Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters

by Jeff Burger

  ES: You’ve had some criticism about the record—some of it mixed—that it was intense, with no “Rosalita”-type songs on it. You said that doing the new LP is the most fun part of the night for you, more fun than the oldies and “Rosalita,” the fun songs?

  BS: It’s a different kind of fun. It’s more fulfilling. I don’t mean they’re fuller. There’s this stretch where we go from “Darkness” to “Thunder Road,” a stretch of songs that we do basically in the same order every night because there’s this continuity thing that happens. It makes connections and it gives the rest of the show resonance. So then we can blow it out on “Rosalita.” Or we got this new song we’re doing, called “Sherry Darling.”

  ES: You’ve always been praised as a performer first. That’s the main thing people say about you—that you’re an incredible performer, which you are. But it seems to me now that you’re talking about you the songwriter. You’re more serious about the songwriting on this album. It seems to me you’re very proud of the songs and of the concept of the album.

  BS: I’m not more serious about it. It’s just different things at different times. Like “Rosalita” … well … they just mirror the particular perspectives I have at that moment. The next album will be different again.

  ES: Was the intensity of this album, as most people are assuming, the result of your being down about the legal hassles?

  BS: I don’t know. I wasn’t really down about it. It was a funny sort of thing—there were only a few days where I got down about the legal thing. This is stuff that matters but it doesn’t matter. It’s like as much as all this stuff is in the world, like all this stuff—all of it—they can take this away, they can take that, they can take the rights to this, or money, or whatever, but the one thing that is really mine, the one thing I value the most, is the ability to create a moment where everything is alive, or it happened. There’s no papers or stuff that can take that kind of stuff from ya. You do it one place or you do it another, whether you do it in a club or a concert. But there were a lot of different sides to it. At the bottom, I always felt that way. That was always real consoling.

  And on the other side, I said I wrote “Born to Run,” and the money from that song, maybe that belongs to somebody else, maybe somebody else is responsible for the money that song made. Maybe that’s true. But that song, that song belongs to me. Because that’s just mine. So that was sorta my attitude about it. I was interested in those things during the lawsuit, but I knew that no matter how many times they sue you or you sue them, or it goes to court or you’re doing a record and you get held up doing that, or they try to attach the box office, or this or that … no matter how much of that went down, there was always the reason that I felt I could do something that can’t get touched by that stuff in a certain kind of way.

  ES: So you’re glad it’s all over.

  BS: Yeah, it’s all by the boards, it’s finished, it’s done, and it worked out for the best, in my mind. The whole thing with Mike, who was my old manager, like everybody painted him as the monster, this is the “good guy” and this is the “bad guy,” it was like a big misunderstanding. He worked real hard for me for a long time—he did, he really believed in what me and the guys, what everybody was doing. So he got painted as being a little too much of a monster, I think sometimes, which he never was to me. I had a lot of great times with him. You get to a point with two grown men where they disagree or there’s a misunderstanding that can’t be resolved. And you have those things. It’s like growing up.

  ES: You used to say you were writing about characters, not really you, not even people you knew, but people you thought existed or you made up. And now there’s a little more personal you, a song for your father, more of the personal part of you, rather than fictional characters. Is that right?

  BS: A little bit. You’re always writing about you. You’re talking to yourself—that’s essentially what you’re doing when you write—and to other people at the same time. There’s a little more of it—I don’t know what you call it, the first person or second person—and a little more directness. On this album I didn’t write about the city as much because I grew up, basically, in a smaller town. I guess in a way this album was a little more real for me than some of the other ones.

  ES: Would you call it your favorite album?

  BS: I don’t know. I have favorite songs and stuff.

  ES: How about “Because the Night”? Tell us a little bit about how it happened that Patti Smith did it.

  BS: We were in the same studio and Jimmy—Jimmy Iovine—was producing her and he was engineering for us. And we were in a couple of nights at the same time and we had a different engineer or something. I had a tape of one song that I gave to her and he gave her the “Because the Night” tape. A long time ago he asked me if I was going to put it on the album and all. And she said she liked it. I said I don’t have all the words done or anything and she said, “Oh,” and she wrote the words. And that’s pretty much how it went down.

  ES: Were you happy with it?

  BS: Yeah, yeah.

  ES: You’re doing it now and it’s unbelievable.

  BS: We didn’t do it for a while and we just started doing it.

  ES: And of course you’re not doing “Fire” anymore, which is the Robert Gordon thing.

  BS: We did that at first.

  ES: That reminds me: Another major change over the last couple of years is that you’re playing guitar so much now it’s incredible. You had sort of gotten away from that. I remember the old days at the Main Point when you used to play a lot of guitar. That was before you got Steve in the band, I guess.

  BS: I used to play a lot. There was a period when the main thing that was important to me was the arrangement and the song; for a long time that was what mattered to me the most. For a long time I don’t think I played any guitar, I mean lead guitar. And this tour there was just a couple of songs where I said, “Oh, I can take some solos here and there.” And the guitar fit a little better into the tone of Darkness than the saxophone did this time. So there was a little more on the album, and in the show there was a little more than in the album.

  ES: That goes back to the old days, when you used to play a lot more lead guitar with your other bands, didn’t you?

  BS: I used to be just a guitar player. I was never a singer.

  ES: What possessed you to say, “I’m not just going to be a guitar player, I’m going to write and I’m going to perform and do something else”?

  BS: There were so many guitar players. There were a lot. I felt there were the Jeff Becks and the Eric Claptons, there were guys with personal styles, Jim Hendrix. Guys who were great. I guess on the guitar I never felt I had enough personal style to pursue being just a guitarist. And when I started to write songs I seemed to have something; it was just something where I was communicating a little better. It wasn’t a real choice; it just sort of fell that way.

  ES: At one time you wrote your first song?

  BS: Well, I did that since I started playing the guitar.

  ES: What was the first one? Do you remember?

  BS: I don’t remember. It was some old song.

  ES: You’ve been listening to a lot of Buddy Holly lately?

  BS: I did when I was in California more. I go through lots of people. What I’ve been listening to now, which is funny, is a lot of Hank Williams.

  ES: I notice that there’s a little hint of country on the record, like on “Factory.”

  BS: But that was before I started listening to him. He was fantastic. God, he’s just incredible. It’s hard to describe.

  ES: You’ve always liked Sam and Dave and Chuck Berry, and I guess Elvis. Those were some of your influences.

  BS: The rockabilly guys. I listened to a lot of rockabilly this tour. We opened with “Summertime Blues” tonight. I listen to a lot of other stuff.

  ES: Is there a performer that you’ve seen live that does to you what people tell you you do to them? That magic experience live. I’ve
always felt sorry that you couldn’t see yourself live sometimes, because you’d love “you.” You do something to people and I’m not sure if you know what that is, and I don’t know if you’ve seen that in another performer.

  BS: I haven’t seen that many shows.

  ES: Well, we know it wasn’t Led Zeppelin. We know at least that much.

  BS: I’ve seen a lot of good bands. I’m trying to think who I’ve seen live.

  ES: Elvis didn’t impress you? That was sort of the end for him? What did you think of the show?

  BS: That wasn’t a good night. I saw him at Madison Square Garden and he was really great. I saw him the first time he went to New York, and he was really good—he was great. And then on the ’68 special, he was just the greatest. It’s a shame—he was so good on that 1968 TV special. He was only about thirty-two at the time, and man, he was good.

  ES: It was also a very honest show.

  BS: I just loved that show.

  ES: You ever thinking about doing TV or movies now?

  BS: No, I haven’t thought about that much. We were gonna do a TV commercial because there’s places, like down South and in the Midwest, where we’re not very well known. It’s getting better, though. This time we’re not super well known, but … We were gonna do us playing or something for thirty seconds. That’s about as close to TV as I guess I’m gonna get. And another thing is because of the lawsuit I’m a little behind. I got records I gotta make. I got a lot of songs I want to get out, and big allegiance to music. That’s what I do—that’s my job. The other stuff—if it was something that was really good and I had the time. But I’ve always got a lot of stuff to do and I have a lot of catching up to do.

  ES: Well, do you have a final word to all the people who remember you from the moldy oldie days?

  BS: I just want to say the crowd was fantastic tonight—it was great. I was thinking that because this was summertime and all, it was going to be a letdown. And tomorrow night, if those girls would not jump up and kiss me when I’m singing. It sounds funny and all, but it’s sorta true because you can’t sing when somebody jumps up and kisses ya and does all that stuff. So if you can sorta just stay down, off the stage, it would be appreciated. I don’t like to have security in front of there and stuff, so I just depend on the fans to be OK. So less kissing would be appreciated.

  ES: We’re going to set you up in a little booth in the lobby, and you’re gonna kiss all the girls, OK?

  BS: I don’t know about that.

  ES: Does it freak you out when they get up and do that?

  BS: It’s funny, you know. It’s fun. But what happens is, when a whole mess do it, you can’t play. You gotta stop singing. And these security guys, I guess they think this fifteen-year-old girl is gonna knock me out or something.

  ES: Does it happen everywhere, or just in Philadelphia?

  BS: No, it was much more tonight than ever before. There was never that many.

  ES: Do you remember that guy who called me up on the air?

  BS: Oh, that was funny.

  ES: Remember, he was the guy who called me up and said he screamed “Bruce” during a quiet part of a song. And I asked him why he did that and he said, “During the quiet part is the only time when I can establish one-to-one communication with Bruce.”

  BS: He had a good reason. He had a good answer.

  ES: And that’s what running onstage is about, isn’t it? That’s one-to-one.

  BS: That’s about as one-to-one as you’re gonna get. But it does make it hard to play and stuff, and I’m always worried. It makes it difficult. And I don’t like people getting hustled off and stuff.

  ES: Do you have any fond memories of the old days at the Main Point? Was that typical for you, too? You’ve played lots of small clubs around the country, but to me that was special because I saw that and I didn’t see those other places.

  BS: We played a lot of great nights there. I’ll always remember Travis Shook [a jazz quartet].

  ES: Yeah, you opened for them in 1973.

  BS: They were nice people.

  ES: I remember you also opened in 1973 for Chicago, and that was a bad experience.

  BS: That was one of the worst shows we ever did.

  ES: And then you said you’d never play the big places, but now you’re doing it and you’re doing it well.

  BS: What happened on the Chicago tour was that at the time we were not known, and it was difficult to come out and go on. We went on at eight thirty and we’d be off by nine every night. The guys in Chicago were great—they were some of the nicest people that I ever met. I had fun on the tour like that, but it sort of put me off bigger places. And this [the Spectrum] was the first big place that we played after that because there were so many people who wanted to come. And after that it just felt so good. It’s been good experiences.

  ES: We thank you, Bruce, and we’ll see you again Saturday night at the Spectrum.

  BS: I’ll be there, Eddie.

  ES: I hope so. And the Shockmobile did make it tonight. Got ninety-four thousand miles on it.

  BS: It did? What was that, a Rambler? A Rambler. The Shockmobile. Well, good luck with that thing, Eddie.

  LAWDAMERCY, SPRINGSTEEN SAVES!

  Testimony from the Howling Dog Choir (or Tramps Like Us, Baby, We’re Born Again)

  ROBERT DUNCAN | October 1978, Creem (US)

  About a month before Springsteen spoke with Sciaky, his tour took him to Texas. He performed on July 15 in Houston, which is where journalist Robert Duncan jumped aboard the Brucemobile. The writer stayed with the group for its next two dates, in New Orleans on July 16 and in Jackson, Mississippi, on July 18. He filed this report, which Creem published in October. —Ed.

  “I walk with angels that have no place.”

  —BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, “STREETS OF FIRE”

  The middle-aged white man who runs the biggest oldies shop in the very old city of New Orleans is ranting hysterically, on the edge of tears. He has recently seen the movie American Hot Wax and senses that history has passed him by one last time.

  “That’s right. I was a disc jockey in Canton, Ohio, when Alan Freed was a DJ in Akron. I was playing nigger records, and you know what Alan Freed was playing? He was playing country and western! Country and western music! Then he starts playing nigger records and they fire him after a day. One day!

  “Well, I’m sitting in this coffee shop with him afterwards, and he’s stirring his coffee real slow and looking over my shoulder out the window. I says to him, ‘Alan, just look at what you’re doing.’ And he says, ‘What?’ And I say, ‘Alan, you’re stirring your goddamn coffee with a spoon! And there’s the cream and sugar sitting right over there and you haven’t put a one of them in!’

  “Then I tell him that I’m just going to have to write his next contract for him and that he’s not going to get fired no more! A no-fire contract! I told him that you got to ask for what you want ’cause if you don’t, they figure you ain’t worth nothin’ anyway! And I did it! I did the contract! I did his contract! Listen to me! I created Alan Freed! Did you read that in the history? Did you see that in the goddamn movie? I said, Did you see that in that goddamn movie?”

  And he falls into a little red-faced jig behind his cash register with one arm stretching forward to detain us further and the other stretching beseechingly towards the sky. All we’d asked was how much for a Huey Smith record.

  Several hundred miles up the road from New Orleans, in an empty, hermetically modern conference room that is acutely air conditioned against the buttery summer air, Bruce Springsteen, who’s never met the white man in New Orleans, tells me what he has been thinking about.

  “It’s a real simple story. You grow up, and they bury you. They keep throwing dirt on you, throwing dirt on and dirt on, and some guys they bury so deep they never get out. Six foot, twelve foot down. Other guys, something comes along and they’re able to get some of it away. They get a hand free or they get free one way or another.

  �
��I don’t think you ever really blow it all off, but the idea is to keep charging. It’s like anything. Everybody can’t make it. You can see the guys on the street who aren’t going to make it, and that’s a frightening thing.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. That some people get dug in so deep that there’s a point where it stops getting shoveled on them and they roll over and start digging down. They literally roll over and start digging down themselves. Because they don’t know which way is up. You get down so deep that you don’t know which way’s up. You don’t know if you’re digging sideways, up, down, you don’t know … until something comes along, if you’re lucky, and shakes you till all of a sudden you have a certain sense of direction and at least know where you’re going.

  “A lot of people don’t ever get that. You go into the bars and you see the guys wandering around in there who got the crazy eyes. They just hate. They’re just looking for an immediate expenditure of all this buildup. They’re just screaming to throw it all off. But you can’t and it turns into, like, death throes. A guy walks into a bar, a little guy, and he walks up to another guy, a dome, and the little guy’s looking to get creamed. Looking to get massacred. He wants to. ‘Look,’ he’s saying, ‘I’m dying here and I don’t know what the fuck to do.’ It’s a scary thing when you see the guys that ain’t gonna get out, just ain’t gonna get out.

  “But I guess it comes down to … You just see too many faces, you just see too many … It’s a funny kind of thing. It’s the kind of thing where you can’t save everybody, but you gotta try.”

  I remember the guy in New Orleans and how his herky-jerky movements and his near-weeping are less like death throes than like the throes of post-death, the confused, bizarre, parodistic behavior of a dead body responding to the last garbled signals of the brain. It seems a remarkable burden for Bruce Springsteen to have to “try” with this guy. But Bruce is radiant in the sense of his mission these days, reminding me of no one so much as Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield, whose similar passion steered him straight to the nuthouse.