Bruce Springsteen
American singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
I think he's a great guitarist, a great musician and an excellent keyboard player — which most people don't know. But he knows what sets him apart from everybody is that he's a brilliant writer. Part of that is having a vision to put it across onstage as a performer, too.
Music was my way of keeping people from looking through and around me. I wanted the heavies to know I was around.
Last Thursday, at the Harvard Square theatre, I saw my rock'n'roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.
Well everybody's got a secret, son, something that they just can't face.
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it, they carry it with them every step that they take
Till some day they just cut it loose, cut it loose or let it drag 'em down
Where no one asks any questions or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town.
I got a wife and kids in Baltimore, jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back.
Like a river that don't know where it's flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.
It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.
Fear's a powerful thing
It'll turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust.
She went away, she cut me like a knife
Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life
In just a glance, down here on magic street
Loves a fool's dance
And I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet.
We're a long, long way from home, Bobbie;
Home's a long, long way from us.
I feel a dirty wind blowing;
Devils and dust.
In the third grade a nun stuffed me in a garbage can under her desk because she said that’s where I belonged.
In all my years in this business he is the only person I've met who cares absolutely nothing about money.
Roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.
Well the night's busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere.
We've got one last chance to make it real, to trade in these wings on some wheels.
Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks.
Whenever I see Bruce Springsteen do anything, he empties the tank. Every time. And the beautiful thing about this man is he empties that tank for his family, he empties that tank for his art, he empties that tank for his audience, and he empties it for his country. And we, on the receiving end of that beautiful gift, are ourselves rejuvenated, if not, redeemed.
Out of the east on an Irish stallion came bounty hunter Dan
His heart quickened and burdened by the need to get his man
He found Pete peacefully fishing by the river, pulled his gun and got the drop
He said, "Pete, you think you've changed, but you have not."
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain't got the faith to stand its ground
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted.
The street's alive as secret debts are paid,
Contacts made, they vanished unseen.
Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades
Hustling for the record machine.
The hungry and the hunted explode into rock'n'roll bands
That face off against each other out in the street, down in Jungleland.
Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull,
And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull.
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
and a freight train running through the middle of my head.
Only you can cool my desire.
Oh, I'm on fire.
At this point, I don’t need my records to be Number One or sell as many as this person or that person. That’s not fundamentally important — I don’t believe that sustains you.
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad.
God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of.