Radio, Someone Still Loves You

Springsteen is over.

(......I'll pause to accomodate your gasps and shrieks of protest....)

(ahem...) Saying again, Springsteen is over. Yes, he'll continue to be very popular and prominent nationally, he'll continue to sell lots of records to his fan base, and hell continue to pack arenas and concert halls for his live appearnaces. However, as these statements can also be applied to the comedy stylings of Gallager they alone are not evidence of worth.

As a vital, creative artist, making contributions to the conversation of the mass culture, Springsteen is done. As a continuing benchmark for people to measure the significance of their own lives, he's through. And as a conduit for which people can make new memories, it's all over, and it has been for decades.

I attended the concert on Tuesday night at the Excel arena, and while it was a good show (and by that I mean I didn't have to wait in line for beer or at the men's room) the event and "happening" itself was seriously flawed. A few observations will serve to prove (and expose) my vague reasoning.

1) Any artist that compels forty year old men, with graying hair, owlish eye glasses, and soft underbellies, to dance about clumsily, with wild abandon, is doing a disservice to our culture. Physical signs of age, especially on men, should generally be considered a badge of honor. They mean that you have faced the challenges life inevitably puts in front of you and that you have endured. So you should get respect. But, when witnessing these individuals jumping around like Scotsmen at a pay toilet and shouting "woo hoo" like wild Mdewankaton Sioux on dividend disbursement day, all gravitas earned by 45 years of living immediately and irrevocably disappears. Those that witness this display lose respect for them and I would surmise these individuals lose a certain level of respect for themselves.

I'm sure most of these men are reasonable citizens, they hold responsible jobs and are raising children with the requisite amount of self esteem. Yet, out of context from the rest of their lives and historic stations in life, they choose to behave, in public, like inebriated adoloscents when listening to songs from decades ago. Needless to say, there was no celebrating during the dirge-like selections from "The Rising"--except perhaps when Patty Scalfia stopped bellowing during her throaty and coarse, Linda McCartney-like vocal solos. Most people seemed bored during all of these new songs and reacted as if they were a temporary (and over-long) respite between the nostalgia they came to hear. Which brings up another point.

2) For all practical purposes, Springsteen is nothing more than a nostalgia act. Yet the fawning media and his fans regard this music (and themselves) as something much higher and more significant. From my observations, people are really only there to wake up the echoes of songs they heard in high school or community college and to dredge up the memories of booting in the Met Center parking lot back in '87. There were explosions of acclimation whenever a classic hit cranked up. Yet the mood was sleepy and suffocating during the new songs (and no, that's not because people were acting intentionally solemn based on the substance of the songs themselves, they were intentionally zoned out and biding their time for the next opportunity to move spasmodically with their arms and legs akimbo). And there's absolutely nothing wrong with this. But, this limited appeal, as defined by his own fans, makes Springsteen no different than say Jimmy Buffet or Steve Miller. And not that much different from Creedence Clearwater Revisited and Joey Mullond's Badfinger. Yet these acts are treated with indifference and outright disdain by rock journalists and by the Springsteen fans, who no doubt fancy themselves much more hip and cutting edge than that.

3) Finally, very few of the fans seem to appreciate the anti-establishment and anti-American subtext of the entire Springsteen catalog. Since most of those in attendance are the establishment, it furthers leads to a disconnect between what the scruffy millionaire on stage is saying and how the soccer dads and office gals with attitude in the audience are reacting. The clearest example of this was Bruce's prelude to "Born in the USA"--which was the final song of the night. As anyone who's paying attention realizes, the song is nothing more than a muddled rant and a laundry list of complaints about being poorly educated and low skilled and the lifestyle that leads to in an advanced, information based economy. Oh yes, it also has a big, empowering chorus that's intended as an ironic condemnation of the land of the free. But, as is usually the case, irony is lost on the masses, and most people reasonably accept the chorus for what the words actually say, out of context from the rest of the song. (This misperception may have been exacerbated by the Reagan Administration's brilliant co-opting of the song during the 1984 presidential campaign, but I suspect that didn't have much of a lasting affect.).

So before the fist few keyboard notes were hi, to kick off said song, Bruce engaged in a little anti-war rhetoric. Nothing specific or substantive of course. Rather, he merely resorted to the general and vauge "questionning" of our government's motives, that is so much in vogue among elected politicians of the Democratic party. Just like them, I guess Bruce wants to be re-elected too (that is sell more records and tickets) so he won't come out and give us any counter argument to the one proposed by the President. Bruce warned us not to go rushing into anything because "all war is real, real bad" (or something to that affect, with a similar working class affected intonation on his part). This drew shrieks of agreement and applause from about half the crowd (the other half was checking their watches, no doubt wondering if they'd get home in time before the babysitter's rate kicked into overtime).

But then an odd thing happened. The song started and those very people applauding Bruce's rhetoric and principled non-stance started waving American flags and singing along with the chorus with pride and determination. It's almost as if they weren't paying attention to anything at all, besides the monologues going on in their own heads.