In 1982, I became a daddy with the birth of my son Steve. And a new phase of musical life began.
I might quibble over my parents’ initial censorship of music in the home, but that issue self-corrected over the years with no real grief – and the truth is, as parents determined to bring music into the lives of their children, they were stellar. My life, and that of my younger siblings, surged with music – and we owed it to mom and dad.
I felt a similar duty. So I made it a point to play the radio or the cassette deck when my little son and I were toodling around in the Chevette.
I remember him being 2 or 3 when I had WQMF, Louisville’s best rock station, on the radio – and Bruce Springsteen came on.
“Born in the USA”.
Now, I had no excuse for not being deeply into Bruce Springsteen. While he hadn’t been all that when I was in high school, I did work at the school paper during my years at the University of Kentucky, and his album The River – along with his subsequent tour appearance in Lexington – had been a big, big deal. I should have jumped on board then.
But now I had a little headbanger in the back seat, setting me straight.
Steve was talking by then, and as the Boss plowed through repetition after repetition of the title phrase, he was back there trying to sing along. It was a first.
So I bought the cassette that weekend, and began to play it whenever it was just the two of us in the car. And he sang along endlessly, never tiring of it.
But me – well, I couldn’t stop playing the album. There’s that title track, sure, but there’s also “Glory Days” and “Dancing in the Dark” and “My Hometown” and “Darlington County” and “I’m on Fire” - great, great tracks, many of which made it onto the radio. This was a fantastic album, and I finally realized what I’d been missing. Springsteen wasn’t just a working-class showboat; he was a splendid songwriter of uncompromising honesty, with a strong sense of Americana and a knack for unobtrusive hooks.
I went on to play “Glory Days” and “Dancing in the Dark” about 500 times each in various bands, later in the decade, and got thoroughly sick of both; but from that point on, my radar was out for the Boss.
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