"Lives on the Line Where Dreams are Found and Lost"

Side Vent

2011-07-15T13:22:00.001-04:00

I’ve been reading Tennessee Jones’ short stories based on #Springsteen's “Nebraska”. Oh my god, they are awful. Am I allowed to say that? This book isn’t held up as some kind of cherished Springsteen paraphernalia is it? Yes, I’ve come across a few lines that I find insightful and well written. The stories, though? They’re just rip offs of the songs – just as they are. And it got me thinking – is this how people view my blog? I wanted it to be so much more than that. I wanted it to be insightful and pull me in other directions than the ones I’ve already been pulled in. Besides time, I think that is why I take so long to write. I don’t want to rush it. I want to do these songs justice. I want to do more than tell what’s already been told. So, though it takes a while for me to post new songs, I’m still going at it…thanks for sticking with me…

The Big Man

2011-06-21T14:16:00.005-04:00

"...and if I close my eyes...I can still see you dancing...laughing loud and undiminished..."

As someone who has a #Springsteen blog, I feel obligated to write about the passing of Clarence Clemmons. So much has been written already from his fans and those who were fortunate enough to know him, I feel there is little left be said other than something that has struck me personally. Clarence did more than contribute a great sax solo to Jungleland or Secret Garden. He did more than rile up the pit at a show. He was a brother to the man whose music has touched all of our lives. He was his great friend. And they weren't afraid to show it. Seeing the clips and photos of the two of them just being themselves and publicly loving one another has me feeling - wow what a beautiful relationship! What sensitive hearts must lie in these two men - the hearts that allowed them to form a loving bond with one another - the same two hearts that made beautiful music together - music that has become our life's anthem - music that has reached all the way deep inside of us and changed our lives in one way or another. For that, I thank #ClarenceClemmons. His heart will forever live on inside his friend's and ours.

#98 Jesus Was An Only Son by Bruce Springsteen

2011-04-11T10:32:00.002-04:00

"Now there's a loss that can never be replaced, A destination that can never be reached, A light you'll never find in another's face, A sea whose distance cannot be breached "

Loss, sacrifice, destiny, chance…all the ways our world can be changed in such a momentous way that life is never the same again. Throughout our lives the winds of time will continually call to us and ask us to release what we cherish to the betterment of the world, to a higher calling than our own, or for reasons unfair and unknown. Whatever measure of faith allows us to make such sacrifices promises to some day and in some way replenish the hole in our mortal hearts. But our mortal hearts do not know eternity; they do not understand "the soul of the universe” no matter what we believe and hold onto for comfort.

Faith does not mean without pain. It does not promise a heart without anger, sadness, and isolated fears. It does not provide a friend to wipe our tears away during the most extreme human moments we must face. It does not promise anything other than what we ascribe to it. Something to be hoped for as a belief in the goodness of human nature or the condemnation of human evil by a greater power. Its elusive hand of comfort only guides us through…with doubts, with struggle, with worry, with disbelief and moments of surrender. It is a “destination that can never be reached” … never be held when all we know and all we love has been taken from us. It’s an elusive dream we return to night after night looking and looking for the answers…which must exist somewhere across the sea…they must…

For complete lyrics visit:
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/JesusWasAnOnlySon.html

Testing

2011-02-15T21:12:00.001-05:00

Testing Twitter Feed

#97 Jersey Girl written by Tom Waits.

2011-02-15T21:06:00.003-05:00

“...cause tonight I'm gonna take that ride
across the river to the Jersey side...”

Finding someone real, that’s the goal. Seeing beyond the façade, like the bright lights of New York City, across the shore - for on the other side awaits home, awaits someone with a heart that can feel like home. A Jersey girl, a Massachusetts girl, a Georgia girl, we’re all capable of being that girl for someone, of being something real in a world filled with artificialities.

We grow up thinking about what we deserve to find, what we should get from another. What we need to remember, too, is what we can be for someone, all that we have to give and being worthy of the love we are given. A “jersey girl” is giving and loving. She is worthy of such a love song as this.

Hiatus

2010-08-25T12:02:00.002-04:00

To my faithful readers (if there are any faithful ones),

I am currently attending graduate school while working full time, and my blog ambitions have taken a back seat to life's necessities. My intentions are to return to blogging some time this fall when I've settled into some kind of rhythm with my schedule. Thanks for your suppport.

Erin

#96 Janey Don’t You Lose Heart

2010-07-31T23:17:00.001-04:00

“Well you say you got no new dreams to touch
You feel like a stranger babe who knows too much”

When I have children, I know it will be struggle for me, when they get to a certain point in their development, to want to instill in them everything I know and have learned over my life. I don’t want them to experience any of the struggles I have, struggles born of fears, fears which now lie dormant in the back seat of my car.

Watching someone you love struggle with those fears can be frustrating. You just want to reach out and say “here, take this key, turn it in the lock on those invisible shackles you are wearing, and set yourself free because what you think is so important at this moment, is only a moment and so therefore not that important”.

Someone with life experience trying to reassure someone who doesn’t know yet that along with age and time fears dissipate and sometimes altogether disappear. What may seem to be the end of a road taken, a broken relationship or a loss of any sort, will some day become the beginning of your journey rather than an end. Who, or what, you believe you cannot live without in your youth, can possibly some day become someone or something you are grateful to be rid of.

So, we can tell the children of the world all this and more. We can tell them that some day their prince will come and some day your heart will be filled again, but they will not listen. They cannot hear what they have not seen. They may grab onto these words as hope but they will not know what we know. They will not believe until they believe. Until they live and find their own reasons. They will one day, as we have done, shed some fears, laugh at others, and tuck away a few for their own rainy day.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/JaneyDontYouLoseHeart.html

Bonus Video - Look Towards the Land by Bruce Springsteen

2010-06-20T09:57:00.002-04:00

I am certain I'm very late in coming across this song as a Springsteen fan, but I just had to post it here and share.

#95 Jackson Cage by Bruce Springsteen

2010-06-15T12:22:00.000-04:00

“You can try with all your might
But you're reminded every night
That you been judged and handed life
Down in Jackson Cage”

Jackson Cage tells the story of life born behind the bars of socioeconomic inequality. This young woman feels she is just another faceless piece of her small world. Someone else’s twisted vision (“the hand that turns the key”) has cast her as an extra in the production of her own life. “Some folks are born into a good life”…and many are sentenced from day one to a life that feels like little more than punishment for someone else’s sins.

This nameless child swims upstream every day but every night finds herself back where she started. Her blinds are closed to any vision that may exist outside of her world. Like any cage, her life limits her awareness of other possibilities. She can only see the bars of injustice, and so she settles in to a life of survival.

Her story reminds us that “personal choice”, a buzz phrase that has swept the vocabularies of those who refuse to see the MUCH MUCH bigger picture of our world, is the smallest piece of the pie that allows someone to break out of their prison. When the life you are born into lands you, not even on first base, not even in the dugout, so far from any resemblance of a “good life”, that you cannot even see the field or even know that one exists, “personal choice” is not even in your awareness. At the very least, “personal choice” exists only in the realm of choosing the lesser of two evils.

And we are reminded of our human connectedness and our responsibility to help one another. Everything we do can change or perpetuate the cycle of poverty and hopelessness for our fellow man. “Without a vision people perish” (somewhere in the Bible). Instead of judging them as they may feel so many do and pushing them further from view, let us lend hope and a compassionate hand to “lives on the line” down in these isolated worlds, and help remove the bondage and barricades of these prison towns like Jackson Cage.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/JacksonCage.html

#94 It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City by Bruce Springsteen

2010-05-27T13:15:00.000-04:00

“The devil appeared like Jesus through the steam in the street
Showin' me a hand I knew even the cops couldn't beat
I felt his hot breath on my neck as I dove into the heat
It's so hard to be a saint when you're just a boy out on the street”

It’s been so long since my last post. I think back to the day I said I was going to write about one song per day. Even if I wasn’t working full time and going to school, I still do not think that would be a possibility. Each song requires so much reflection, and I never feel I reflect enough to do them justice.

This current song is just not grabbing me in any way and I feel at a loss to write about it. My head is swarming with the names of all the bones of the body and now the muscles – words like epicranial aponeurosis and my confusion over the final episode of LOST as well as my concern over my sick kitty are overpowering Springsteen’s beautiful visions -“the devil appeared like Jesus through the steam in the street”. I can’t even begin to write about this song.

Ok it just hit me. Yes just now. That is exactly what this song is about. It’s about distractions. It’s about trying to stay on a course yet finding yourself pulled by temptation or drained by the necessary evils aboard this life train. It would be so much easier to let life derail me from my goal. How important is this goal really I ask myself when I’m much too tired to even open a Word document to start typing.

So, once again I have to remind myself why I even began this in the first place. I wanted to improve my writing. I wanted to set a goal that would inspire me to write and keep me writing on a consistent basis. I wanted to test out the writer in me and see who wins – the student on her way to becoming an Occupational Therapist – or the artist who still dreams of one day having a dream job that involves writing or music or something more passionate than my current/future occupation provides.

The practical me has been winning. It’s important, yes. But so is this project of mine. Even if only to finish what I set before me. I don’t want to be another “sage on the subway” while something or someone else “clacks out the rhythm” of my life. I want to be “out on the street” making things happen, choosing my own paths, small and large.

Yes, this post was mostly about me. But sometimes to get through a writing block you need to write about what’s in your head – push out the cork that is blocking the flow – oh no – now I’m thinking about LOST again…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/ItsHardToBeASaintInTheCity.html

#93 Into the Fire

2010-04-30T14:46:00.003-04:00

“It was dark, too dark to see,

you held me in the light you gave

You lay your hand on me

Then walked into the darkness of your smoky grave”

It takes a lot of courage to follow your calling, especially when that calling brings with it great sacrifice. The obvious heroes of our world – the policemen, soldiers, firemen, etc… - those who risk their lives every day for a cause greater than themselves – all deserve respect and recognition for such a great sacrifice.

However, there’s another kind of hero in our midst – we know him/her as “the artist” or maybe they’re “the unemployed”, “the cousin who lives out of his car”, “the eccentric friend who never had a steady job”, “the kid who doodles in class and doesn’t relate to his peers”, “the girl with headphones on who spends all day playing that “damn” guitar”.

Following your passion, your purpose against the grain of society is not an easy cross to bear, especially when that mission yields little fruitage. Putting your heart and soul into a song or a photo or a painting - laying it out for all to see and to possibly ridicule or worse yet – completely misunderstand – takes a drive and a commitment not easily embraced.

Artists are not supported. Only once they reach some level of “business success” do they truly get recognized, but then they are flooded with all the stuff that has nothing to do with their art or why they began creating in the first place – needy fans, managers, sponsors, it takes money to make money… a whole slew of meaningless expectations that for most artists can stifle their creativity. They become a factory of their meduim instead of a patient fisherman of their own inner world.

When was the last time you felt inspired and alive? For me, it’s when I listen to music especially at a live show or with a vodka and tonic (or 2 or 3) in front of my Bruce Springsteen Live In New York DVD. Nothing else compares. I feel inspired to write, inspired to be more myself and less the cookie cutter person everyone wants me to be. When I see the beauty of the earth or people who carry their lives on their faces, I am moved to want to capture those images with my camera. That is life. That is what I long to be passionate for. When I get those feelings, I feel like life is meant to go on forever and I feel something greater at work – something greater than all this madness. For tiny fleeting moments I believe in myself and that I can really have the life I desire. I don’t recall having any semblance of those emotions the last time I watched “The Bachelor”.

Artists are heroes too. They cross into the fire that most of us don’t dare draw near. They risk being ostracized and torn apart and give up family, friends, and a predictable meal plan all for the sake of trying to carve out an authentic life in this plastic society we call living.
And the sacrifices they make bring remind us of what living really is and what is important in our soul’s quest for answers…they hold us “in the light [they give}” and therein lies our faith, hope, and above all else - love…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IntoTheFire.html

A Lull In The Action

2010-04-30T11:58:00.002-04:00

I have not been posting as often as I'd like. This project is much greater than I anticipated. While I am still enjoying writing about and delving into these lyrics, I'm not finding the time to do so at a level I had hoped to do. I am back in school, so pretty much for the next four years I will be pretty busy (no it will not take me that long to finish these songs - God I hope not). However, I am still determined to finish this project, and I hope you will stick with me along the way. Thanks for your support and stay tuned for "Into the Fire" - it's a bit slow coming...

Thunderroad79
Erin

#92 Independence Day by Bruce Springsteen

2010-04-09T10:17:00.002-04:00

"But they Can't Touch Me Now

And You Can't Touch Me Now

They Ain't Gonna Do To Me

What I Watched Them Do To You"

Raising children includes passing down ideas, beliefs, and values from one generation to another. Religion, politics, a general worldview, ways of coping with life (healthy and unhealthy), habits, talents, strengths, weaknesses – these all play a part in building a foundation for the growing child. But the time will come, and oh how it must come, when these children will begin to make decisions based on what they’ve come to believe in, to mature their inheritances, to leave them behind, or to embrace them as their own.

Not everyone responds the same way to breaking away from their upbringing. “Boys run away”, instinctually rebelling against everything they see in their fathers and everything they see in themselves and everything they do not want to be. However, like a newborn country, called the U.S. of A, on its Independence Day, they physically break away and then become exactly what they needed to so desperately leave behind.

“Men make their way”. A choice is made. They recognize that they and the world in which they live is constantly changing. New people bring new ideas, and they constantly search for new reasons why, expanding their vision, and encompass a world greater than the one they are born into. They willfully and inevitably break free from one’s past physically, spiritually, or emotionally.

In either case, it is a mournful process. Recognizing the weaknesses in those that have raised and loved you is a painful experience. Surpassing them in intellectual or emotional growth seems to move against the natural process of life. Yet, it is a necessary process. Springsteen sings “I never meant to take those things away” as a child who knows that their own personal growth will shatter the protective barrier of beliefs and ideas their parent has embraced throughout their life, their means of survival. The child must break away and then “make their way”. Though, they’ll never truly be free from everything, the good and the bad. Remnants of love, splinters of “the darkness”, and slivers of the light remain and there’s celebration and there’s bound to be devastation – come Independence Day.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IndependenceDay.html

#91 Incident on 57th Street by Bruce Springsteen

2010-03-23T15:19:00.003-04:00

“We may find it out on the street tonight baby

Or we may walk until the daylight maybe”

This past weekend, I watched the movie “Public Enemies”, an insightful portrayal of John Dillinger, the infamous bank robber from the 1930’s. Dillinger stoles thousands of dollars from banks and killed and kidnapped when deemed necessary. He was a criminal. He was bad. He was wanted.

And he was sensitive. He was an intelligent, perceptive soul who found a way to survive in a world where he would always find himself on the losing end no matter what kind of life he led. Any possibilities of second chances were taken from him at a young age. So, he played the game of life the only way he could protect himself, by going on the offense.

Spanish Johnny plays the game of life not unlike Johnny Dillinger. Some experience or insight into his life has led him to conclude that the way for his heart to survive an unforgiving world is to get his any way any how. The world was made of winners and losers, and he was “tired of coming out on the losing end”.

Johnny, in the midst of his darker world, finds himself touched by someone who understands him and who will love him probably better than anyone else has loved him in his life. Jane’s a kindred spirit who still carries the hope that Johnny lost long ago. She, too, can see the futility in the games of the world, but she also still dreams for something more, a world where they come out the winners. Johnny gives a small piece of himself to her. They carve themselves out a piece of quiet sadness within their weary worlds, but Johnny can’t jump in completely.

Love becomes something not worth taking a risk for because “it falls apart so easy and you know hearts these days are cheap”. No matter love’s promises, he can’t take the risk of losing once again. There are no guarantees they will “find it out on the street tonight”, find what they’re searching for. He can no longer make or keep promises to himself or to anyone else. He’ll share a moment but not a lifetime. He is safer risking his life rather than his heart.

…next stop for Johnny – Atlantic City….some hearts are not made for this world…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IncidentOn57thStreet.html

#90 If I Should Fall Behind by Bruce Springsteen

2010-03-15T15:40:00.001-04:00

“Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true

But you and I know what this world can do”

This Saturday, I will be running my first 10k (6.2 mile) race. My husband is also running the race. He has a few of these races as well as a few marathons under his belt already. He naturally is a faster runner than I am being taller and stronger, so he’s promised that after each mile, he will stop and wait for me to catch up. He won’t let me finish the race alone. And if for some reason I come in last (please God no!), he will let me cross the finish line first.

That’s what marriage is. Two people going through life as individuals, with their own goals and at their own pace. At times, one is stronger than the other and their steps more certain. By taking the time to slow down and travel alongside their partner, they can become a guide during times of distress and a hiding place from the windstorms of life. At times they will fall out of step, but in the end, they arrive together for life’s triumphs and tribulations.

Marriage does not promise perfection and endless days of synchronicity. Two people cannot walk side by side for every step of their lives. That is just not possible, especially if both are struggling to grow in any area of their life, physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

Sometimes one will run ahead of the other, beyond the curve in the road or over the hill into the distant horizon, but they will not let the other lose sight for too long. They will go to their dark places and return to the light. One may lose momentum but will again quicken their pace. They will feel apathy and hopelessness but continue to return home again to passion and promise. At times, one will be the strength and at other times the same person will be counting on to the other to light their way. This is the promise of marriage. This is love.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IfIShouldFallBehind.html

#89 Iceman by Bruce Springsteen

2010-03-11T13:50:00.002-05:00

“My baby was a lover and the world just blew her away”

“Don't check

Just balance on the fence

Don't answer

Don't ask

Don't try and make sense…

I feel numb”
(U2)

In Badlands, when Springsteen sings “I wanna find one face that ain’t lookin’ through me”, my stomach actually turns into knots…and the neurotransmitters in my brain fire YES! YES! – Where is that face? There’s got to be someone left with some hot blood in their veins…somebody “itchin’ for something to start”…Anyone? Anyone? Any? Going once, going twice…

We have become a society void of passionate conversation and connection. I’m so beyond sick of hearing people talking in clichés instead of really connecting – really saying what they think: We constantly hear “it’s for the best “, “think positive”, “I believe everything happens for a reason”, “it’s all good”. It’s pretty sad that I can predict the other side of a two way conversation most of the time.

Jesus F’n Christ! Does no one say what they really feel anymore? How about? This totally sucks…it’s not fair – it makes me want to kill myself…I think I will become alcohol dependent now that my friend was found raped and murdered in a dumpster..nope we get: “everything happens for a reason..she was raped and murdered so that I could become someone who helps rape victims” – “she was so kind – never said a bad thing about anyone” – really never?

I know that we are forced to live through mind numbing jobs and most of us are just struggling to make it through whatever this world hands us, putting us into a stupor of easy submission (insert “your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold” lyrics here) to the forces around us telling us what we should be, what we should feel, what we should look like, and repeating each and every new slogan that comes our way because Oprah said it on her show last week. Oh and don’t forget this season’s hottest suede boot! Icemen…Icepeople (because you do have to be PC, you know! – If you’re not, then God help you!)…that’s what we’ve become.

Aaaaahhhhhh! Where is the hot blood that boils through our veins…where is the passion, the anger…are we really that anesthetized that we can’t feel anymore..or are we so afraid of feeling…that we just become another spoke in the wheel of what society dictates, not allowing us to question anything, not even allowing us to realize the trap that we are in? Just walk the straight and narrow – don’t worry your reward is in the heavens. A mind-numbing existence = salvation – sure it does – the preacher said so. No room for ache, no room for “the search”, no room for a passionate existence.

What? You mean the “white wedding, house on the hill, 2.3 children, working for the man, voting for president, celebrity obsessed, pill popping, you make your own luck, we only pretend we want to help the poor” society we live in is not the best way to live? This is blasphemy! Hack into her computer, shut down her blog and throw her in jail for these socialist, communist ideas. She’s a radical – she’s dangerous…she has the infection…her blood is not frozen like ours is…What shall we do? I know - I heard her middle name is Osama…die bitch die!

(Sigh) – that felt really good…

“Well Everybody wants to go forever…I just want to burn out hard and bright” (Ryan Adams)

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Iceman.html

#88 I’m on Fire by Bruce Springsteen

2010-03-05T10:10:00.005-05:00

“Sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby
edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley
through the middle of my soul”

Obsessive love. Sarah McLaughlin sings about it in her song “Possession”: “My body aches to breathe your breath. Your words keep me alive…Nothing Stands between us here. And I won’t be denied”. Whoa! Sounds a bit stalkerish, doesn’t it? What happens when one person fixates on another and believes they are the only possible fulfillment of the lonely, empty places inside?

A “six-inch valley through the middle of my soul” paints a picture of mountains cut wide open, trees uprooted. The land is devastated and unprotected. Anything can flow through, in or out, without hindrance down the river of pain. There is something vital missing, and a fragile landscape remains. The person embodying such desolation feels as good as dead without this other person.

This fixation, call it love – call it obsession, has taken them over and leaves them raw and willing to ignore the voice inside that tells them no. They just need someone to say yes. They just need the object of their desire to give them the permission they’ve already given themselves, and they’ll be there, down the intense road of passion and obsession, into the arms of what they’ve long desired. They believe they are the fulfillment, and the one they crave is the fulfillment of each other’s each and every need and desire.

To have someone long for you with such intensity for some is a flattering experience. They, too, may feed on the fixation even when they don’t return the same feelings. What they may not realize, though, is that these kinds of obsessions just grow and grow, moving along like “a freight train”. And no matter the height of the pedestal the object of desire is held on, they will never be able to fulfill the fantasy or fill the eternal emptiness of their admirer. They will not ever be able to quench the fires of infatuation. They will always fall short, and intense “love” can quickly turn to intense hatred. And that’s where the danger begins…

…that being said – this is such a sexy song!

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/ImOnFire.html

#87 I’m Goin’ Down by Bruce Springsteen

2010-03-01T09:42:00.001-05:00

“I'm sick and tired of you setting me up
Setting me up just to knock-a knock-a knock-a me down”

The music and vocals are what make this song so great. But my goal is to delve into lyrical content. Though catchy and playful, this song does capture a common and serious issue in many relationships.

I’ve observed many couples that make me wonder, “Then why are you together?” The woman thinks her husband is stupid and immature, and she lets the rest of the world know it by every roll of her eyes. She does nothing but complain about him, and in all too common conversations with her girlfriends agrees that men are “pigs”, “immature”, and just a "lesser species" compared to their perfect selves.

My question is this: If you’re so evolved and mature, why did you marry such a “loser”? You married him, so doesn’t what you think about him really serve as a reflection on yourself? She no longer takes pleasure in what first made her fall in love. Instead she takes his affections for granted and finds herself living with feelings of resentment and irritation. She continues to treat him with disdain oblivious to the sinking soul inside of him that will one day say “I’m sick and tired” and perhaps even walk away. Then she and her girlfriends, in a pathetic display of self pity, can cry about what an insensitive jerk he is to have left her this way.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/ImGoinDown.html

#86 I’m A Rocker by Bruce Springsteen

2010-02-25T12:03:00.003-05:00

“True love is broken
and your tears are fallin' faster

You're sufferin' from a pain in your heart
or some other natural disaster”

The “Rocker”, the superhero of love. He promises that where all others fail, he delivers. He’s got what it takes and more. And he says again and again: “I’m a Rocker”. A what? Wait, what is that supposed to mean? He’s a rocker? He’s a Rock N’ Roller? As in Sex, Drugs, & ???
That wouldn’t inspire confidence in me to trust in this “I can do it all and better than anyone can” man.

But he keeps saying it: I’m a rocker…I’m a rocker…I’m a rocker….I’m a rocker…

…and like a newborn baby we are rocked in the cradle of security - in the arms of a promise made over and over again without hesitation. He’s consoling; he’s promising to hold on and never let go. He is persistent and unconditional in his devotion. When a heart is broken, one of life’s many “natural disasters”, it may not know where to turn. It finds it hard to trust again. Like a mother holding her child on the front porch swing in the midst of a sudden windstorm, he is promising a strong, secure place to hide and a soft place to let an uncertain heart fall.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/ImARocker.html

#85 I’ll Work For Your Love by Bruce Springsteen

2010-02-22T11:00:00.003-05:00

"Now our city of peace has crumbled

Our book of faith's been tossed

And I'm just out here searchin'

For my own piece of the cross”

The complexity of what lies between man and woman and the ever present third party of “all that stuff we’re so scared of” touches even the deepest, most spiritual parts of our humanity. Faith, devotion, grace, promises, and everything we open ourselves to when we open our heart to another gives the bond between two people a stronger thread to bind ourselves in as well as another of life’s complex mazes of doubt, fear, and pain to find our way through.

When someone loves us, they unwittingly offer us some piece of redemption. And that small piece of grace that flows from that love strengthens our faith in this human connection. And that faith, in turn, allows us to promise devotion and faithfulness in a world filled with broken vows.

Everything we bring into a relationship, our own experiences, our culture’s expectations and lies, life’s countless promises of happiness, and all the sweet and sorrowful “dust of civilizations” come along for the ride. No matter how much we try at not taking this relationship for granted or at not allowing someone or something else to define what we will be, these “sweet remains” slip into the mix and slowly evolve and erode our ideals and intentions over time.

The “pages of Revelation” are filled with turmoil and judgment. However, they are also filled with deliverance and salvation. So is love. Love has the power to throw us to our knees and leave us writhing in futility but also the strength to lift us up out of our darkest inner chambers and save us again and again. Our fall from grace as humans leaves us to wander in our sinful state at the mercy of our own and others sinful inclinations. But even amongst such destitution, love, “like a rhythm unbroken”(U2) continues to redeem, to save, and to willingly offer grace to one desperate heart after another.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IllWorkForYourLove.html

#84 I Wish I Were Blind

2010-02-10T15:48:00.004-05:00

“And the light that once entered here

Is banished from me

And this darkness is all baby that my heart sees”

A suicide song. The darkness blocks out any traces of hope. Any reason for believing, for living have succumbed to the all consuming grief of losing someone you love. The pain is so unbearable, what can be done to end it? Stop it. Kill it. There is only one way out. Blinding oneself to the graces of God’s hand is an understandable choice given the anguish of the alternative. Blinding oneself to life’s cruel beauty is the only way to escape.

Any experience of loss accompanied by constant reminders of that loss and the reality of its irrevocability can take the light right out of you. It can make even the most developed of souls return the places from which they once escaped. And the pull of the darkness is strong, it is familiar, it is safe.

The death of a relationship is filled with enough pain – add to that the blossoming of a new one – one that involves the person you love and someone else. Knowing that someone else is bringing your loved one the happiness you could not bring is a truly painful experience. Some mating habits of bluebirds teach us that a relationship is forever. It is complete devotion until “death do us part”. Promises of eternity abound in nature’s hand – blossoms returning every spring without fail, an endless sky filled with countless stars – and they assure us that the heart is worth giving.

We believe in the promises of forever. We believe in the dream. But as Springsteen so often questions, “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true – or is it something worse?”

It is something worse. It is agony. It is darkness. It is death.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IWishIWereBlind.html

#83 I Wanna Marry You by Bruce Springsteen

2010-01-14T10:25:00.000-05:00

Mawwiage…mawwiage is what bwings us togeva today…

Will not save you
Will not find you
Will not make you
Will not fix you

Should not tame you
Should not break you
Should not complete you
Should not defeat you

Will definitely shake you
Will always wake you
Won’t try to fake you
Won’t stop to take you

It’s something happy
It’s something sad
It’s something so good
And oh so bad

No magic rings
No miracle vows
Only the desire
And Only love knows how

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IWannaMarryYou.html

#82 I Wanna Be With You by Bruce Springsteen

2010-01-07T14:49:00.000-05:00

New love, intense love. Infatuation and passion giving us permission to burn down the town all around with this powerful heat wave that has taken us over. We risk jobs, relationships, reputation, and everything we have and are because there is something, someone that is worth it all. There is only one person that exists and only one thing you want – to be with them, to see them, to be in a room filled with people and to be aware of only their presence.

When we first fall in love with someone, even before we realize that it may even be love, they swing our world by the tail. They’ve swallowed the key to our passions, our motivations, and our thoughts. Our dreams, awake or asleep, keep them right beside us when they are not yet ours to hold.

It’s inevitable that such a fast moving train will eventually slow down. No one can retain such a high level of emotion over any person or thing. They become ours. We grow familiar. We become comfortable. Love does not fade, but the driving engine burning all day and night does. For those who have found real love, meaningful deep connected down in the fabric of our being love, when this engine slows, will find something beautiful and lasting. For those who rode the train for the sake of the ride, when the fire dwindles, will be left with nothing but the search for another train.

This new love – it’s exciting – it’s scary – it’s everything when it’s there. It’s all consuming. It disregards warnings and advice. It laughs at logic and reason. It takes a sensible person and pulls them by the nose into the tunnel that starts in the light, filled with excitement and promise, and that eventually “gets so dark”, dark enough for “two people to lose each other”. Those who find one another again when the ride comes to an end are those who have entwined the threads of their spirits into one by being vulnerable, by trusting, by respecting and admiring, by unselfishly giving, by being willing to go deep into our own and each other’s “black ladder”s, becoming a part of the same cloth that cannot easily be torn in two. New love becomes secure love, deep love, lasting love – and even though familiar and comfortable and darker – this love still declares at the end of every day “I wanna be with you / I wanna be with you / That's what I wanna do” and that knowing passion is a flame that cannot easily be extinguished.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/IWannaBeWithYou.html

#81 Hungry Heart by Bruce Springsteen

2010-01-04T14:33:00.000-05:00

For one of my first college papers, I had to write a “causal argument”. I had to explain how one thing caused another. I chose, as I did many times in later papers, to write about Springsteen, specifically how and why he has gained such a loyal fan base. Of course, my teacher was not a Springsteen fan – I even wonder if she ever heard of him. So, while the structure was what she was looking for, I’m pretty sure the content was lost on her. I chose the title “Everybody’s got a hungry heart” because to me that captures what is at the heart of the connection between Bruce and his fans. We are all looking for a connection, and no matter what difficulties leave us disillusioned, most of us never stop looking. When someone understands the ghosts howling and the bells ringing inside our own hearts and captures those emotions with just the right words, we are drawn to them because they give us validation and hope amidst our tumultuous world without and within.

Here is are some excerpts from my paper below: (please excuse the academic format)

Since he was young man born in Freehold, New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen has been carrying a gift that emotionally and spiritually affects the lives of those who let him in. He took everything that he was, the good, the bad, his doubts and fears and poured them into the music and lyrics he wrote. Springsteen’s listeners feel set free in their struggles because they identify with the truths he tells about the human spirit. “… Springsteen has repeatedly gone to where we hurt in order to get at what we have in common” (Wolff).

His emotional background has given him the experience and understanding of the dark parts of the human soul. His songs Darkness, Nebraska, Streets of Philadelphia, You’re Missing, and One Step Up epitomize feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, and grief. Who has not experienced at least one of these in their lives? Hearing someone give words to such deep, personal emotions helps people to gain power over their pain. It frees them from that world by allowing them to place a name or a description to what they are going through.

Springsteen says it best in Darkness: “Everybody’s got a secret sonny/something they just can’t face/they spend their whole lives just trying to keep it/they carry it with them every step that they take/until one day they just cut it loose/cut it loose or let it drag them down/to where no one asks any questions or looks too long in your face/in the darkness on the edge of town.” Lyrics like these help Springsteen fans to not feel so alone in their ache. One Springsteen fan expresses it this way, “Bruce let us in. He let our lives and our pain live in his music. He honored us by telling our stories for us with his voice. He let those of us who were too damaged to live live through his song...” (Brenda).

…His songs…allow his fans to see their lives and struggles expressed and validated in a way that makes them proud to be who they are even when the world may look down on them. These songs became their anthems.

When it comes to love, relationships, and family, Springsteen boils them down to their essence and lays bare the bitter-sweet truth about the moments in our lives touched by these. He has been married twice and has three children, but he never claims to have all the answers. He sings about romantic love, love that’s grown old, love that never was, love that matures, and the difficult and scary faces of love. He holds up love’s promise and asks it to deliver, but accepts its boundaries: “I wanna know if love is wild/I wanna know if love is real.” Then he shows the work love involves in Tunnel of Love: “There's a crazy mirror showing us both in 5-D/I'm laughing at you you're laughing at me/There's a room of shadows that gets so dark brother/It's easy for two people to lose each other in this tunnel of love…the house is haunted and the ride gets rough/And you've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above if you want to ride on/down in through this tunnel of love.” His fans find a comfort and understanding in this realistic expectation of love.

Springsteen’s songs have an understated courage that doesn’t leave his listeners without hope. Hope is what keeps people going, and Springsteen’s fans grab hold of it whenever they can. He tells us “Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe.” When life in these “badlands” beats them down to where hopelessness hangs above them by a thread, they look to his music to remind them to find their piece of hope in faith and love. He sings, “I believe in the love that you gave me/I believe in the faith that could save me/I believe in the hope/and I pray that some day/It may raise me above these badlands.” One longtime fan expresses his first live experience with Springsteen, “…it was the moment that I ever heard an artist reach into me time and time again… Aside from God, he has given me the hope and strength to go down some pretty tough paths in life” (Hunt).

Springsteen’s fans allow him in return to still be writing, playing, and touring at the age of fifty-six. He can put on an acoustic show or bring the whole band. His fans keep coming no matter what. He is still providing the something that they need as he continues to write about life’s struggle. Their “hungry hearts” get filled up and validated with every song Springsteen shares from his heart and soul. They find meaning and courage to continue in life when they hear those honest, heartfelt words echoing out from their stereos or from the revered stage at a Springsteen concert. They let him inside the most vulnerable parts of themselves because they know he’s been there too; they know his heart is as hungry as their own.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/HungryHeart.html

#80 Human Touch by Bruce Springsteen

2009-12-30T10:41:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched the Kennedy Center Honors. During the tribute to Mr. Springsteen, I found myself rather emotional. He is just a man. Just a person. So, why the outpouring of so much adoration and tears? Why the moving tribute to this boy from New Jersey? The Kennedy honor highlighted how Springsteen’s music is woven into the fabric of America and has proven to be a voice for the lost ideals and values America is supposed to stand for. But it’s so much more than that. Springsteen has provided us with something that transcends American ideals or political ideology. He has touched us in a place that few people know how to reach. He has offered us so graciously “just a little of that human touch”.

Because he was willing to take his search, his life’s struggle and expose his pain to the world through his art, he has drawn thousands upon thousands of souls to his music, and consequently to himself. He doesn’t just sing about the “losers” of the world, providing them with some sense of redemption, a sense of belonging and hope, rather he is one of these lost souls in search of truth, in search of understanding. His personal journey has been painted on a life size canvas for all to see, to hear, to feel. This willingness to be vulnerable and honest in front of the world has touched the lives of so many, touched them in that tender place, that place that when you allow yourself to go there makes you want to curl up in the fetal position and just cry, cry, cry. It is that same place that also stirs you from the safety of sleep and makes you believe in yourself, in your fellow man, and in life again.

What can we learn from such an artist? What can we learn about humanity from what he has given to the world? Most of life is lived posturing, pretending, trying to be something we are not, presenting a front that is “greater” than what lives inside of us. We try so hard to run from those things that live at the heart of our humanity and live stoic lives of quiet desperation in an effort to maintain and support some unwritten rule that says true feelings are not allowed. They are not appropriate. They are not politically, socially, emotionally correct. This is why we embalm our dead, dress them in their best outfit, surround them with flowers and cry softly into our Kleenex as people say, “death is a part of life”, “he’s in a better place”... This is not living! Where is the raw passion? Where is the “surrender” to natural desire and emotion? Why can’t we too live in that place that brings us together and closer to our humanity rather than isolating one another at the times we need honest human connection the most?

“You can’t shut off the risk and the pain” without losing the possibility for human connection. It is connection we are all searching for and connection we all push away. When someone like Springsteen sings about all those things we have tucked down deep inside of us, the bells of truth begin to ring. We know there is truth. We know therein lies our secrets, our desires, our pains. We know in our darkest of hours, “when all the answers they don’t amount to much”, we are not alone. We have been touched by someone else who has taken a chance at giving it all away. That is life saving. That is the “human touch”.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/HumanTouch.html

Highway Patrolman

2009-12-17T16:24:00.000-05:00

#79 Highway Patrolman by Bruce Springsteen

“Franky ain’t no good”. How often do we hear: A man who kills is bad, but a soldier fighting for his country is good? How simple those words are, falling way short of any understanding of the complexity and experience of human behavior.

Joe, however, can see something more to Franky than just the oats he’s sewn. The power of his blood ties redeem Franky over and over again offering him grace when the world has run dry of forgiveness. Part of Franky lives inside Joe and Joe’s “goodness” has also lived in his brother. It is this bond that allows Joe to set aside his role, his defined, superficial status, and retain a piece of his humanity, the humanity both he and Frankie were born with and both struggle to keep.

When the rest of the world has written someone like Franky off, he is still lovable to his brother, his own blood. Joe’s love for Franky redeems not only his brother and himself but the human race as well. This kind of love sees above everything convoluted we call life and down into the deep wells of human motivations and actions. It strips bare a soul longing to make sense of the world he was forced to face and gives him a second chance, and a third, and a fourth…

Don’t we all long to be loved that way?

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/HighwayPatrolman.html

#78 Highway 29 by Bruce Springsteen

2009-12-10T14:40:00.001-05:00

A man weary of life gives way to the chase giving permission for the dark voices of his soul to rise, to converge, and to have their way with him. He has lost sight of the land before or beneath him. Feeling he has no choice left but to surrender to the desperation, to the howling ghosts within, to the madness that comes to us all in various disguises, the madness that is the inevitable outcome of running away from the ache that lives inside those born into life paying for another’s mistakes, he frees himself to their forces and welcomes them with the complete awareness that there is only one way it will end for him.

The realization of his life deal gone rancid, drives him down into the trenches of the cold decay of humanity, where actions have no consequence, where the numbing of one’s mind, body, and soul is the only way to shut off the pain and leaves no room for empathy of another’s, where dreams are lost and never returned, where hope’s light has no voice. He is left believing he would be better off dead, a lonely, liberating, and final journey away from sin and pain.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Highway29.html

Kennedy Center Honors Springsteen, De Niro, Others - ABC News

2009-12-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

Kennedy Center Honors Springsteen, De Niro, Others - ABC News

#77 Held Up Without A Gun by Bruce Springsteen

2009-12-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

“How can a poor man stand such times and live?”

To be poor in America couldn’t be described any clearer than as being “held up without a gun”. Every day it just gets harder and harder. Someone is always taking from them what they don’t already have. Buying the necessities of life – food, clothing, and unfortunately gas – feels like you’re getting robbed. A lot of take and very little give.

Springsteen also doesn’t fail to recognize the artist’s plight. In a culture that does not recognize art or the pursuit of passions as “practical” ways to make a living (until you become super famous of course then you can turn out art whenever you feel like it – whether it’s good or crap and maintain a more than decent lifestyle), artists are forced to compromise, to depend on the society’s system of business first, and a piece of their soul slowly dies.

But who cares about soul right? Who cares about passion and creativity and all the stuff that makes being human worthwhile? There are bills to pay and there is money to be made. There are things to buy and people to make rich. So strap on your handcuffs, do what I say and no one gets hurt. Ok well, someone will get hurt, just not me with the pistol in my hand. Go on, what are you waiting for? Do what I say – one wrong move and not even God can help you then…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/HeldUpWithoutAGun.html

#76 Hearts of Stone by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-30T16:01:00.000-05:00

I struggled whether or not to personalize my writing on this song and have decided against it. Therefore, I am struggling to write about it. This may seem like a very vague way to express myself about this song, but I hope I am clear enough so you that you may take the ideas and apply them to your own personal experiences.

Due to my personal experience with this song, I am reminded of the idea of “doing the right thing”. Is “the right thing” always so easily discerned, yet just difficult to face? Or can the right thing be seemingly the wrong thing when it must be done to right another wrong?

If we make a decision in order to save another’s heart at the cost of our own, leaving us with nothing but a “heart of stone”, how can that be doing what is right? Who is it right for? Not for us evidently if it means living the rest of your days unable to love and be loved the way in which we all deserve. And if we are not being true to our own hearts, how can we be true to someone else’s?

I find that most people are insistent on others doing “the right thing” when they benefit most from the outcome, especially emotionally. It is hard to forget our selfish reasons for avoiding change and generously support another in making a difficult decision, even when the decisions they face is theirs alone and one from which they will gain or lose the most.

In the end, we have to live with the choices we make. What is right for one person is not always right for another. No, we can’t return to the past and make things different in order to avoid having to make these life altering decisions, but we can change the present and the future. Becoming less than the person we were will really only cheat ourselves and others out of a full share of the love we have to give.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/HeartsOfStone.html

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE

2009-11-30T15:27:00.002-05:00

Check out this VERY WELL WRITTEN article on Springsteen in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/opinion/27brooks.html?_r=1

“While our scholastic education is formal and supervised, our emotional education, the one we glean on our own from artists and musicians, is more important to our long-term happiness.”

#75 Happy by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-24T14:32:00.000-05:00

Even Springsteen’s love songs are sprinkled with the ever present darkness. The conflicting emotion between someone saying how happy they are and the melancholy way in which this song is sung accurately reveals the nature of love.

When the world relentlessly presses us from all sides, when our own individual world comes crashing down on us, our lover is a sanctuary in the storm. When our own inner nemesis comes creeping awake from its slumber, our lover is a lullaby that soothes it to sleep once again.

Being “happy” does not mean that all is right with the world and only moments of joy are to be found. It is not measured by what we have been given or even by our hope. It is neither a cure nor a miracle for our ills. No, happiness is a secure haven for our shame and a refuge from our pain. Happiness in love is a slow, quiet, steady stream of a sweet soothing grace flowing patiently along the ground on which we tread.

Man, Woman, Love are forever at odds with the “cage that’s been handed down the line”, the myths and lies we are told about what a man is, what is woman is supposed to be or do, and what love looks like. We need to break free from those shackles of deceit and embrace and appreciate the love we are given and the love we have to give while we have the chance to give it.

For Complete lyrics visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Happy.html

#74 Gypsy Biker by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-20T15:22:00.000-05:00

The obvious fatalities of war – someone’s’ son, someone’s mother, someone’s friend returns home as a body laid out in a flag draped coffin. The less evident fatalities are the soldiers returning home, alive and breathing, but now no longer the person they were. When the “greedy men who rule the world” have taken from them everything they can, they send them home left to wander around the coffin of their minds that barricades them from being the person they once were.

The gypsy biker had an identity – he was a free spirit, maybe somewhat of a rebel. Nothing could tie him down. He was driven to explore the world away from home. He could not stay in one place. This adventurous spirit was robbed. War took from him what he was. He returns home to stay, something he would have never aspired to do. He has no need for the things that used to fuel his fire, such as his beloved bike. He is no longer the same person. He is as good as a dead man – without desire – without the fiery passion he once survived on.

The tragedies of war are endless. They are often invisible to the rest of us. What goes on in the mind and heart of someone who witnessed and participated in the acts of war required of soldiers as well as in the hearts and lives of those they love and who love them, is a bottomless, tattered cavern of emotion that can never be fully repaired.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GypsyBiker.html

#73 Growin’ Up by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-19T11:25:00.000-05:00

It’s a rite of passage passing through adolescence – to question everything – to pull against the crowd. For the first time, in adolescence, we begin to learn about the world outside our own personal world. We have to experience everything for ourselves, even if it means getting burned.

Then when we “grow up”, we somehow stop pulling so hard, we compromise, we give in. There’s a new voice that wakes you up each morning, telling you to get up, shower, go to work, earn the paycheck, do what’s responsible, do what’s acceptable.

When we are young, we are stubborn. We break the rules. No fear. We live like we are invincible. Why can’t we keep a part of that as we get older? That process should never end. We never reach a place where we can say with certainty – I have arrived – I am grown up and there is nothing more for me to learn – there’s no ambivalence in my choices and in my world (although some people would like to believe that about themselves).

We must continue to struggle against the status quo – question authority – question ourselves – stretch our mind – challenge our values – educate ourselves of other cultures much different from our own – expose ourselves to new ideas – ones that make us uncomfortable – only then will we hold onto that passion of our youth that makes life so much more promising - in the never ending, vital process of “growin’ up”.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GrowinUp.html

#72 Good Eye by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-17T15:25:00.000-05:00

Springsteen once again captures the torment of a man living in the dark recesses of his soul. His life’s outlook is spent looking inward at his personal demons. So obsessed is he with his own individual struggles, he neglects to appreciate the things he has reached out for in his outer world, namely riches and love.

Standing alongside the river, he remains free from the healing of and the life offered by the baptismal waters. He doesn’t allow them to penetrate his guilt-ridden shadow of a heart. Unworthy of being made new again, of receiving the grace offered to him in the light, he dives deeper and deeper into the dark caves of his mind, an isolation not without consequence.

The “cold black water”, a reflection of his struggle, carries his hopes and dreams from beneath his grip into the darkness. He follows its promise down to the lake of fear and shame that pools in his inner sanctuary. He keeps his good eye to the darkness, with a heightened sense of self awareness of the thoughts that plague his sensitive heart. He has only known how to live in the darkness – it is his comfort zone, his safety. It is where he finds purpose and meaning, in his struggle to break free. Being taken down deeper and deeper feels like a baptism in its own right, a commencement of the voice of “howling ghost within” (David Gray), his ache to soothe, his cross to bear.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GoodEye.html

#71 Goin’ Cali by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-16T18:37:00.000-05:00

“Nothin’s hard as / Getting’ free from places / I’ve already been” (Wallflowers)

Our identity tied into, among other things, where we are from as well as the expectations everyone has built for us, and as a result, we build for ourselves from the ignorant eyes of youth. When we are headed down the road of life, it is not uncommon to find we have gone a long way before we realized we are not on the road meant for us. We have to start over, find a whole new country for ourselves, in order to reconnect with what makes us tick, what makes us us, what we really want for ourselves. We need to find that something that we choose, not what has been left for us, something that makes our life worth living, and something that restores our faith, and lets us keep our heart and soul in tact.

We need to burn down the house of our upbringing and build a new one. The “dirty work” of saying goodbye to those old perceptions and rules of our road has to be faced – bite the bullet, rip the band aid, then continue on our way to find our own, perhaps unfamiliar, voice. We learn to let our own voice decide our fate.

This is a lifelong cycle – burn down one house and build another. Unable to completely escape our early attachments and frameworks, we may continually rebuild our house, only to find the satisfaction it feeds us is fleeting. We reach for different tools, work, family, chemical substances, addictions and collections, but the outcome is the same. We build and burn, build and burn all to find that elusive place of peace where we are left with only the voice inside our head, the voice that will drive us to places from which we must one day escape.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GoinCali.html

Calling Out Sick

2009-11-11T14:22:00.002-05:00

I have not been feeling well for the past few days and am giving myself permission for a few days off from writing. When I am better, I will resume where I left off.

Day Off

2009-11-10T15:23:00.001-05:00

There will be no new post today due to my very busy day. Check in tomorrow for Goin' Cali and Good Eye.

#70 Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-09T13:50:00.000-05:00

Watch and Listen Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBxKFgn_oNg

When you graduate from high school, they tell you that those were the best years of your life. Well, for me, I can certainly say that is not true. And it should not be true for everyone else as well. Yes, you had more energy, your talents were climbing toward their peak, your beauty shone just a little brighter, as did that hopeful light in your eye. Times were good and life seemed like it was handmade just for you.

They say that youth is wasted on the young. They have the opportunities and energy to grab hold of whatever dreams dance around their minds, but they have the inexperience to appreciate them or to know what their priorities should be. They don’t see that some day the beauty will fade, the opportunities will cease to knock, and time will pass you by like a runaway train.

We worship youth. We say we revere our elders, but we don’t really. Not in our culture in the good ol’ US of A. We cover magazines and television with the face of the young and bring out the old only for special moments amidst our youth worshipping culture.

It’s time we bring the glory back to those deserving – those who have lived a long life and are still alive – that in itself is worthy of our attention, those who spent their lives devoted to causes greater than themselves, those who put others in front of their own needs, those who raised their children the best way they knew how, those who fight for something they believe in, those who contribute to the heart and soul of the world through their art, who keep striving for something long past their days of youth, those who do not sit idly back and let time pass them by.

By bringing the honor back to life in this way, we glorify all our days, our youth, middle age, and our later years. It is our lives as a whole that should be glorified and reflected on when we “get old..sit[ting] around thinking about it”. While the simpler times of youth will always be missed for their ease of living, those are not the days deserving of glory, it is everything we are and everything we have become and all we have accomplished since our youth that is worthy of such remembrance.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GloryDays.html

#69 Gloria's Eyes by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-06T12:40:00.000-05:00

Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KizJ1E_8HjM

When a relationship forms between two people, where either one or both have not experienced a heightened level of self awareness and individual growth, over time, the relationship can be threatened by the progress of one partner’s personal development.

When one person doesn’t grow, they may find over time that what has worked before in a relationship no longer can be the status quo. The developed partner will see their partner in a different light, and will begin to require more from their significant other. What may have once been “charming”, now becomes immature and a hindrance to growth as individuals and as a couple.

It takes developing individual and collective intellect, spirituality, self awareness, and strong principles on which one determines their world views to maintain a relationship, which should gradually change over time. When one realizes they have surpassed their partner in any or all of these areas, they may lose respect and even love for that person.

When the one who does not do anything to enhance their personal development begins to realize this, and they will eventually realize it, they may try hard to win back the love they once were given so easily. They begin to focus on pleasing the other person and trying to bring back “what they once had”. However, if they only realized if they loved themselves enough to develop into a whole, multi-dimensional individual, then they would be a better partner, a better lover, for the one they are with.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GloriasEyes.html

#68 Give the Girl A Kiss by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-05T14:04:00.002-05:00

Watch and Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLLm5l_4cMg

Sebastian the crab said it simply and clearly: “My oh my / Look at the boy too shy / He ain’t gonna kiss the girl / Sha-la-la-la-la-la (Hey Bruce likes those words too!) / Ain’t that sad / Ain’t it shame, too bad / You gonna miss the girl”. For those who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, in the Disney cartoon “The Little Mermaid”, the crab, Ariel the mermaid’s version of Jiminy Cricket, sings this song in hopes that the prince will kiss Ariel and break the spell cast on her by the sea’s evil witch.

So what’s the hurry? Well, for Ariel, her prince not sharing a kiss of true love would lead to her ultimate enslavement to the sea witch as one of her “pet” creatures, and any chance at true love would be lost forever. For those of us in the real world, and on land, those sacred moments also exist. No, we will not turn into the slithering snake-like monsters like Flotsam and Jetsam, but we do risk missing out on one of life’s greatest experiences if we don’t push past our fears and show the one we love, well, that we love them.

We do risk, though, becoming “flotsam and jetsam”, in the sense that we may remain forever adrift in a sea of loneliness, enslaved to the world of lost chances. Whether it’s fear, personality, or our culture’s expectations, we can’t let moments pass when we have a chance to express our feelings for someone. That moment could very well be your last chance to say what you feel inside. It’s not about romantic displays of affection, but sincere moments where we let the burning that moves inside of us come out to play. The ones we love need to hear it through words and actions. Whether it’s our children, a significant other, a friend, they all need to hear us say the word L-O-V-E and need to feel it in the way we touch, treat, or talk to them.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GiveTheGirlAKiss.html

DISCLAIMER: This is a wicked lame post, but I am sick and do not care ;-)

#67 Girls In Their Summer Clothes by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-04T14:59:00.000-05:00

Besides being possibly the only rock n’ roll song that uses the name Shaniqua, “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” is a bittersweet story of hope and redemption, an anthem to life’s possibilities. The promises of summertime hold out hope amidst the darkness. A wounded heart lets the effortless world of a summer night carry him through the darkness to where second chances are found.

The night has descended, and he has almost drowned in his pain. But his journey has only just begun. Leaving the isolation of his home, he allows himself to experience the cool, light air of a summer evening. Each girl that passes him by is a reminder that love can be found again. Life, a meaningful one, can still be found after heartache and pain.

However, he once again finds himself in “the darkness on the edge of town”. The pain of losing someone he loved has encircled his heart. He carries the weight of it inside along his journey until he finally, in response to a little kindness, lets it all go. Emboldened by the release of this debilitating heartache and the countless number of possibilities passing by him, he feels “found”. He takes another chance at love, “show[ing] a little faith” in summertime’s promises for he knows all too well “there’s [even] magic in the night”.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GirlsInTheirSummerClothes.html

#66 Gave it a Name by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

Your poison snake, your father’s genes, your mother’s abuse, your difficult life experiences, the culture that surrounds and pounds you from every which way. We’ve all been touched by the poison of the world outside of our control. Since the day of our birth, the waves of an interdependent reality bombard our shores.

Yet, sometimes we can forget that part of our existence. Who we are and what we do with our lives gets filtered through our own eyes of guilt and shame. We do it to ourselves and we do it to others as well. We become one dimensional, one thing, one awful thing and deem ourselves, or one another, unlovable.

Freedom from this guilt-ridden life lies in “[giving] it a name”, putting some kind of identifying mark on the sins that plague us. It requires diving in deep into the surrounding waters and realizing that we have been touched by a poison, a poison that swims through our bloodstream from birth until the day we die. Of course, we are responsible for what we ultimately choose to do with our actions. But we are not just one thing. We are not just a “wife beater”, a “killer”, a “child molester”, an “adulterer”, we are many more things. It is the poison that has driven us into the darker ways of the world. It is the poison that is never ceasing that leaves us feeling alone, fully responsible, and tossed about believing we only have our own strength and will to save ourselves.

By “[giving] it a name”, this poison inside can begin to lose its power. It can validate us as imperfect human beings, not making excuses for the wrongs we do, but lifting the debilitating shame that rides atop our sins. It can free us from our own inner prison and place us back into the sea of humanity alongside the rest of the world’s struggling souls. And from that place of acceptance, we can begin to heal…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GaveItAName.html

#65 Galveston Bay by Bruce Springsteen

2009-11-02T14:58:00.000-05:00

We all just want the same things: A satisfying job that allows us to support ourselves, A loving spouse, Healthy and happy children, A home to call our own, Something greater than ourselves to live for and believe in. We let so many superficial things divide us. There are these invisible lines called borders that have been drawn that make us feel that what we fight for and what we believe and how we live is somehow superior to those across the border. They create within us ideas about differences that do not really exist. When people from other countries come to our own, we look at them as invaders of our land. When in reality the land is as much theirs as it is ours. Prejudices are fed to the point that their lives become less important than false ideas.

I was listening to someone being interviewed recently about their experience in a space shuttle. They said that when you look down at the earth from that far, there are no lines. The earth is one gem in the universe connected by water and land. There are no differences from that high. Texas looks the same as Vietnam. And Iraq is no different than Washington D.C. Our inability to see the world in this way shows us how far removed we are from God and his way of loving. We cannot step outside of ourselves and our own interests and embrace our brothers and sisters who are no different than our own family members.

What good is a world so divided?

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/GalvestonBay.html

#64 Further On (Up the Road) by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-30T15:39:00.000-04:00

This song is a perfect example of how Springsteen’s sense of hopefulness is always mixed with realism. This is one of the things that appeals to me about his music. He doesn’t forget where he’s been and where others are when they come to meet him. He sees the streets of life lined with the beauty life brings as well as the pain, and he does not deny any of it.

He, instead, gives voice to those experiences, and by doing that, connects all of us on some level. By doing this, he takes the power out of the ache and increases the pleasure of our elations. Like us, he’s moving along the crooked path doing what he knows how to do, hoping that in the end, there is something better, for himself, his family, and for each one of us.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/FurtherOn.html

#63 From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come) by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-29T21:22:00.001-04:00

Let’s call her Mary. Hell, why not? Mary was born with a fire in her belly. She had her sights set high above the top rung of her personal ladder. She found love, and had a family, but that wasn’t enough for her fast blood. To her own detriment, she chased the stars that twinkled out of the sign she was born under. As life went from bad to worse, she still somehow believed she was destined for something bigger than what she was.

Mary never realized that destiny. Her fire burned out of control, and she lost her chance at seeing any of her dreams realized. But she was right about one thing: “From Small Things Big Things One Day Come”. Though she wasn’t equipped with the ability to “be something in this world” or even to have a healthy, lasting relationship, she produced something more beautiful than the spinning stars she pursued. Her children, born of her fire, but raised in the loyal arms of their father, will become something or someones whom Mary can be assured are the greatest treasures she could have ever hoped to discover.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/FromSmallThings.html

#62 Frankie by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-28T14:25:00.001-04:00

Can broken hearts dare to dream again? Dreaming, loving, having faith that some day we’ll find “a world I can call mine” takes courage. When someone’s life is filled with broken dreams, fear, apathy, and a sense of futility can all begin to take hold. Frankie’s lover is someone who is daring to dream again. The love he found in Frankie has given him the courage to try once more for something magical, something meaningful.

The night they spend together he wants to be free of reservation and free of shame for their status in life. He wants to tear the teeth off his fears of not being good enough and not deserving something better than what he has been given. People who have more money, power, position, can sometimes make those who don’t feel foolish for thinking they can “belong” too. But Frankie’s lover does not want to belong. He wants something even more than what they got. His dreams require bigger chances, greater risks.

But the fear that these dreams will not be realized, that they will be somehow taken from him, as elusive as “the stars…on the screen”, still lingers within him. He tells Frankie to “walk softly tonight little stranger / …into these shadows we’re passing through / Talk softly tonight, little angel”. If no one can see or hear his dreams, then no one can take them away. He does not courageously shout his longings from the rooftops, but rather whispers them in the quiet desperation of their night together, a night that has made him believe again, in himself, in another, and in life’s possibilities.

That is the power only found in the gracious hand of love…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Frankie.html

#61 For You by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-27T15:29:00.001-04:00

This song made me think of the movie “Forrest Gump”. Forrest loved Jenny with an innocent childlike, love. She loved Forrest, too, mostly because of how he loved her. As she grew restless, she went out in the world to experience life, to chase the “roar”, and became involved with all kinds of new demons, demons that played and danced soft and slow with the ones she grew up with from her abusive childhood. Her journey from their simple friendship of youth has been traveled down a deep well. Forrest’s “simple” love she could no longer accept. She did not feel clean enough for his pure love.

Though his love was “simple”, it was strong. It never wavered. It was unconditional. He came for Jenny over and over again. She couldn’t chase him away with her fears and self loathing. She couldn’t loosen its grip. He tells her, in essence, that he does not expect her to be who she was, but he knows she is more than she is now. He has seen her heart. He has been down her “black ladder”, and he loves her still. He came for who she is and always has been and for everything that comes with her.

But no matter how strong, or how persistent his love was, he could not save his Jenny. She saw the value in his love and though she couldn’t claim it for herself, she gifted it to their son. She had lost hold of his kind of love too long ago…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/ForYou.html

#60 Fire by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-26T15:25:00.000-04:00

Just because you’re feelin’ it, doesn’t mean she is. It’s sort of like the most complained about sexual issue, where the man gets caught up in his pleasure and forgets his partner is not experiencing the same thing, possibly not even close to the same thing as he is. Just because you’re burning hot inside for someone does not make them obligated or even more likely to return the flames. Take a hint – get a clue – if she says no – if she says she’s not into you, then she’s not. It’s not her love she’s denying – it’s yours.

Deep Thoughts by Lenore B.:
I think the "fire" he feels must be an STD....maybe that's why she doesn't want to fool around”.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Fire.html

#59 Fade Away by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

In my absence, today’s song “Fade Away” will be discussed by a very talented guest writer and poet, Lenore B. Unaware of much of Springsteen’s music throughout her life, Lenore has recently come to appreciate and realize the heights and depths of his catalog. Her newfound appreciation and love of lyrics will be a valued contribution to discussing this song, and others in the days to come. Thank you Lenore for your role in helping keep this blog and Springsteen fans focused on the ideas and themes of Springsteen’s Music.

Again, as I will be away, I will not be posting this weekend. Please return on Monday for the next song, “Fire”.

Written by Lenore B. – “Fade Away”:

If the bitch wants to go, then let her go. She's obviously hooking up with someone else anyway.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/FadeAway.html

#58 Factory by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-22T13:45:00.000-04:00

The first thing that comes to mind is the old bumper sticker, t-shirt slogan, whatever it was: “Life sucks and then you die”. Any human, who lives their life “working for the pain”, working just to survive, which is most of us, knows the anguish of the same routine day after day. Nothing about it feeds your soul. Instead, it steals from you. It steals your fire, your passion, your energy, your compassion.

“Working Life” is almost an oxymoron. A life spent working for someone else, the best years of your life, is no life at all. Oh sure there’s the evenings and weekends when we’re allowed some quality time with family and friends. When we’re just too darn tired and disillusioned to love them the way we want to. When we’re just too stressed and too drained to use the time to develop our talents and our passions.

I’m all for reform. We live our life backwards – all work and little relaxation. You can’t even have a baby, unless you are wealthy, and enjoy the first few months of their life. Everything we do revolves around work. It even determines where we live. Instead of building a life and then working to support it. We work and develop a life that accommodates it. Something just isn’t right.

Check out this article on a slight alternative (though still not good enough): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ut_four_day_workweek

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Factory.html

#57 Empty Sky by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

As a track off of The Rising CD, the easiest image to call to mind, especially for us Americans, is that of the literal empty New York skyline after a tragic day in the history of the U.S., 9/11. Springsteen’s ability to see past boundaries and through to the connection between all of us humans is never more evident than in this song. The emotions of loss manifested through sadness and rage immediately take us inward to our own feelings about what happened that day.

Just when the sense of loss has reached its peak through the connection of blood, one of our own is gone, a piece of us has died, Springsteen flies us across the world to the “plains of Jordan”, where the same grief lives inside someone’s mother, wife, brother, or friend, where the word “terrorist” does not define the loved one they lost.

That same sense of emptiness defies any definition of good and evil. It connects the hearts of strangers from a “strange” land whose seemingly incomprehensible way of seeing the world and whose sense of duty does not really differ from our own. Their pain and their sacrifice is no less than ours. The same sense of ambivalence about honor and duty, the same sadness and anger over a life lost, the same questions about life and death, carve out an “empty sky” for all of our human family across the world.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/EmptySky.html

#56 Dry Lightning by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-20T11:24:00.000-04:00

Amidst a painting of a dry, somber, Midwestern landscape, Springsteen delivers the heart of a man in the midst of his grief. He took a chance at love, and now she is gone. His loneliness’ only company is “dry lightning on the horizon”, like a distant promise filled with mystery and danger.

Nearing apathy, he goes about his life driven by her memory. He allowed himself to give away all he had to another, and she left him with nothing but reminders of what he had and what he lost. The dry lightning lights up the sky like some kinds of divine promise, but there is a drought on the land, and now, because he has loved and lost, there will remain forever a drought in his heart.

This is the scary part of love, allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough so that you can love and receive the love of someone else, but also so that when that love is lost, a solemn ache remains. But she is ultimately not what he needs. She had told him “ain't nobody gonna give nobodywhat they really need anyway”. She gave him only some of what he needed and now he needs to look to the horizon, to something greater than earth and sky, greater than a human touch, to make his life complete.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DryLightning.html

#55 Drive All Night by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-19T09:56:00.000-04:00

Drive All Night is a pleading from one lover to another asking them to break away from the chains holding them down and to join them in the chase of life’s burning flame. One lover is drowning in the poison of their fate, giving up on life and love. She’s found her place amongst “fallen angels” and those “crying defeat”, perhaps because of addiction or depression. She has surrendered herself to their world and will ride destiny’s waves as they come.

Her lover, though, is determined to break away from his life sentence. He sees something worth fighting for, and he has the strength to carry her along for a while. He will “buy her some shoes”, or give her a bit of what he’s got so that she can break free too. He wants his love to be strong enough for the both of them, strong enough to combat any forces they come up against.

Sadly, though, while love is strong, it is sometimes not enough. He cannot save her. She needs to save herself. She needs to kindle the slow burning flame inside her own heart before she can ignite her passions with the love of another. His love, though, will not let him leave her behind. He will drive down that road as long as it takes for her to return with him. He refuses to go it alone. He feels there is nothing left for him to lose, and he will risk falling back into the darkness for a chance at love.

For Complete Lyrics Visit:
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DriveAllNight.html

Anniversary Weekend

2009-10-17T09:35:00.003-04:00

My goal was 267 songs in 267 days, 267 consecutive days. However, this weekend is my 5th Wedding Anniversary and I want to spend the weekend just enjoying that along with my husband. Therefore, I am giving myself permission for a weekend off! I will next post on Monday 10/19/09. Have a great weekend!

#54 Downbound Train by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

Trains, as a common motif in Springsteen’s lyrics, carry all kinds of passengers aboard, often headed for something greater than the lives we presently live. The train is supposed to take us somewhere, somewhere beyond the dark horizon line. While aboard, our sins and blemishes get washed away by the touch of grace, and we will arrive newly born.

Sometimes, though, that feels like a dream. To believe that some day we will not carry the weights that presently hold us down, feels like another lie in a world handing out lies like popsicles in summertime. Sometimes our depths of shame and life’s circumstances can get so dark and the light inside of us nearly extinguished, that it feels like this train is going nowhere but down, and fast. The pain becomes ingrained so deep inside of us that we cannot even escape it in our dreams.

And even for those not so inclined, in one last moment of desperation, when any final drops of hope we have left are at last shattered, we “drop to [our] knees and cr[y]”. We look beyond the world in front of us hoping there’s a driver to the train will take us somewhere beyond our sinking sea. We plea for just one act of mercy, one moment of release. And if there is no grace to be found from outside ourselves, some of us will jump off the train and others will stay on the track and sink far down below where colors fade to black.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DownboundTrain.html

#53 Don’t Look Back by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-15T11:02:00.000-04:00

The idea of not looking back makes me think of the story of Lot’s wife. Looking back at what they were leaving behind was forbidden. Their hearts were supposed to be where they were going not longing for the wicked world they were running away from.

When you’re born with the “deck stacked” against you, escape, transcendence, whatever you want to call it, is next to impossible. It takes a lot more than just desire and determination to escape an all consuming world. Chance, luck, someone to help you along the way – any one of these things can help take someone out of one reality and place them in another.

Unlike Lot’s wife, the temptation is to not look back. The temptation is to ride the freedom train as far away as possible and prove to the rest of the world that you can make it too. You are going to “even the score”. But looking back may not be such a bad idea.

Of course, you do not look back in longing for the difficult life you have lived. But you can look back, back at those left behind, back at where you came from and remember the pain and the agony of just trying to survive, whatever your circumstances may have been. Looking back in this way will allow you to maintain a flow of empathy and suspend judgment for your fellow human beings who cannot escape as you have done.

It will allow you to return to a place where humanity is at its most fragile and desperate, and now that it no longer has its grip on you, allow you to fight for others with understanding and compassion. You can take what you’ve been given and loosen the chains for someone else.

There’s an expression: If you want to move forward, you’ve got to go back. This is usually used to express the need for looking into our personal histories to find what is blocking us from growing in our present life. It can also mean that if you want to live a meaningful existence, if you want to “make a difference”, if you want to transcend your own needs and desires, you need to look back. You need to look back at those left behind and lend them your strength and courage. Lend them your voice. And some, if only a few, can ride along aside you down those “tracks through the blazing rain”.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DontLookBack.html

#52 Dollhouse by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-14T11:00:00.001-04:00

There is a scene in the movie “American Beauty” where the main character and his wife are about to get intimate on their sofa. They’ve been drifting apart for some time and no longer have any place at which they connect with each other. As they get closer to breaking a long built barrier, his wife tells him not to spill the glass he is holding on the sofa. “Jesus Christ”, he yells, “it’s just a couch”. She proceeds to tell him how expensive it is and any chance of intimacy rekindled is lost.

Society tells us that marriage equals a storybook wedding, a house, two cars or a minivan when the kids come along and there should be kids, dogs, cats, drapes, shower curtains and for a lucky some an inground pool.

Pursuing those things is a welcoming distraction. The work it takes to build the physical part of our life is easier than the work it takes building our emotional and spiritual worlds. It is easier and safer to stay in one place. Fear of growth or of change shows itself in the empty pursuits of everything but personal growth and leaves one feeling a constant void. Instead of chasing that void and discovering what and why it is, we chase instead things that can be easily fixed. If everything is in its place and everything as it should be on the outside, then I’ll feel right on the inside. But we never do.

The longer life is lived in avoidance of facing our own demons and fears and building ourselves a meaningful understanding of ourselves and the world, the more we risk losing, and the more we become a product of our own making. We veer further from anything real toward a plastic life. We become what we think we’re “supposed” to be rather than who we really are. We risk losing the love of those around us, because a doll cannot love themselves and, therefore, cannot love anyone else.

Following are Lyrics to Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”

Her green plastic watering can / For her fake Chinese rubber plant / In the fake plastic earth. / That she bought from a rubber man / In a town full of rubber plans / To get rid of itself. / It wears her out, it wears her out / It wears her out, it wears her out./

She lives with a broken man / A cracked polystyrene man / Who just crumbles and burns. / He used to do surgery / For girls in the eighties / But gravity always wins. / And it wears him out, it wears him out. / It wears him out, it wears . . ./

She looks like the real thing / She tastes like the real thing / My fake plastic love. / But I can't help the feeling / I could blow through the ceiling / If I just turn and run. / And it wears me out, it wears me out. / It wears me out, it wears me out. /

And if I could be who you wanted / If I could be who you wanted / All the time, all the time. / Oh, oh.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Dollhouse.html

#51 Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?

2009-10-13T12:56:00.001-04:00

Like an early, undeveloped version of Land of Hope and Dreams, “Does this Bust Stop at 82nd Street? carries the lost souls of the world. They’re all headed somewhere and all are welcome aboard. Their journey is wild and filled with promises, ambition, dreams, love, betrayal, and uncertainty. Why do they continue on? What keeps them riding along? Hope. They will arrive some day to the place they’ve been running towards their whole lives, the place they can only dare to dream of – where the last shall be first. Their day will come.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DoesThisBusStopAt82ndStreet.html

#50 Devils and Dust

2009-10-12T19:14:00.000-04:00

It’s Monday night. I had the day off, and the last thing I want to do is be forced to write about another song. I love these songs, so why is it so much work? Why is it becoming painful to do, especially on the weekends? I’m thinking I shouldn’t have devoted myself to one song per day. But I did, and Devils and Dust is one of those brilliant Springsteen songs that deserves so much to be said about it. I will not do it justice. I won’t pretend that I will:

Once again, Springsteen embodies the tortured soul of another. He places himself in the mind of one who experiences a life separate from his own. He captures the beating heart of a soldier risking everything for a purpose greater than himself but conflicted by what that experience has done to him deep inside. The things that made him who he is up until now will fade away and a new fear will take hold, fear that what he has done, what he has sacrificed has been for naught.

Your heart and soul turned to “devils and dust”, opened to evil and emptiness. Like a tumbleweed blowing down a desert road, so are the souls of those who face unfathomable decisions of life and death. Young men and women at war forced to decide someone else’s fate, and then left to be at war with themselves for the rest of their days.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DevilsDust.html

#49 Devil's Arcade by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-11T17:59:00.001-04:00

Even when you win, you lose. Like paying twenty dollars in quarters to win at an arcade game where your prize is worth maybe fifty cents, war is a game that cannot be won. Whether that war is fought on foreign soil between soldiers or on the streets between young men caught in the game of drugs and survival, what is at risk is greater than anything that can be won. They are all pawns in a much larger game where there are no rules and no fair play.

Somebody will benefit, but not those who risk everything, not those who will experience the greatest loss. The chips are stacked against them. If they manage to save their bodies, a large part of who they are will not be saved. When all is said and done, for them only faith, or “something like faith” remains.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DevilsArcade.html

#48 Dead Man Walkin’ by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-10T17:29:00.000-04:00

This is one of those songs that overwhelms me to write about. Springsteen’s gift for tapping into the dark recesses of another’s soul is rarely more evident than it is in this story.

“Between our dreams and actions lies this world” sums up beautifully the all too common tragic story of a life lost. A baby is born and dreams are built. His mother holds him and looks into his eyes seeing all the possibilities of his future. But no one is free to grow independent of the world’s cruel mysteries. The battle against internal and external demons sometimes leads to surrender. Shame, guilt, and fear take our inborn sense of our own divinity quickly shatters our belief in even our humanity.

These souls are dead long before they are in the ground. There is no love, no grace for the dead. Anything they do to harm themselves does not matter. They do not feel worth saving. They are their sins. They are their pain. They live life waiting for the day they can finally be free from the ghosts in their veins that have haunted them all their lives. They can only find some small sliver of hope that the grace they did not receive in life will embrace them in death.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DeadManWalkin.html

#47 Darlington County by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-09T10:59:00.000-04:00

Springsteen playfully tells about a coming of age story. Two young friends, in the foolish overconfidence and naivety of youth take a stab at responsibility and “romance”. They don’t make much of a splash in the crowded city, so they think their luck will change in Darlington County. New places and new faces hold so much promise in their young eyes.

They check out the girls on the corner, hoping to make some kind of impression. Wayne skips out on work and disappears for a few days, no doubt drunk off of his newfound freedom. The game of life was bigger than he expected. It bites him in the ass and he winds up arrested.

The narrator, though, keeps working hard. He goes to work each day but keeps searching for some “little girl” to make a connection with. But he begins to grow up and realize there’s even more to be had than days of work and nights of romance. He wants a deeper relationship with the girl he’s with and wants to experience something beyond the horizon.

Darlington County was not where life was leading these boys. It was not the end of the line. It was just a step in their process of maturing and coming into their own. It was that thin line where choices can be made and lives can be lost or saved.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DarlingtonCounty.html

#46 Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-08T14:17:00.001-04:00

The darkness lives inside all of us. Only some, though, live their lives inside of the dark walls that surround them from within. Sometimes the pain of living is just too unbearable for fragile hearts. The secrets of their life tucked down deep inside of them do not ever sleep. They thrash around in the daylight and haunt them in the night.

Some would have these struggling souls believe that they have erred in allowing their demons to control their life. They would tell them that it is what they think about and dwell on that makes their life difficult – they just need to live in the sunshine – think positive – think yourself into denial and life can be good. Reach for some external source of fulfillment and you can be happy.

When your relationship with the darkness is as old as you are, you know the pain living there can bring. Once you’ve lived there, it’s nearly impossible to live anywhere, anyway else. You can’t. You don’t want to. There are certain realizations about life that can only be found by wrestling with the darkness. The struggle itself is what feeds and fulfills you. The anguish, the tears, the confusion all must be faced. The lonely road must be taken. You must feed it and beat it until it loosens a little of its grip, a little of its hold on you. Then you must go after it again and again.

The darkness will tear you up and spit you out. But it will spit you out, out on the line where “dreams are found and lost”, where you will either let it take away from all you have left or where you will find new meaning and understanding in your life’s journey. Take from it – use it. The changes it brings could not have been found on any other pathway. You will look back and know you went where you had to go to get where you are.

Then some day the darkness will call again…and to it you will knowingly return.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DarknessOnTheEdgeOfTown.html

#45 Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-07T16:14:00.000-04:00

“Dancing in the Dark” – there’s no better way to describe living. We keep going despite problems. We keep living and moving forward not knowing for certain what our life means. We “keep on keepin’ on” as they say. The longer we live, the more puzzle pieces are put into place. But even then, it’s a million piece puzzle and we’ve maybe found only the corner pieces.

Something in us tells us there’s something bigger to be experienced. We don’t know what that is, but we can feel it out there. We reach for it through connections, with people, experiences, and magical moments, giving us just enough of a spark to fuel us for a little while. When that spark burns out, we reach again. We hunger, we starve, for something more, because nothing satiates that empty ache inside. We keep on dancing not knowing exactly where we are or who or what is dancing with us.

What do you keep on dancing for?
For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/DancingInTheDark.html

#43 and #44 Crush on You and Cynthia by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-06T14:16:00.001-04:00

We all know those kinds of girls. There’s the girl in Crush On You who every young guy dreams about. She’s the girl they all have a crush on but don’t have the courage to tell. She’s pretty and …well she’s pretty. She can be bland, she can be mean, she can be anything, but she’s pretty, so she becomes the fantasy. But that is usually all she becomes. And as young men mature, slowly but surely, a piece of her may always remain somewhere in their fantasy world, but their desire for her wanes. She fulfilled all she could, and there’s not enough of her to fulfill what a grown man needs. But until then, she’s got them by the…..neck.

Big fish in a little pond. That’s the type of girl embodied in Cynthia. She’s not the best looking girl around, but she’s all there is, so she’s going to get the attention. No one takes her seriously, but in a world where there’s not much to live for, she give the boys something to look forward to. She pretends not to notice, but she enjoys the attention just as much as they enjoy giving it. In their small world, the chance for some small, if meaningless, connection, is what they’re all looking for.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CrushOnYou.html and http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Cynthia.html

#42 Cross My Heart by Bruce Springsteen and Sonny Boy Williamson

2009-10-05T14:37:00.000-04:00

Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M4dduIaXsk

“I cross my heart and hope to die” we said as children, as our way of solidifying the certainty of whatever we promised or whatever we wanted accepted as truth. We crossed our hearts and we were believed. As the night descends, however, what was so simple in the light of youth, becomes shrouded in shadow and maybes.

Life is seemingly lived easier when lines are clearly drawn. People are good or bad. Actions are right or wrong. A promise is as good as done. There’s no room for error. The dividing line is thickly painted, and you just have to choose a side. But then a time comes, when that yin and yang, black and white cookie cutter life you’ve been living stops making sense. You find yourself staring down the well of mystery of “them spaces in between” and everything you’ve believed begins to shake loose piece by piece, crumbles of conviction and confidence crashing at your weary feet.

Now what are you supposed to do? Nothing is what it seems. Everything is something else. What truth do you grab onto? Promises have been broken, ones we have made and ones made to us, over and over again. As much as we want to be certain, not just of others and the world around us, but of ourselves, our intentions, our promises, the most we can do is to do our best. The best we can do is to not allow ourselves to be rear ended by the gray train with doubt and uncertainty at the clutch. Instead, we need to be aboard the gray train, and from there only can we see everything, good and bad, as a possibility. Dreams can still live on this ride, they just twist and turn along the tracks instead of crashing and burning out of existence.

Knowing that nothing is black and white, and nothing is as simple as it seems, leaves just one road with many paths to take, life’s hard road to each of our own personal satisfaction…whatever that may look like – I can guarantee it’s not what we plan, not what we measure, nor expect.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CrossMyHeart.html

#41 Cover Me by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-04T18:29:00.000-04:00

For those of us who have someone to spend our weekends and evenings with, someone to escape life’s hard times with, we are the lucky ones. For those who have to face this world and then a life at home alone, life is a long lonely road. A life spent with someone who can be that shelter, that comfort to you makes the difficult parts of life worth going through and easier to face. That is what we should be to each other – a hiding place – a healing room – a sanctuary set apart from the storm of pain raging outside our windows.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CoverMe.html

#40 County Fair by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

When you are young, the spirit of a carnival or fair holds so much promise. The air is filled with lights and music. The nights are long and simple fun and games are saturated with magical possibilities. Young love fills your heart. Laughter comes easy. The taste of cotton candy and caramel apples satisfies without threat. Summer will never end and daylight never will call you awake again to face dusty streets and littered fields of someone else’s plan for you.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CountyFair.html

#39 Countin’ on a Miracle by Bruce Springsteen

2009-10-02T16:00:00.000-04:00

Isn’t pretty much everything we do and everything we want and have and believe like “countin’ on a miracle”? Life is so fragile and so many things can change our life in an instant. People come in and out of our lives, chance encounters that alter the course of our life. Our dreams and desires are subject to the laws of the universe, whatever you may believe those are. Even if you believe in fate, it’s still a miracle to find what you want because what are the chances that fate and desire will fall in line?

When someone we love dies, we’re at the mercy of an even greater, uncertain miracle. Where are they? Will we see them again? Will we have our love again? Even if we believe in something with near certainty – heaven, hell, paradise, death is the end all – we can still be left with a sense of helplessness, knowing there is little we can do to determine our ultimate fate. Doubts chase you from youth until death. What if at the end of our lives our life and our love comes to nothing but dust and ashes? What is guaranteed? What is for certain? Nothing…here’s to hope and faith…

#38 Code of Silence by Bruce Springsteen and Joe Grushecky

2009-10-01T19:00:00.000-04:00

During this last Presidential Campaign, amidst the rigmarole, usual rhetoric, and excitement over the possibilities of a Black or Female president, once again, a voice was silenced. Once again, the voice of millions was not heard, not through one politician’s lips, not even the most liberal among them. While everyone talked about Middle America and Wealthy America, no one talked about Poor America, Poverty America, I can’t feed my children America, Last Night another Child was Shot Outside our House America. No one mentioned what needed to be done to help the poor. The left appealed to the middle class while the right protected the rich. It was a war between two groups while a third sat by the ring helplessly.

Middle class America – we give lip service to ideals about equality, yet we don’t want to give up what we have. We throw anger at the rich for taking more than they need, while we greedily protect our standard of living. We take for granted that we’re supposed to own a home, two cars, and send our kids off to college and have money for retirement – isn’t that what Obama listed as the values he wanted to protect for Voting America? There are families who are so far removed from these ideals, they are not even the beginnings of a dream or an inkling in their hearts.

We complain, bitch, and moan, but in the end, we must like it this way. We like the safety of our nest in the middle. Otherwise we would have spoken out, we would have demanded change. We know what the problems of America and the world are, we just think that we can live in denial of them while we “get ours”. What can one person do? We now have a democratic majority and a seemingly somewhat liberal Black President in the White House, and nothing has or will change anytime soon. And we just keep pressing on without pause…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CodeOfSilence.html

Bonus: Chimes of Freedom by Bob Dylan

2009-10-01T09:37:00.002-04:00

Chimes of Freedom was not written by Springsteen, therefore it will not take a number in my 267 song line-up. However, Springsteen’s version of this Dylan song is so incredibly powerful and perfect, that the song deserves mention in the midst of Springsteen’s writings.

I took an American Literature class where we had to write about an American poet. I chose Bob Dylan. Not Springsteen? I totally would have chosen Springsteen, but he was not listed in our Literature book, so Dylan it was. We also had to explicate two of their poems/songs. I am including an excerpt of my paper here where I analyzed the words to Chimes of Freedom.

“Chimes of Freedom” is one of Dylan’s socio-political songs set on a spiritual landscape. His imagery takes the plight of the oppressed in the earthly realm and frees them in the spiritual. Often labelled as an anti-war song, the message is that freedom cannot be won through any of society’s institutions, but only through spiritual deliverance. Each and every person is born free, but has been pressed down and chained by human greed and injustice. Through vivid imagery and an appeal to visual and audio sensory, Dylan conveys this message:

Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll / We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing / As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds / Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing / Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight / Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight / An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night / An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

“Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll” sets the stage in the evening, when the lights cast upon the world are extinguished and the darkest part of night has descended. The darkest part of human existence is upon us. Dylan introduces the metaphor he uses throughout the entire song. The elements of a thunderstorm, thunder, bolts, lightening, flashing, crashing, are used to convey what will bring about true freedom. The power of a thunderstorm is great and cannot be contended with. The heavenly references make the “chimes of freedom” something unearthly, greater than any democracy or system of government humans have set up, something humans have not accomplished. Whether these chimes are God, Nature, some other great natural force operating in the universe, or the banding together of humanity to fight injustice, they are the key to unlocking the shackles on those beaten down by life’s oppressive forces. Soon, the bells of freedom will toll throughout the world.

Those fighting for true freedom are not the politicians and world leaders waging war, but rather the silent protesters, the “warriors whose strength is not to fight”. When this song was written, in 1964, civil rights and anti-war sentiment was strong in the air. The idea of passive resistance, and using peaceful means to achieve peace was new. But Dylan was singing about more than integrating schools and bringing troops home. He knew true freedom was greater than those things.

In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched / With faces hidden while the walls were tightening / As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain / Dissolved into the bells of the lightning / Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake / Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsaked / Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake / An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

The city life is so far removed from what is natural that it squeezes us from every angle, melting away our dreams and ideals. Thus is the life of the poor, luckless, forsaken people in the world. The wedding bells represent a new beginning. A new beginning is coming from “the lightening” or from a cause larger than any that has ever been fought for – true freedom. The tolling signals a great event taking place. More people are included – rebel, rake, luckless, etc…. Freedom is coming for all of these people.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail / The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder / That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze / Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder / Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind / Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind / An' the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time / An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

The “mad mystic hammering” is a spiritual purpose being worked out.
The imagery just gets better and more intense in this verse. “The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder” is a beautiful metaphor to describe the awe-inspiring forms nature takes. The storm reveals the power and wonder of its creator.

Here Dylan takes a gentle stab at religion. The “clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze”. The churches, religions, or institutions of the world do not offer true freedom. Instead, they restrict it. They will be done away with and replaced by something higher.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales / For the disrobed faceless forms of no position / Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts / All down in taken-for-granted situations / Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute / Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute / For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an' cheated by pursuit / An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

There’s more religious imagery seen in a negative context. The “disrobed faceless forms of no position” are all those in the political, religious, or secular world who have used their position for greed and exploitation. They will be disrobed. Their power will be taken from them. The chimes continue to toll for those who cannot speak for themselves, those who turn away from the problems of the world, and those who feel isolated from family or community.

Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed / An' the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting / Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones / Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting / Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail / For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale / An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail / An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

When the storm seems to be over, in a “far-off corner”, and the mist has been lifted, the chimes will continue to strike to make sure no one is left behind. Usually when something ends or leaves, something or someone is left behind. Not this time. The “Electric light” will strike “like arrows”, killing any remaining piece of injustice and setting free even those who seem to be condemned, the drifters, the “lonesome-hearted lovers”, those in the earthly prisons.

Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught / Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended / As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look / Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended / Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed / For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse / An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe / An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

“Starry-eyed an’ laughing” gives the image of someone feeling a deep level of happiness, like lovers in a new relationship. True happiness can only come with true freedom. “Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended” represents the path of restriction and oppression lived by those who Dylan lists in this song. It will be taken away from them, and they will soon seen their freedom delivered by the hands of something or someone greater than can be seen. When people are overtaken by something majestic, they are “spellbound” and have no conscious feeling of the passing of time”. The last few lines encompass anyone else left out. The chimes will toll for everyone, not just a select few.

#37 Cautious Man

2009-09-30T14:43:00.001-04:00

Love takes risk. Being vulnerable and surrendering our power to another person’s hands means facing fear. Hedging our bets and counting the costs will only keep us isolated from the beauty shared love can give. A life lived with caution, each step measured, leads to an empty place, “nothing but road”. It’s not going anywhere but toward loneliness and emptiness. Love will cover any stains we bare and love’s grace will set us free from fear.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CautiousMan.html

#36 Car Wash

2009-09-29T09:41:00.002-04:00

The ballad of my life on my 30th birthday...here's to not singing it on my 40th!

Well my name is Erin C.
I work at the temp office on State
I stumble in each morning
Some time way past eight

Well I work down at the office
A constant waste of my time
My boss don’t understand it
How it makes me cold inside
Sit at my desk staring at the screen
add up the numbers one by one
Pushing the papers all around
Until I’m all but gone

One day I’m going to write a story
About all this wasted time
Someone will notice this light inside
And say don't waste anymore life

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CarWash.html

#35 Candy’s Room by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-28T14:30:00.001-04:00

You’ve got to go through the darkness to discover the light. Candy’s room is that place that holds dark secrets and the things that go bump in the night. You need to let the darkness have its way with you. You can’t wish it away with mantras or positive thinking. You can’t buy its pacification. You’ve got to face it, take it, and own the darker forces within. Only then can you conquer the fear, the pain, and the sadness.

You “got to kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight” – U2 –

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CandysRoom.html

#34 Cadillac Ranch by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-27T13:56:00.002-04:00

Death comes for everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. All the money, beauty, and fame in the world can’t save you. The image of a Cadillac Ranch where these fancy cars are buried with their fancy asses sticking up in the air, and their noses buried six feet underground reminds us of the futility of a live lived in pursuit of excess and riches.
Even something, or someone, as exquisite as a Cadillac is going to face its final day.

The car is going to face a time when nothing can be done to keep it running. Every human faces a time, that no matter what they’ve done to extend or improve their lives, they’re going to shut down completely and forever. Even if a Cadillac can afford a fancier resting place, it’s still long gone and buried like every other car in the junkyard.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/CadillacRanch.html

#33 Brothers Under the Bridges (’83) by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

There is a place where dreams and ideals are alive - in the hearts of young boys in the midst of their search for a place to belong. It doesn’t take much to connect the lives of young boys with one another. Sports, games, adventures…these things bond them and allow them to experience love and a sense of belonging even though they may not recognize it as such. To them, it’s just good times. It seems so simple when we are young.

What we idealize in youth quickly fades to bleak realities as we grow older. Nothing can prepare us for what life will bring, what changes will come our way, the good and bad. What we may dream to become, to be a part of, may not fulfill our grown-up desires as it did in our youth. The more we chase after it, the more the shiny wrapping paper is torn away and we’re left with what is inside in all it’s imperfection and glory. Some of these dreams are taken from us and others just slowly lift away like fog at the mercy of the sun’s rays.

No matter where we go or how much we grow, one thing will always remain – that need for friendship, for a close connection – a bond that will stay with us whether we’re running barefoot around our the neighborhood of our youth or in a foreign land fighting our way home. The dream fades but it never goes away…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BrothersUnderTheBridges83.html

#32 Brothers Under the Bridge by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-25T10:12:00.000-04:00

Not undermining their sense of duty or purpose, but for many soldiers sent off to fight in war, they will admit that their main goal is survival. It is to keep themselves and their brothers in arms fighting along side them alive. The bond that forms between these men and women is a strong one because they become who they live for and who they die for.

After months or maybe years of living in this survival mode, these soldiers are brought back to civilian life where they must continue on living, going back to meaningless tasks such as picking out a box of cereal. They also engage in days of celebration, some that are meant to honor their service. How far removed these clean, organized celebrations must feel from the realties they have lived through.

They go back to a “normal” existence that will never be normal again. The images they saw, the lives they watched be taken, their own brothers gone before their eyes – these ghosts will haunt their minds for the rest of their days. They will never be fully present in the moment, fully engaged in the lives of those around them. A part of them will always still be back in the canyon, back on the ridge, back with their “brothers under the bridge”.

There’s only so much one human can take…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BrothersUnderTheBridge.html

#31 Bring on the Night by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-24T14:36:00.001-04:00

Springsteen, like in many of his songs, uses the night to set us free, free from expectations, pretense, and our own insecurities and fears. The night allows two people to meet and connect without the spotlight of the complicated past on all our misdeeds and imperfections.

Trying to maintain some semblance of our true selves while trying to find connections with others is a complicated dance. We may find within ourselves so many reasons to feel unlovable. Our past experiences may have caused us so much pain that we’re not willing to take a chance. So, to protect ourselves, we deaden the fire inside of us, not letting the reflection of our souls out to connect with another person.

We’re all looking for that place, the night, where we can be set free of the charade, where we can just find someone to unite with. We torment ourselves with all the reasons not to try, not to look for some deeper, meaningful connection. Like the freedom that the night can provide, we need to free ourselves from the shackles of our own self doubts and worries. Only then will the light within us shine outwardly so that others of like mind and like spirit can follow it down, deep down into our souls where life changing and life saving connections are formed.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BringOnTheNight.html

#30 Brilliant Disguise by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-23T15:17:00.000-04:00

How far we’ll go
How we see
How we feel
What we believe

What were willing to give up
What we wont’ let go
Where we’ve been
Who we know

What we want to be
What we have seen
What we doubt
What we have faith in

What we need
What we refuse
What we want
What we accept as truth

What makes us unique
What we lie
What makes us the same
What we deny

Who we love
Who we hate
“All that [we] bend
All that [we] break” (U2)

What feeds us, angers us, drives us, scares us, softens us…

It’s a lifelong puzzle, an eternal ever-unfolding mystery. The more of our identity, our true selves, we expose and claim, the more we can share ourselves with another person. And the more we can let them share themselves, their true selves, with us. How can you believe in another when you even doubt yourself?

If the image we’ve come to project is nothing more than that, an image, have we lost the real us? Or is it twisting and turning underneath the layers of doubt and fear waiting to be laid bare, waiting to be freed, afraid and waiting to be loved?

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BrilliantDisguise.html

#29 Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-22T15:02:00.000-04:00

On the verge of my 30th birthday, I’m feeling the ticking of the clock more than ever. I know! I know! – Thirty is still young. But why do I feel so damn old? And why does Springsteen at 60 years old feel so young?

When I say I feel old, I don’t mean in any physical sense. I work out. I eat right. It is my soul that feels old. It has already started dying at a rapid pace and speeds up towards its eternal resting place every time I hear my alarm clock beckoning me to another day of mindless work. I fear a life with little meaning will slip by before I have a chance to take the wheel and steer.

It seems that if when you are young, you do not discover your talent, your calling, your passion, you lose grip on a passionate driven life. The claws of monotony and superficial expectations crawl in and take hold instead. “It’s much too late” they say. You’re old enough to finally realize there’s more to be had, but it’s too late to do anything about it. You’re on the carousel and it’s spinning way too fast to get off.

I didn’t “get out while [I’m] young”. I was born in nowhere USA and will probably stay here until my final day. In my dreams, I am a gypsy. Nothing holds me down. I travel the world with some good books, good music, and whatever I need to survive. That life has always held appeal to me. Though I do admit I’d like to do it with millions of dollars in the bank. That would be much nicer!

Springsteen is one of the lucky ones. He can do this and still have a family/home life. He broke free of his small town chains and has been on a rampage ever since. That is why at sixty years old he is still driven, still going at it like it’s his job…oh wait…it is his job!

A life lived without pursuit of a larger dream, a I life lived where art and creativity are luxuries and not a way of life is just so agonizing. It “rips the bones from your back”. It leaves you without the ability to control your destiny. It leaves you without the strength to take charge of yourself and your life. It leaves you feeling not quite human, not fully alive.

So many times I have said that I was not made for this life. I believe I was “born to run”, born to fly, born to tear through this life like a tornado in a trailer park. No one is made for this life, even those who seemingly thrive in our world. We’re all running from something and running to something else, something we dream is better. Even someone as lucky as Springsteen is running away and running towards something bigger, he just has a nicer view along the way.

Some day I’ll get to that place I really want to go…. though I still don’t even know what that looks like or where that may be….until then…I’ll just keep on running…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BornToRun.html

#28 Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-21T15:22:00.002-04:00

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BornInTheUSA.html

So much can be said about this song – about the mistreatment of Vietnam Veterans, about the disproportionate number of poor kids sent off to war, about the broken lives of those who face war, about lessons unlearned over decades of time, about the elusive American dream, but I feel like I want to take it in a somewhat different direction.

Last night I went to a U2 concert, and knowing I was writing about Born in the USA today, this song stood out to me: Walk On. I am posting a link to the yrics here and dedicating it to anyone who has served a cause or have given up themselves or someone they love to a cause they deem greater than themselves. "Walk on, walk on / What you've got they can't deny it / Can't sell it, can't buy it / Walk on, walk on / Stay safe tonight / And I know it aches / And your heart it breaks / And you can only take so much / Walk on, walk on..."

http://www.u2.com/discography/lyrics/lyric/song/163

#27 Book of Dreams by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-20T10:00:00.000-04:00

We all have things in our past that we carry around in our pockets of shame. Whether they were the seeds we’ve sewn or the sins of someone else that left us feeling unworthy, carrying these burdens makes us feel undeserving of the beauty that comes our way.

Everyone is deserving of a second chance, a chance to be redeemed by the grace of someone else’s love. To see the universe as our dance floor places each of us under the “stars’ ancient light”, with a deserving place in the world under the mercy offered to us just for being alive.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BookOfDreams.html

#26 Bobby Jean by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

Finding someone who you can call your “soul mate” is one of the greatest experiences of life. No one wants to believe they are alone in how they feel. When you can connect with someone on almost every level of passions and thoughts, when someone lets you be who you are, and not only accepts you for who you are but loves you for it, the world can almost seem like a good place to be.

The thought of losing that person is a scary one. Even scarier is the thought “What if I never found them in the first place?” It seems finding your “soul mate” (insert your own term here) is such a chance happening.

Personally, I don’t believe there is just one person for each person on earth. That would be just a cruel tortuous joke of the fate gods. I do think, though, that there are types of people that when brought together really connect in a natural easy way that can’t be explained. There’s a rhythm to their interactions that just feels right. It just works. Then when you share the same interests and passions, there’s even a greater bond that develops.

It seems like no one else could ever take that person’s place. Of course, no person can be replaced. But it really feels like you could never connect with or love another like you love this one.

My husband is such a person to me. I’m more than grateful to have him here with me and to not be forced to tell him…. “I miss you baby, good luck goodbye”….

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BobbyJean.html

#25 Blood Brothers by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-18T10:06:00.004-04:00

The easy way we love as children, the untarnished devotion we have for others when we are young is eroded by pressures and anxieties of life. We slowly let fade the ideals and dreams of our youth. They are dismissed as naïve and impractical as our eyes are opened wider to the surrounding reality of the world we must survive in.

“Now I don’t know how I feel…if I’ve lost or I’ve gained sight” calls into question what we should allow to shape our lives. It seems as we grow up, we grow backwards. What we call maturing is really taking us further from how God (insert your belief here) intended us to be. The purity of youth that allows us to be united with each other in the most intimate way, by our blood, slowly fades as we make our paths in the world as individuals. These vital connections are broken and sent adrift down the twilight's river of misplaced dreams.

We can only hope, with these memories living and burning in our hearts, to some day return there again, where we truly belong, reunited with our brothers in humanity…some day, somewhere long past the darkness.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BloodBrothers.html

#24 Blinded by the Light by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-17T11:41:00.000-04:00

We all reach a place in life, whether we’re aware of it at the time or can look back on it with clarity much later, when we are “blinded by the light”. Pressured by the inevitable outcome of growing older, we find ourselves in a place where choices have to be made, where something about ourselves and the world needs to be figured out.

Something tells us there’s more to life than what we’ve been shown and what we’ve been given. For some the need for a creative life comes at them like a “needle needs a vein” (U2). Trying to grab a hold of it is a messy, slippery process. For the most part of the process is a convoluted web threaded with confusion and experimentation.

As we “come of age”, we can sense the danger of missed opportunities on the horizon as we learn more and more about all of life’s possibilities. We follow the light even though we don’t know exactly what it is or where it’s taking us. We take chances. For some, they fall down and never get back up again, others find another way to chase the light, and for a fortunate few something brilliantly takes hold and they ride it to the grave. It’s exciting, it’s hopeful, but also confusing and lonely.

Even when we reach a better understanding of ourselves and life and choose a path to take, we realize there’s always more to figure out. The light never dies. It makes us chase it like a “runner in the night”. Never knowing which way to turn or where we’ll find ourselves when the light comes back out to play...but it’s a wild and beautiful ride. Set your eyes on the sun, and follow it down… “that’s where the fun [beauty, magic, mystery, promise, meaning, and a small taste of freedom] is”.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BlindedByTheLight.html

#23 Black Cowboys by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-16T16:41:00.001-04:00

All the lonely people…where do they all come from?

Rainey Williams was a man destined to go it alone. The streets he grew up on were set apart from the surrounding world through their poverty induced violence. His mother’s love was his saving grace as a child. But that one constant in his life, his mother, could not ultimately save him because she could not save herself.

Rainey’s mother was seemingly immovable in the face of the Mott Haven streets. He depended upon her and her persistence in showing him that he was what she lived for. But times got tougher and mama got swept away in the ghosts of her own skin. What happens to someone whose only piece of stability and reassurance is taken away, when the vision of a young heart is broken in two?

Rainey learned that the only person you can depend upon is yourself. He took what he could and headed out to live a life free from attachment, free from dependence on anyone or anything. Like the black cowboys in the movies that were idealized to him as a child, Rainey embodied that sense of self-reliance and individuality. He was going to make himself a life far from the neighborhood of his youth, and he was going to do it on his own.

He travels far from the streets where he’s come from to find himself alone in an even larger world than he could have dreamed. Alone, like the cowboys of the west, Rainey would wander the rest of his days. No one person or one thing would ever again hold his heart.

“Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys / ‘Cos they’ll never stay home and they’re always alone / Even with someone they love” – Waylon Jennings -

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BlackCowboys.html

#22 Bishop Danced by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-15T15:24:00.001-04:00

Alice in Wonderland, a politician’s speech, mostly everything on TV, especially those things with the nerve to be called reality shows, a conversation with Sarah Palin, award shows and their red carpet extravaganza, tellatubby’s, Hail Mary’s, Chris Farley movies, this season’s “must-haves”….and Bishop Danced. What do all these things have in common? NONSENSE.

Whenever I come across something seemingly pointless, like an action packed Van Diesel summer blockbuster, I immediately become critical over its lack of substance and of the people who desperately enjoy such forms of entertainment.

Because something is nonsense, does that mean there is no purpose for it? Other than words from the mouth of Sarah Palin, I’d day there is a very distinct purpose for nonsensical things: escapism. I cringe to compare a Springsteen song to any of these other things, again my art snob voice rising, but it is just possible that in the four decades of his life as a songwriter, he has written some….nonsense! Okay, I said it….call me Judas…

Sometimes we need to just shut down the voices inside and surrender ourselves, our minds, our bodies over to another living or non-living thing. Not everything has to be so darn serious! This is something I sometimes need to remind myself. Sometimes a song is meant to move you without words. Some things are just meant to be silly or to entertain. Life is hard and there are too many difficult things to face head on. A little denial can’t hurt...can it?

If life was longer, if life was endless, there would be time for nonsense. But now as I turn 30 (whoa! not just yet), I feel like nonsense, escape, relaxation are a waste of the few precious minutes I have to enjoy life. I need to force a little more nonsense in my life…nonsense from Bruce – now there’s a good compromise!

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BishopDanced.html

#21 Better Days by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

It would be very easy to let forces out of our control dictate how we live our life. There’s a million reasons to “feel sorry for [ourselves]”. This is a hard life. Better Days breathes urgency into the idea of taking the reins of your lifesled. Trying to escape the feeling of futility by waiting for something to give, something to change, will bury your soul a little piece at a time.

While there are so many things we can’t control, we can work at one thing: softening our hearts, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, because there is something not worth missing, not worth giving up. And that is having someone you “can call [your] friend”.

For those fortunate enough to have someone in their lives that can break through the eye glazing, soul sucking moments of being trapped in mundane work and meaningless pursuits, time is of the essence. Take what you have and do what you can with it. A meaningful relationship is the only thing worth working for and worth saving. It can lighten our load, carry our cross, and bury our burdens. It can keep us from falling into the deep abyss of ache without a lifeline to grab onto. When nothing else seems to matter and ashes upon ashes melt into our soul, only love will have the power to set us on fire once again.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BetterDays.html

#20 Because the Night by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith

2009-09-13T09:00:00.001-04:00

All the pains and anxieties of the day cannot reach you in the arms of someone you love. Time is suspended. Even the struggle of finding ourselves takes a back seat. The world cannot take those moments away. We walk with a limp in the oppressive light of day, weighed down with the ropes and chains of expectations and unfulfilled drams. Trust and love can free us from the burdens of the world, and give us a moment, even if just a moment, to let it all go.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BecauseTheNight.html

#19 Be True by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

Because of our conditioning, sometimes we put unrealistic expectations upon ourselves and our relationships. From childhood, we are filled with images of “love” as romance, adventure and passion. Girls are rescued by princes on white horses. The man is always brave and strong. The woman is in need of his protection. Together, their love defeats wickedness and they can live “happily ever after”.

When reality does not measure up to the dramas in our heads, we think it is love that has failed us. But it is not love that has failed us; we have failed ourselves. Instead of searching for and demanding something deeper and lasting, we settle for fleeting moments of romance and outward displays of affection. Romance and affection are important in a relationship as well, but they cannot be the foundation.

When, over time, those dreams fade, the one with the idealistic, culturally formed fantasies will be left feeling empty and unloved. It is not fair to put such expectations on others or ourselves. No one can live up to the script of a fairy tale cartoon prince. No one can be the flawless beauty queen created by an artist’s sketch or digital image. Trying to live up to those ideals will always leave you feeling diminished.

Taking each other as you are and demanding something real and significant holds so much more beauty and lasting promise. Just “be true” and you’ll find someone that will take you as you are now and ever after.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BeTrue.html

#18 Balboa Park by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-11T09:00:00.001-04:00

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5PpeEqMeFE

Springsteen weaves a tale of the life of a young man living on the border between Mexico and California. He is homeless, addicted, and just trying to survive. Drugs and crime, namely becoming a mule for drug transport, become his way of life.

The border patrol sweeps through, looking to round up some criminals. These drug smugglers and hustlers who are one small link in a chain of greed and crime, who are living on borrowed time, live with only the law and the long arm of death on their backs.

The “men in their Mercedes” come through for sexual favors, criminals of the worse kind, (those who have much and take from those who have little, those whose lifestyles support the system of drugs that requires people like these border boys to smuggle in drugs, packets of cocaine in their stomachs, risking an early and violent death) go home at night to their wives and children, to their mansion on the hill, while these boys sleep under the highway, alone left to die in their own blood.

The toxic fumes of greed, the fatal flower of addiction, the poison of poverty…takes someone’s precious child and invalidates his life, like the young man struck down by the border patrol, they are not seen and not honored. They are reduced to something worse than criminals. Their humanity is taken from them all because of who they are and the life they are born into.

“Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die” – U2

Additional Note: Today is the anniversary of 9/11. It was tragic that so many lives were taken on that day. The nation will probably set aside this date as a day of remembrance for years to come. When we stop to contemplate such tragedies, let us also remember the hundreds of thousands of lives that are lost living a life like the boys of Balboa Park. Let us remember the inequality of humanity, built of power and greed, that still permeates the world, including our own country, which stomps out the lives and voices of the poor. Let us remember this too.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BalboaPark.html

#17 Badlands by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-10T11:00:00.003-04:00

I can’t tell you how good it feels to scream those words at a live Springsteen show. The way I connect with this song is so overwhelming; I feel like I don’t even know where to begin. This song is at the heart of the rest of Springsteen's music. It song leaves little to be said yet so much to be believed…

We’re all screaming out for something more…more heart, more soul…Put this song on, blast it real loud…and sing at the top of your voice, knowing everyone else around you is screaming it somewhere deep down inside, until you feel like everything wrong can be made right again…

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Badlands.html

#16 Backstreets by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-09T09:00:00.000-04:00

We are each born into a society, a culture, and a family that mold us as we live our lives. It shapes part of who we are and who we become. But each of us is also born into a “fire”, a fire of hunger and desire that throws flames at our insides as we make our way through this world.

That fire cannot be ignored. It is a fire that does not need to be tamed. It is a fire that needs to be faced and wrestled with and allowed to burn away bits and pieces of ourselves so that we can grow new skin, newer more developed parts of who we are in finding our place and purpose in the world.

It is on the backstreets this battle has to be fought. It is in the dark night of the soul where we can be “set…loose from everything”, away from the dictations of other men, away from the lies and promises of an empty, soulless world, a world where it’s a thin line between truth and lies, between love and hate, between existing and living.

It is a journey that must be made alone. We may have someone like Terry on our journey, someone to strengthen us on our ride, but in the end it is ourselves we must look in the eye. It is our questions we need to find the answers to on our own.

When we stop and take a moment, more than a moment, to wrestle this fire inside of us, only then can we get a real glimpse of who we are and what we are meant to be. Only then are we free to reach the highs and lows of a passionate life and escape the million year old chains we were born in…only on the “backstreets” of our lives.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Backstreets.html

#15 Back in Your Arms by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-08T11:00:00.000-04:00

We can’t take for granted that what we have will always be there. When it comes to love and relationships, we must work at what we have. We must constantly be supporting the foundation of our love and always working to make our connections deeper and more meaningful.

The nature of relationships is that they evolve. Each person changes and grows by themselves, and the couple changes together. What was there at the beginning hopefully still remains, but it remains along with a better understanding of one another, a familiarity that no one else shares with you.

Within that familiarity lies the danger. The danger of becoming complacent. The danger of letting time pass by while the promises we made to ourselves and each other, when our love was desperate and new, grow “empty as the howlin’ wind”, is a real threat to losing what we most cherish. Becoming consumed with life and with our own dark inner voices, we can be pulled into ourselves and neglect the person we at one time could not live without.

When life takes us to that quiet place where we have a moment to reflect on what we truly want and need, hopefully we do not find ourselves longing to be back in a place that may be too far gone.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/BackInYourArms.html

#14 Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-07T11:27:00.001-04:00

Life is a gamble. Forces beyond our control determine which side of the line we fall on – winners or losers. Sometimes there just seems to be nothing we can do to change our fate. When we’ve done our best and it is still not good enough, life can feel like a love that has grown cold.

Sometimes we are forced to make decisions and take chances that could ruin it all, but they seem to be our only hope. When it seems there’s no other way to breathe life back into a seemingly ill-fated existence, we are led down a path we would rather not choose if we were left with a choice. But believing that the possibility still exists for redemption and for a little piece of happiness, we take the chance. We roll the dice because there’s nothing left to lose.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/AtlanticCity.html

#13 American Skin (41 Shots) by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-06T09:59:00.000-04:00

What does it mean to be an American? There are no doubt many freedoms we experience as Americans that we receive at the cost of the spilled blood of soldiers, activists, and other fighters of freedom. ”We're baptized in these waters and in each other's blood “. We are connected to one another through this river of blood that we exchange for the promise of hope and liberty.

We are also connected through the reality of blood spilled due to the system of inequality we still live under in America. Years of racism and slavery still live within our culture through the wars fought on our own streets. Not by soldiers of freedom, but by soldiers of survival. Young men and women are forced to make decisions in order to allow themselves and their family’s to survive in the community they are born into.

For those living in the all too common ghettos of America, many do not have a choice, not a viable one. Drugs, crime, and death are their option, their only reality. Time in prison is an expected outcome for some part of their life. They are willing to do time as part of their duty to the system they live in. Sadly, this hierarchy of riches to poverty is what allows the economic system in America to thrive (or at least survive). The blood of those dying on American streets helps make America the country it is.

On the other side of the coin, police officers are put in a situation where they are forced to make decisions that mean life or death, not just for the citizens they are sworn to protect, but for themselves and their fellow officers as well. They are put at odds with their fellow human. They are put in a position where a split decision to shoot or not to shoot can mean the end of someone’s life. Faced with the communities and realities they live amongst every day, there are bound to be times when they make the wrong decisions. Innocent people will die. Blood will be shed. American blood will be spilled on American streets - The price we pay for living in our “American Skin”.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/AmericanSkin.html

#12 American Land by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

(My husband and I were at this show - I think you can see the back of our heads :-) )

Many years after Born in the USA, Springsteen is still singing about the broken promises of America. The Irish music behind the lyrics lends the song to the voice of immigrants, such as the Irish, who came to an America of promise and found instead an America of racism & inequality, a place where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

Greed and misuse of power are rewarded. People will say hard work is rewarded. I know plenty of people working hard who will never advance in life because they are kept held down by a system that can only have one result, lives separated by class and wealth. The golden door has proved to be made of glass.

I’m currently reading Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”. He wrote the story in the 1880’s and he so accurately could see where America has gone wrong in its economic/social philosophy. He knew that there was only one eventual outcome and we are living it now.

We are stuck in our options because we only see one system, one way of doing things, as the best way. Why is sharing resources, labor, etc…such a bad thing? What are people really afraid of? Our individualistic mindset is twisted. We spout off ideas of equality yet we operate under a system that makes equality impossible, in all areas of life.

The idea of America is greater than the reality.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/AmericanLand.html

#11 All the Way Home by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-04T09:30:00.000-04:00

Second Chances…

As we get older we learn that most of the bars holding us in are nothing but shadows. And watching Mr. Mortality prancing down our dead end street, we realize there’s no time like the present to grab a little happiness.

Maybe that happiness doesn’t look like we had hoped or planned. Maybe once we had just what we wanted and thought it’d last forever. But it faded like the passing of the sun and left us with our own “fears and failure” to face.

Instead of letting those old failures take the reins, we can give them a back seat and move on. Each experience is independent of another, unless we choose otherwise. We can learn from the past, but we don’t have to live there. What’s done is done. It’s so easy to let fear “take the wheel and steer” (Incubus). We need to acknowledge those failures and take control of the present and future as best we can.

Like the lovers in Thunder Road, we need to “show a little faith / there’s magic [beauty, hope, promise, and love to be found] in the night”, at the end of our days – there’s still something to believe in and hold on to and a lot worth living for.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/AllTheWayHome.html

#10 All That Heaven Will Allow by Bruce Springsteen

2009-09-03T09:35:00.000-04:00

No one knows how much time we have left in this life. Life is filled with trouble, but love makes it worthwhile. Take it while you can. Mortality is a fickle fiend…

For Complete Lyrics Visit:
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/AllThatHeavenWillAllow.html