Rising

I couldn’t tell you where it started, this thing with Bruce and I. Perhaps it was the thundercrack, the twelve-gun salute from Mighty Max Weinberg which counts off Born In The USA. Maybe it was the hundreds of listens I gave to my dad’s tape of Nebraska, played on rotation in the flats and houses he lived in while he and my mum lived separate lives. It may even have been a clip of the E Street Band in full flight in 1975, blasting through Rosalita at the Hammersmith Odeon, which seemed to always be playing on the Old Grey Whistle Test. You know, the one with that ridiculous hat.

On reflection, it was probably that clip which did it for me. It can’t be a coincidence that the first Bruce record I bought with my own money wasn’t a recent release—it was his second album, The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle, from which Rosalita came. That manic mix of rock, soul, funk and jazz still makes my heart beat a little faster to this day.

Play The Wild… to people who perhaps only know Bruce from the 1984 rocket ride which put his face on every TV screen. From the woozy tune-up that starts up The E Street Shuffle to the gorgeous swooning outro of New York City Serenade, you’ll have difficulty in persuading them that this is the same man cocking his ass-pocket from the cover of Born In The USA — and to an extent, the same band backing him. It struts, it spins. The lyrics are a mad tumble of clashing metaphors and lurid imagery, crashing down on the listener with the same urgency and energy as an Atlantic storm making landfall on the New Jersey shore.

Should we be surprised that Born In The USA is such a radical departure from what came before? Well, no, because of course, it wasn’t. The major shift came years earlier, once the manic street preacher of The Wild… and Born To Run upped sticks, changed focus onto the rural small towns of his childhood and started writing about men like his father, the wounded, haunted Douglas Springsteen. Thanks to Bruce’s autobiography and to an extent the new biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere, we understand more about Bruce’s difficult relationship with his father. But the first signs of a new direction came after the years of legal turmoil which held Bruce’s career in limbo just when he should have caught fire and taken off. People were starting to forget. The time was ripe for a reinvention,

Darkness On The Edge Of Town and its astonishing, epic followup The River, lost the jazz and soul, the giddy fireworks, the multi-part operatics of songs like Jungleland or the aforementioned New York City Serenade. Instead, a starker, sparer aesthetic took hold, fuelled by the twang and hiccup of early rock and roll and country. This was Growin’ Up, but not the month-long excursions in the stratosphere we used to hear about. The one last chance at redemption Bruce With The Hat preached about would be fought for on the streets of the small towns which were his new setting. And a lot of the time, any victory would not be worth the cost.

I’m slipping away from the point a little — easy enough to do when I start thinking and writing about an artist who has been a major influence on my creative life since my teens. It’s hard to resist the urge to simply float off on a gentle riptide of theories and connect-the-dots explorations. You can lose sight of land before you know it.

But let’s face it. A musician who remains as vital and relevant as Bruce after fifty years of work is one who invites a certain level of enthusiastic examination. He’s still able to piss off the powers that be with a simple onstage speech, and Deliver Me From Nowhere, a film about a tiny portion of his career, has excited more online wind and gas from the commentariat than most of 2025’s cinematic output combined. It’s pretty clear to see he still matters. 

I think his continued relevance is due to a couple of factors. The first is that he’s never stopped touring. Live is where Bruce is at his best. His shows often go for four hours, filled to bursting with hits, deep cuts and covers, delivered in a heady, sweat-drenched rush which barely stops to take a breath. He has almost as many live as studio albums. As documents of unrepeatable moments, they are invaluable, and I think, a really good way to get into the mythos and storytelling. 

Because Bruce is a storyteller. Nebraska, the album and the song, work so well because he presents a simple-seeming tale with real weight and resonance, the instrumentation stripped away to virtually nothing. It’s all about the story. I mean, check out the first two stanzas:

‘I saw her standing on her front lawn

Just a-twirlin’ her baton

Me and her went for a ride, sir

And ten innocent people died.

From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska

With a sawn-off four-ten on my lap

Through the badlands of Wyoming

I killed everything in my path.’

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better start to a novel than that. The shift from elegiac teen romance to mass murder in the course of four eight-syllable lines snaps your head back. The control, the delivery, the payoff are masterful. This, from a man struggling with depression, doubting everything from his talent to his very place in the world. Prove it all night? Hell, yeah.

Ultimately, I believe Bruce remains because he embraces that capacity for change. Everyone has their favourite version of the character we see on stage or listen to on the records. The funky wild man. The chronicler of small town despair. The folk troubadour. The global denim-clad rock star. The recent release of the latest in his Tracks trawl through the depths of the Springsteen archive (one that entirely coincidentally I’m sure unearthed the hitherto lost Electric Nebraska sessions just in time for the release of Deliver Me From Nowhere) revealed a restless experimental streak as he explored new guises — mariachi band leader, Jimmy Webb-style balladeer, even synth-pop maven. I’m not convinced a Roland 606 will ever work as a replacement for Mighty Max Weinberg, but it’s interesting to hear Bruce writing songs in that context. The Suicide influences coming out, I guess.

My love for the man and his music is infectious. C is now a huge fan too, accompanying me to the live shows, happily joining in when I decide Today Is A Bruce Day and dust off the vinyl. What’’s the first song I always play on Christmas Day? His version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, of course! I took that tradition from my dad, now safely back in the family fold after his years of rambling. I like to think that even if we’re seperated, playing the same song at nearly the same time helps to keep us connected.

In the end, that sense of connection is vital. Bruce, through his songs, through his performances, understands how to talk to people, and how bringing them together in one place can forge a community of kindred souls. It’s about more than the music. It’s a vision, an image of the road unspooling, a future as yet unwritten, of escape, of coming home. Of faith. Of trust. Of love. I will never let that go.

To paraphrase Jeremy Strong as Bruce’s manager Jon Landau in Deliver Me From Nowhere — in this house, we believe in Bruce Springsteen.

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Two items of housekeeping before I go. Pal Jillian has new a story available on the Tales To Terrify podcast. Check it out at around the 16 minute mark.

And while we’re on the audio tip, the latest WROB show, a Halloween special we call Monster Hits, is now up on the site for your delight and edification. three hours of spooky tunes, chat and groans of despair from our decomposing legacy tech. Hit up the sidebar or the link below. Please to enjoy.

WROB Monster Hits

See you next Saturday, true believers.