworking Americans. The middle class? Stomped on. Income disparity climbed as we lived through a new Gilded Age. This was what I wanted to write about."
Author: Bruce Springsteen
Released: 2016 by Simon & Schuster
Verdict:
This is a fantastically well written book, one of the best of the music memoirs I have read. And yes, the up to date context of the ticketing furore does take some of the shine off because it provides a whiff of hypocrisy - it should not detract you from reading it.
I don't think he necessarily set out to be this blue collar hero (who we would always hold up to a higher degree of scrutiny), just recount his world through his music. And if you have any interest in music over the last sixty years, this provides an interesting lens to view it through. It seems perhaps odd to say this about a musician's autobiography, but music really is at the heart of this book. And the edges, And everywhere in between. For most of us, we have work, and family, and hobbies, and other stuff, but for Bruce it seems that from the time he hit his teens onwards, there was very little else in his life aside from music (apart from maybe when Patti and the children came along).