I’m tracing my musical evolution with you chronologically, 
so you might find it surprising that Bruce was not the first but the fourth step in that journey given my deep love of his music. And this step is due to my family’s influence. Some of you may know that my mom’s sister is a pretty successful music journalist. She spent the early ‘70’s touring with Zeppelin and then the Stones, and then settled into a job writing and editing a rock magazine (“Rock Scene”) and writing the rock column for the New York Post. Now, she’s the music contributing editor for Vanity Fair. And my mom’s other sister has worked with her the entire time, so both of my aunts were and are plugged into the music scene pretty well. They were the ones that had taken me and my then 6-year old sister to see our first legitimate concert, The Village People at MSG in 1979 (mind-bending).
So one day out on Fire Island in 1980, where my grandparents had a summer house, my aunt came out to visit while my family was there. Walking to the house from the ferry dock, she asked me what music I was listening to. I went into an excited description of my love for Kiss and Cheap Trick, as if she had never heard of them. Mind you, I wasn’t really aware of how successful she was, because I was 11 and saw her 3 or 4 times a year at most. After listening to me go on for a few minutes, she said something to the effect of “you need to start listening to real rock and roll, to bands that have some substance. You need to get into Bruce Springsteen and the Stones.” Being the precocious pre-teen know-it-all that I was, I made another plea for how great Kiss was, and she smiled (smirked?) and said, “I’ll take you to go see Bruce and you’ll see.”
The next week, she sent me a copy of Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce’s 1978 album, widely considered one of if not his best overall record, which I tried listening to but, being completely honest, I struggled to connect with. It was a dark and angry, addressing adult themes of disillusionment and struggle, and I was a happy-go-lucky 11-year-old kid who had moved from NYC to the suburbs and spent summers in Ocean Beach with my grandparents and my folks and my cool aunts and uncles. I didn’t get it – yet.
A few months later, my aunt sent me The River, Bruce’s recently-released double album of all-new material. Unlike Darkness, it had a lighter feel, with a mix of upbeat, ‘60’s-style rockers and darker, but still more personal songs about loss and heartbreak. And there was the catchy first single “Hungry Heart”, which was all over the radio. I found myself listening to the first disc more than the second, as the second had more brooding songs than the first, and “Hungry Heart” was on disc 1. (Clearly, releasing a good single was and remains a great marketing strategy.) But I was still listening to Kiss and Cheap Trick’s Dream Police album and Queen’s latest, The Game, which had “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Another One Bites the Dust” on it, a lot more. Then, my mom let me know that my aunt was going to take me to see Bruce in concert at Madison Square Garden over Thanksgiving weekend. I was interested and remember thinking back to my aunt’s prediction – “you’ll see.”
On November 28, 1980, I saw. I saw Bruce and the band perform like their lives depended on it for 3+ hours, and heard some songs I recognized from having heard them on the radio, not knowing they were Springsteen songs. Yet live, Bruce and the band delivered those same songs with a power and a passion unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was so powerful that I felt the impact within me, experiencing this new thing in real-time as an 11-year old. It was weird. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I went backstage and met the whole band and even met Bruce for a minute. But minus that, I still would have been forever changed.
I went home and absolutely devoured The River – both discs now, all 20 songs. Over and over. I eventually made my way through his whole back catalog. Years later, when I started driving, the Born to Run cassette was the only tape I played in my beat-up Datsun 510 wagon. That’s still my favorite Springsteen record, but The River was the one that locked me in. My aunts have moved on to other music and have a dispassionate eye towards all artists that I assume comes from too many years being too close to them. I’m still pure fan, and Springsteen’s music has gotten me through just about everything in my life since that day – Nov 28, 1980. Thanks, Boss.
