At least, I think you can see my arms and the back of Jim's head.

On this leg of the tour, some cities got Born to Run from start-to-finish. A few got Darkness. A few got Born in the USA. But news has come in the last hour that Madison Square Garden is going to the full Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle on the first night and the full River on the second. My brother and I have tickets for the second night, this coming Sunday.  Double-sided, packed with live rarities, at 21 tracks going to be 3/4 of the show, with one song performed for the first time in nearly 30 years in recent weeks (the amazing Price You Pay, in Philly, which along with the lack of an MSG full album announcement sparked hopes he was prepping for it), and another song still left unplayed in that timespan, with the band or solo, Crush on You. Unbelievable.

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Updated Wednesday: In the comments, friend Matt reminds me Crush on You got an airing last year in Richmond. This makes sense as the Richmond show I attended on the D&D tour is one of the few from this decade not to have surfaced/circulated. *Shakes fist at Richmond, my Springsteen arch-nemesis.*

Agnes, Nov. 18, 2001.

"You know what? I don't really like boys much… but if I did like a boy, he would have to like Lifesavers… and he would always let me have the red ones!"

"If I ever like a boy, he will have to know every nuance of the lugubrious yet hauntingly melodic moan at the end of Bruce Springsteen's song 'Jungleland' … and we will howl it together a cappella beneath a full moon of icy blue."

"You might be alone for a long, long time, Agnes."

"I'll wait."

What was amazing as Springsteen and E Street played the Born to Run album in whole tonight was how the highlights weren't the highlights. Thunder Road and Born to Run were solid, but the Backstreets interlude and, best, the close of Jungleland did it for me. I'd seen Jungleland live before but never up close and never that close to perfect. That long, long sax and final wail made me realize how much a great ending was necessary for a great album — more than last notes, a conclusion.

Two other highlights tonight: Friend Jim and I got into the pit, 20 feet from the stage, and it was as wild as always to see the show in high-relief. In Hungry Heart, Bruce ran behind us and crowd-surfed over us. I touched a leg and a boot, and Jim got this photo at the other end:

Third and last highlight before bed was Higher and Higher. Great song, fantastic closing song, brought life into a traditional encore set. I was humming it all the way home and will be humming it tomorrow (today).

Heading to my 15th show tonight…

A few people have e-mailed to ask about what I presented, and I owe the doc to a few others from the symposium whose business cards are languishing on my (now much cleaner) kitchen counter. I thought for a long time this summer about writing a paper, real academic-like, but I succumbed to Powerpoint. "A bear in his natural habit, a Studebaker…"

Anyway, got some time to write down what I may or may not have said aloud. Here's the doc (scanned and virus-free). Notes in brief:

(more…)

Sunday, Lauren Onkey, education VP at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "Bruce Springsteen in the 21st Century." Onkey examined his changing views on involvement, openness and — indicative of both — concert signs. Her critical question: "If he started this period trying to keep nostalgia at bay, is it now deep in it?" Reunion tour in '99 saw limited use of cover songs and early material, but they began emerging over the decade as more creative Springsteen projects got underway.

He then packaged engagement with history with new work (making the reunion tour actually the least interesting connection to the past, in Onkey's opinion). On the current tour, for the first time on a Bruce tour, new material isn't driving the set. Meanwhile, older songs are getting regular play, including covers fans are requesting with signs. Why choose the oldies from the signs, an audience member asked. I love oldies but have my questions here too. Easier to play? Nostalgia? Or a band victory lap? If a victory lap, Onkey called it "an interesting choice" to play songs, even old ones, they've never played before.

Highlights from her on the rock hall exhibit: Bruce still had the red hat from the Born in the USA cover photo. Also, when they exhibit opened, the curators had the BitUSA jeans facing forward. Visitors complained. The curators turned the jeans around. An unexpected underscoring: Springsteen sent along his motorcycle, hat and photo from an 1989 long ride with friends through the Southwest. (Likely the inspiration for Goin' Cali later released on the Tracks box set and now seemingly a break point in between the E Street break-up and the replacement band formation.) Onkey flashed some great loaned childhood photos but flipped through them quickly and asked the crowd not to take pix. After Springsteen loaned his writing notebooks, he then decided to send his writing table, chair and some utility bills from the table.

Onkey also mentions a passage from the rock hall's interview with Springsteen on the exhibit, with him answering about songwriting:

It's very relaxed. It depends — you just get an idea and sit down with a guitar, and it's a meditative state. Songwriting is fundamentally a meditation. It's the exercise of your craft, your intelligence. But it's primarily meditative, in that it works best when you go into a light trance-like situation. Where you just start to sort of… you're scraping the top of your subconscious, like with a knife, and the shavings, sometimes they turn into a song. And then occasionally the knife plummets deeply in, and it's not something you — it would be like having a shapeless piece of clay or something in front of you, and you start to run your fingers over it…

Sunday, Jim Musselman, head of Appleseed Recordings. "Springsteen's Trip into the Folk Playground." Starting in the mid-90s, "the strange, bizarre story of theSeeger Sessions involves: Bob Dylan rerecording a Seeger song for a compilation ("when did Bob Dylan ever care about vocals"), passing out during the rerecording, getting spooked by the negative vibes and essentially dropping out of the project, Bruce stepping in with We Shall Overcome, the song getting criticism over adding the word "darling," Tom Brokaw calling to use the song in the NBC Sept. 11 video, then-Song chief Tony Mottola sending heavies to Musselman's house to get the masters, Bruce and Landau backing Musselman against their company, Bruce revisiting the recordings eight years later because his kids liked them, ending the album with Froggie Went A-Courtin' because of the line "if you want any more, you can sing it again," Seeger disliking the album because he disliked all tributes…

… but loving Springsteen's American Land meshing a song Seeger had learned decades earlier from a Slovak immigrant — a sad one about a friend's family finally making it over just after his friend's death in the Pittsburgh mills — with the fun Big Rock Candy Mountain, and later The Wrestler repurposing a Seeger line. Musselman remains curious at the Seeger materials' strong response in Europe compared to the USA.

Symposium's closing session ran too long but had good stories from his "landlordess" during Born to Run time, Marilyn Rocky. My notes:

First Bruce calls, then Max calls, then Danny calls, each with less money to spend. She spells it "Springstein" on the lease. "Great tenant."

Early on, trades Bruce the plane seat next to his girlfriend in return for signed sick bags. Near that time, you can also hear her on a bootleg.

Much later, in the early '90s, she runs into Clarence at the dentist just as she's getting rid of the house. He asks if the piano is still there and tells her the whole band had signed the inside of the lid of the beat-up thing. She rushes to call outgoing tenant. Guy says it's the damnedest thing. Cleaning out the house the other day, they leave the piano and lots of other junk on the curb for pick-up. The next morning, the piano — and only the piano — is gone. "The piano is out there somewhere."

A little out of order, from two weekends ago…

Friday, neurologists talk about the brain and Springsteen. (Full post.)

Friday, Joe Grushecky playing acoustically and discussing songwriting (different from his Saturday night concert)… Setlist: Spanish Blood / I Remember It / Dance with Me / That's All I Want from You / Chain Smokin' / Homestead / Code of Silence / Talking with the King (partial) / Light of Day (partial) / Idiot's Delight (snippet) / … I have no note of a closing song, but that seems weird and maybe I forgot to write it down.

Highlight stories included: how he cut work to record with Springsteen, defying a Pittsburgh school system boss ("If you miss school again to work with Bruce Springsteen, we're gonna fire you"); debating a lyric "we still pray to the red, white and blue in Homestead" vs. "we still pray for" in these sessions; how a career as a special ed teacher working with emotionally disturbed kids has affected his songwriting; and how he and Bruce briefly thought of creating the "Beverly Hills Blues Band" with songs like Too Big Woman and Bad Secretary.

Friday, "Springsteen as Narrative Poet" breakout session. Scholar Steven Rogers delivered a great passage from an essay Steinbeck had penned about Woody Guthrie: "For some reason it has always been lightly thought that singing people are happy people. Nothing could be more untrue. … Working people sing of their hopes of of their troubles, but the rhythms have the beat of work — the long and short bawls of the sea shanties with tempos of capstan or sheets, the lifting rhythms, the swinging rhythms and slow, rolling songs of the Southwest built on the hoofbeats of a walking horse. The work is the song and the song is the people." Other presentations looked at the increasing cosmic references and range of community depictions in Springsteen's work.

Friday, after someone asked who was in a Bruce community online.

Friday, Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez signing CDs, with Tinker West (full post).

Saturday, "Springsteen and War" breakout session, I must admit I sat in by accident after misreading the schedule. But the highlight for me was a deep-dive into John Wayne's complex relationship with war and a discussion of where masculinity fits with war now vs. in the past.

Saturday, Eric Alterman, columnist for The Nation and author of the decent Bruce bio It Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive… I think I'll remember where he spoke more than what he said, as he was a shadow in a room of shadows with a bright light behind him:

But from my notes: He compared himself to a disease — "a carrier of conflict." Tried personally to separate Bruce the artist from Bruce the person. "Just  because Bob Dylan doesn't unload the trucks at the food bank…." Believes his encouragement of Charlie Rose to ask about The Fever and The Promise led to their release on 18 Tracks (and I think he makes a decent case). My favorite line: "Every Dave Marsh book has one bad sentence about Bruce in it." While Alterman had come off as a bit abrasive in an earlier panel, he described that conversation later and was gracious toward it. Springsteen, "discontent with incipient political power," "mainstream conventional normal liberal political positions," "quite conventional liberal Democrat." Cites Streets of Philadelphia as underrated moment in Springsteen's political evolution. Was interested to see what Springsteen would say at Giants Stadium about GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie being a huge fan.

Saturday, between sessions, cool magazine art I'd never seen before from the Friends of Bruce Springsteen Special Collection. Turns out to be a 1976 Playboy story new to me too. "The bell captain is somewhat skeptical. Does the person perhaps have a last name? No, Miami is his first name, Steve is his last name. Any clue to what he looks like? Well, he was last seen wearing a silk race-track shirt with palm trees on it. Ask your gardener if one of his plants is having lunch on the patio."

And yet one of the best ideas for a Springsteen list ever.  "200 songs ranked and defended" comes from Jamsbio, and it's an ingenious idea. Beyond praising the best songs and hating the worst, explain why.

The list takes a few good shots on the higher/worse end. Regarding 1992's All or Nothin' at All, for instance, we get: "Yes, it's that Randy Jackson, the Dawg, judge of talent show/train wreck American Idol. (I have this vague image of Jackson telling Bruce that his vocals are a little "pitchy," and Bruce responding by rocketing a mike stand at him.)" But overall the list's explanations come off as overly didactic (on Gloria's Eyes, "Although it's by no means the best set of Springsteen lyrics, they might have still been effective if they could have escaped the monotone groove and repetitive guitar lick"), unprepared (ragging on the All the Way Home remake without any apparent knowledge of the original song) and insane. Wild Billy at 196? Long Time Comin' at 193? Streets of Fire — I practically take this one personally — at 184?

Dangerously insane. Streets of Fire can't beat The New Timer, The Fuse, 57 Channels, and Man's Job. Night is behind Crush on You, Tomorrow Never Knows, The Angel, and Pony Boy. (Yeah, I'm the rare hardcore that loves Crush on You but come on.) After barely beating Let's Be Friends and Black Cowboys, Saint in the City loses to My Lucky Day, the Human Touch version of Soul Driver (acoustic Christic and we've got a fight), The Big Muddy, and the HT Real World (see Christic again).

Kitty's Back and Youngstown lose to Leah, Dead Man Walkin', Queen of the Supermarket, and Surprise, Surprise. E Street Shuffle and Candy's Room lose to Murder Inc., Seeds, Pink Cadillac, and I'm a Rocker. I love all four of those songs, on record and live. But we live in a society.

And that's just the upper half of the 200. In the bottom half, with the good stuff, the half-assed Mary Lou somehow makes it, at 91, better than any song mentioned previously in those post. Outlaw Pete makes the top 75. Last Carnival cracks top 50. And Thunder Road lands at 18. Thunder Road at 18? In New Jersey, that's a war crime. Extradite now. But before we jail the listmakers… good for them for firing me up.

My favorite panel at the Glory Days Symposium came with connections to one author I've rarely read and one author I've never read. Both of them have always intrigued me, and the panel put them on my reading list (which, unfortunately, runs a long way). Below are notes I took…

On O'Connor, from Irwin Streight:

Character and incident present social truths. "Depth and compression" of characters. Sense of mystery and a sense of manners. Springsteen on Nebraska: "I wanted the music to feel like a waking dream and the record to move like poetry. I wanted the blood on it to feel destined and fateful." Impressed by the minute parts of her work. Follows her more on matters of form than thematic elements. Use of "some fun" and "meanness" moves from O'Connor's work to Springsteen as he read her. The Misfit. From Will Percy's interview with Springsteen:

She got to the heart of some part of meanness that she never spelled out, because if she spelled it out you wouldn't be getting it. It was always at the core of every one of her stories — the way that she'd left that hole there, that hole that's inside of everybody. There was some dark thing — a component of spirituality — that I sensed in her stories, and that set me off exploring characters of my own. She knew original sin — knew how to give it the flesh of a story. She had talent and she had ideas, and the one served the other.

On Percy, from June Sawyers (edited book I wrote about here):

"As lonely as is the craft of writing, it is the most social of vocations."

The main character of The Moviegoer, about to turn 30, is "a visitor in his own life." Says Sawyers, "Rather than living anywhere, he lives somewhere." What does it mean to question one's own worldview? Sawyers: "Springsteen was boss before he become boss." Common tension between reader and writer, something writers write about a lot, is the same as between listener and musician. In a 1997 profile in The NYT Magazine, Springsteen talks about watching The Searchers:

At the end of the film John Wayne has some realization as he reconstitutes the family that he can't join it. His inability to do that resonated with me. I spent 20 years playing on the road with no real home life or connections except when I played at night. Once I walked off the stage I didn't know how to do it., be part of it. Too much fear. I didn't have confidence that I could be accepted to the real world outside of my work.

A central Springsteen topic is how we live in the world vs. how we ought to live. Ordinariness offers redemptive hope of possibilities.

On Percy and Working on a Dream, from Michael Kobre:

Queen of the Supermarket criticized. What's beneath the gloss? In The Moviegoer, we find overwrought description, an unsettling sense of excess, and small beauties as steps in search of true beauty and the resolution of unexpressed sadness. The language within culture. "The roiling echoes of voices" as defining characteristic of Percy. "Isolates." Springsteen's work depends on how voices bounce off each other.

Percy writes about "the goodness and gravity of created being," with The Moviegoer eventually rejecting the voices and finding himself with faith. Similarly, Springsteen talks in late career about "poetry, mystery and terror" of Catholicism getting in his bones, leading to songs like Kingdom of Days, grasping the bigger world, beyond a supermarket.

(Your WOAD mileage, like mine, may vary.)

The best set I've ever seen come from the Amazon page for E Street saxophonist Clarence "Big Man" Clemons' forthcoming autobiography. Not only does Springsteen write the introduction, but blurbs come from Bill Clinton, Pat Riley, Chris Rock, Artie Lange, and Kinky Friedman.

Writes Rock: "Big Man is one of the greatest books about a big black man ever written. If you want to get really close to a big black man without getting punched in the face, this book's for you!"