Now Bruce Springsteen is a very important part of my story.
He and I go way back.
But if it wasn’t for my father or my sister, I’m not sure what my relationship with Springsteen and his music would be like. If I would have one at all.
The connection to an artist or musician come differently to everyone.
Some people find the beat, others never learn how.
The fact that the first song I ever remember the chords too, was a Springsteen song, should have given me some indication of the musical journey he would soon take me on.
As a young girl, I remember watching my father wash the dishes at night, as I play at my little yellow picnic table in the dining room, and in the background, there would be Bruce.
Tougher than the Rest, Tunnel of Love, Hungry Heart.
All those familiar, fan favorites and national anthems, came alive after dinner as my father cleaned up the kitchen, and I was close by to pay attention to the words that came through the speakers.
I credit my father for allowing me to find the beat at such a young age.
Tapping my feet to the bass, acknowledging when it’s time to dance fast, or when it’s time to take it slow.
As a child, you remember everything you hear, and for me it was the sounds of the E Street Band.
After my father introduced me to Bruce, when maybe he didn’t realize he was doing it, my sister, Bethany, was the one who really took me under her wing and opened up the world of Bruce to me.
Bethany was more like a mentor to me than a sister, and we connected at just the right time in my life. Where everything she was telling and showing me was soaked up in my brain. Absorbed like a sponge.
I was the easel, and she was the paint.
Bethany was the one who would teach me the lyrics to Bruce songs after our runs on summer nights, up on the railroad tracks. Singing the words to me, then having me repeat them to her in chorus.
The Promised Land, Reason to Believe, This Hard Land.
I was only 13 years old, when my Dad took me to my first Springsteen concert.
My first concert ever in fact. What a lucky girl I was.
Bethany and I were playing cards up in the lawn section of the venue, when a man with the band, came up to us with two free, front stage concert tickets.
We thought it was nonsense at first and Bethany laughed, when the man kept persisting, we soon realized how real he was.
He handed us the tickets and we stared at each other for a moment, before jumping up and down in disbelief. Dad came back to find us with his beer and saw the tickets. I will always remember how humble he was in letting us have the tickets. He was the ultimate Bruce fan, and I was a little teenager, who still had so much to learn. But by allowing us to go front stage, changed the musical course of my life.
It only takes one concert to baptize someone into a new way of seeing and feeling. And this was the concert that did that to me.
Beth and I ran down the steps of the auditorium, arriving at the floor section and kept on running. All the way down to the front of the stage. Our hands and fingers soon resting on the floor where Bruce Springsteen would soon prance around and play.
That show, although close to 15 years ago now, is one still so fresh in my mind.
Pay me my Money Down, Shenandoah, O Mary Don’t You Weep.
On “Jacob’s Ladder” when Beth and I were pretending to climb a ladder, Bruce looked over at us and pointed, smiling at us, as he sang “all my brother’s and sister’s…”
He knew we were sisters, and he could realize the spell we were under, cast only by him.
From that concert forward, I was hooked.
Years went by, and my connection to Bruce only grew stronger.
This time I was teaching myself.
With my antique record player, and Dad’s old records, I taught myself Bruce’s early albums.
The Wild, the Innocent, the E Street Shuffle, Greetings from Asbury Park, and Born to Run.
It was in these lyrics, those horns and funky jams, that I came to learn who Bruce used to be and the way in which he evolved as an artist.
I studied his lines and searched for underlying themes.
It was throughout my late high school years to early college, that Bruce and I formed an even tighter bond.
One whereas I moved away from home, Bruce was the only constant that made me feel like I was in the same place. His voice, the sound of the drums, the scratch of his guitar strings.
All those familiar sounds took me right back to that little, yellow picnic table in our dining room, with my father washing the dishes behind the sink.
Now it was at the concert I attended when I was a Freshman in college, that we had floor tickets.
Bethany picked me up, hurrying me out of my dorm room, saying we didn’t have time to waste.
We had to be the first ones at the door, because we were going to try to get to as close to the stage as possible. We wanted to ride the rail.
Once we had our wrist bands and were through the gates, we bee lined it to stage right. As close to the stage as possible, maybe with only one row of people in front of us.
If you know my sister and I, you know that we could easily be picked out of a crowd.
She was a tall, blonde beauty, and I was her twin, only seven years younger.
People remembered us, and I know that Bruce did too.
It was nearing the end of the show, and as Bruce came out onto the platform during the encore, serenading us in a solo, he reached down and forcefully put his guitar pick into my hand. Not any of the others who were waving up at him, but mine, my hand.
I almost didn’t realize what was happening as it was happening.
But when I backed away from the stage and looked in my hand, there was Bruce Springsteen’s guitar pick. My Dad, Beth and I looked at it together and started hysterically cheering, almost crying.
Bruce was known for having a pocket full of guitar picks to hand to enthused fans in his crowd, and I was grateful enough to get just one.
To this day, I still believe Bruce knew who he was giving that pick to. He remembered Beth and I from that first show years ago, and as faithful fans, this was how he repaid us.
Now fast forward to 10 years later. Bruce is touring once again. He is making a stop in Detroit, and of course I have to go.
Now usually, I have at least Beth or my Dad to go with, but this time was a little different.
I had only myself, and that was all I needed.
I dressed in my ratty old blue jeans, white tank, jean vest, and tied my Grandfather’s red bandana around my forehead, imitating Bruce’s album cover from Born in the USA.
I was feeling it, feeling myself, and feeling the magic that was steaming from seeing another Bruce show.
I bought a nose bleed ticket for over my spending limit and made my way downtown for the night.
The lights went down and the music came on, and once again I was immersed in Bruce.
When I heard Bruce’s voice, it was almost like I was hearing my own father talk to me.
Or if my father could sing, this is what his voice would sound like.
The songs Bruce played, would be the exact words and themes my father taught to us growing up.
Odd to say, but I almost came to think of Bruce Springsteen as a father figure.
How one man could give me the same feeling of home and family, astonished me to every regard.
I was overcome with emotion as Bruce sang Backstreets, Wrecking Ball, She’s the One, Born to Run. All songs that I was born and raised on.
As I danced like no one was watching, I didn’t care who was sitting around me or if I was the only one standing, I danced because my body and soul told me too. Because Bruce and the music made me.
Because I had been waiting for Bruce’s music after 10 years and finally it was right before me.
Surrounding me, serenading me.
Taking me on an inward journey of the past 30 years of my life.
What a transformation I had made as a woman, with one thing always remaining the same.
Bruce.
That night there was no pick, no front row (although I did dance my way to as close as I could to the stage), but there was sweat and tears and the thundering roar of a crowd that I had never heard more clearly.
There was heart and there was soul. There was family.
There was my childhood and my future, all in one night, in just a few hours.
What a journey Bruce took me on once again, and how I can only pray there will be more.
How thankful I was to grab my ticket and my suitcase and hop on the train, to the land of hope and dreams.