Hitcher

But he isn’t, that is a proud cockerel on his chest!

Thank you very much, I am touched by such a great compliment. When I first thought of this idea the other day, I thought that each of the albums as friends but soon realised they were all facets of the same friend. From my standpoint Bruce has as a more intertwined relationship with his audience than any other performer I know. I know of no other artist that goes out there and gives everything every time. Those who call him friend can count themselves fortune indeed.

I have a friend. His name is Bruce Music. Let me tell you about my friendship. I met Bruce Music many years ago now. I was about 17 he was a few years older. You know how it is when you meet someone and you just hit it off. He was a bit of a flake when I met him. He talked at 15 to the dozen and lived life as if he was never going to have enough time to do all the things he wanted to do. This guy was fun. He had an amazing cast of friends, Crazy Janey, Wild Billy, Mary, Sandy. The great thing was that if they were Bruce’s friend they were my friend. For a few years there life was a bit full on, we spent nights down at Greasy Lake or listen to the Jazz man on the streets of NYC. We lived in the night we ran with the Magic Rat and we thought that the world was ours to consume, all we had to do was make that meeting across the river. But life is not like that is it? It moves on. Nights down on the circuit start to pale and life starts to muscle its way in. The long long summer at the beach gives way to the autumn and the winter, and when summer rolls around again, the faces have changed. It was not just me that changed. Bruce changed but he never turned his back on his friends. The fire didn’t go it just burned with a different intensity. When you have together faced down the twister and seen the dark cloud rising from the desert floor you cannot go back to bring the person you were. You grow up, you grow apart, you come together. At times you discover things about each other you didn’t know were there before. In Bruce’s case, both he and I discovered he had a darker side. He started to see the world in a way that he hadn’t before and when he shared it with me it knocked me sideways. One of the greatest gifts one person can give another is the insight that illuminates the dark path we travel. He was not always easy to live with but I never doubted his friendship. In my mind, the test of any friendship is that when you go away for a while and have no contact, you meet again as if not a day has passed. He had his challenges I had mine but this friend never left me. He was always there for me if I needed him. We relived the glory days and we explored our experiences in the tunnel of love. We both know we cannot change the world but we have both suffered it’s hurts. How could I really have a friend who felt no pain of those who suffer. Where are we now? I can only say me and Bruce are better friends than we ever were. We both carry the bumps and scars of decades of life. Bruce has probably been the most generous friend I have ever had, when I felt like cutting loose he was there, when I needed someone to help me work out the vagaries of life and love, he was there. Most importantly however dark life became he never gave up hope or stopped offering the certainty that there is hope of sunshine ahead. Now we have grown older we don’t go down to Greasy Lake so often but we do sit outside the Moonlight Motel and swap tales about a life well traveled. He knows many of the places I know, he has been many of the places I have been. We have been there together. When I look back on our friendship it is really a life long conversation, one that will endure until one of us is no longer there. Of course I have other friends, Joni is a beautiful soul, an artist who lives in a box of paints. Bobby, who I love but will never understand, Leonard who has me believing that some souls are older than others. All of whom I and lucky to have known. But none hold a place in my heart that Bruce does. Steadfast, honest, deep as an ocean but as friendly as it is possible to be. Thank you old friend I look forward to watching the sun go down together and as we do we raise a glass to the comrades we have lost. Maybe you too have been fortunate to have a friend like this. I hope so.

No, can you recommend any?

Oh yeah. Sort of have to be glad for it though considering the astonishing wonderful writer he is. That said the album I was listening to was called Murder Ballads so I should not be too shocked! Interesting writer, perhaps I should spread my nets a little wider!

I thought of this thread last night as I was listening to some Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, now there is a man that has a dark side.

She is old enough to be at the Union Dance!

My intention in starting the thread was certainly not in any way to 'bash' Bruce. Whether you say he is 'flawed' or deeply flawed does not really matter. I think he has been quite open in saying that he has had demons to deal with and has gone through a good deal of therapy to overcome them. As I said in a previous post, it is us that are the beneficiaries of this, had his childhood been spent running in the meadows in constant sunlight and going home to a family straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting I doubt we would have many of the brilliant songs we all so enjoy.

Perhaps that is what draws many of us to him, in that he articulates some of our own flaws and weaknesses? As I said in another thread, he does not tell you how to think or act, his songs are not polemics (even those that are politically motivated) he is holding up a looking glass that reflects him, certainly, but perhaps also we see our own reflections in that glass.

Just read in another thread that Bruce is a deeply flawed individual. I have no doubt at all that is true. However is it not those flaws we need be thankful for? I am sure that there are very happy, less flawed people walking around, but few of them create great art! In the sphere of modern music if I look to those that have touched me the deepest , Dylan, Cohen, Mitchell, Morrison, from what I know all of them had demons that they have struggled with. Rarely does great art, in my view come from the cosy and the comfortable, it comes from the struggle of the artist as they try to make sense of their world and present their version of that sense to us. Indeed it could be argued that those who are not doing that are not 'artists' but just entertainers (nothing wrong with that). So yes Springsteen is deeply flawed and we have that to thank for his music, but in addition he deserves a good deal of recognition for the fact that he has worked hard to channel that energy into his art and has never let his dark side overwhelm the more positive aspects of his humanity. Interesting comment. just thought it deserved picking up on. Any thoughts?

Don't know who Dan is but sounds like a good cause, I would buy one and so would my son!