And now for something completely different
The other day, I was talking with some of the Media Cannibals at a bash about song stories for Yuletide, and how I didn't get it. Nobody else did, either, and we were discussing the ins and outs of what you would do for a song to make it into a story. Like, I can get possibly taking an actual song that's a story and doing something with it. But your average pop song, I just don't get it. How do you make a piece of fiction out of it? Sandy mentioned "Jack and Diane" and I was saying that I could potentially see it for something like "Thunder Road," since Bruce Springsteen actually talks about Mary and her past. But is the narrator Bruce himself? Or someone else? And do you make him up, or what?
For some reason lately, "Thunder Road" has been on my mind, anyway. Maybe I should have made it a request for Yuletide. But the version that's been on my mind has been the "acoustic" version that's just him and The Professor, Roy Bittan, the piano player for the E Street Band, performed at the Roxy in 1975. I have never in my life heard such a beautiful slow version of a song before, and have never since. It's probably, I would wager to say, my favorite song in the world. If I had to pick three desert island songs, that would be my first one.
Back in the late '70s and all through the '80s, I was a Springsteen fanatic. I collected all the bootlegs, went to shows all over the Northwest, waited in line for tickets for days, that sort of thing. My friend and I had every book and magazine article ever published about him. This was in the days before personal computers, so you can imagine the letters that had to be written, stores to be combed, and phone calls to be made for that kind of fanatacism. When I first met the Cannibals, a bunch of them were traveling all over the place, following Led Zep on tour, and while I couldn't understand their passion for those guys, I totally understood the passion for a performer(s) that would take you all over the country to hear them play. And the funny thing is, despite the fact that I used to go to just about a concert a week, I've never really liked live music as much as studio discs, for the most part.
And of course, now I look back at that running around and going to clubs and think, wow, the stuff I was able to get away with in high school and early college. Parents today would never let their kids do what we did at that age. I was in high school when I discovered Springsteen, just before Born to Run made him a national figure, and I still vividly remember going to see him at the Paramount, just weeks before he made the cover of Newsweek and Time simultaneously and everyone was talking about him. It was the most amazing show, and I thought, wow, I don't know much about him, but I'm going to find out everything. The tickets were only a dollar-fifty! No one had heard of him yet.
When I first heard the bootleg of the Roxy '75 performance, I wanted to hear everything done that way, but of course, "Thunder Road" was the special song on that bootleg. It's stuck with me for decades -- until recently, I could still pull out my cassette tape and play it, and often I would just ignore the rest of the tape and play only "Thunder Road." Over and over again. The lyrics to that song still amaze me, the storytelling ability Bruce has and the unique way he creates these essential, particular images while embracing all the muscle and power of American rock and roll. It's like the musical equivalent of a performance racing car.
I wanted to see if I could find my tape, but for the hell of it, I Googled Springsteen and Roxy and Thunder Road, and lo and behold, some kind soul has actually put it up on YouTube. Roy Bittan is a piano genius; I took piano most of my life, and I've tried to learn some of his parts, like the gorgeous, haunting piano intro to "Jungleland" and this beautiful backup music, but it is really hard. You have to be a damn good keys master to play his stuff, and I never was.
So, yeah, this one, I could see a story for. I should make myself a Bruce icon.
For some reason lately, "Thunder Road" has been on my mind, anyway. Maybe I should have made it a request for Yuletide. But the version that's been on my mind has been the "acoustic" version that's just him and The Professor, Roy Bittan, the piano player for the E Street Band, performed at the Roxy in 1975. I have never in my life heard such a beautiful slow version of a song before, and have never since. It's probably, I would wager to say, my favorite song in the world. If I had to pick three desert island songs, that would be my first one.
Back in the late '70s and all through the '80s, I was a Springsteen fanatic. I collected all the bootlegs, went to shows all over the Northwest, waited in line for tickets for days, that sort of thing. My friend and I had every book and magazine article ever published about him. This was in the days before personal computers, so you can imagine the letters that had to be written, stores to be combed, and phone calls to be made for that kind of fanatacism. When I first met the Cannibals, a bunch of them were traveling all over the place, following Led Zep on tour, and while I couldn't understand their passion for those guys, I totally understood the passion for a performer(s) that would take you all over the country to hear them play. And the funny thing is, despite the fact that I used to go to just about a concert a week, I've never really liked live music as much as studio discs, for the most part.
And of course, now I look back at that running around and going to clubs and think, wow, the stuff I was able to get away with in high school and early college. Parents today would never let their kids do what we did at that age. I was in high school when I discovered Springsteen, just before Born to Run made him a national figure, and I still vividly remember going to see him at the Paramount, just weeks before he made the cover of Newsweek and Time simultaneously and everyone was talking about him. It was the most amazing show, and I thought, wow, I don't know much about him, but I'm going to find out everything. The tickets were only a dollar-fifty! No one had heard of him yet.
When I first heard the bootleg of the Roxy '75 performance, I wanted to hear everything done that way, but of course, "Thunder Road" was the special song on that bootleg. It's stuck with me for decades -- until recently, I could still pull out my cassette tape and play it, and often I would just ignore the rest of the tape and play only "Thunder Road." Over and over again. The lyrics to that song still amaze me, the storytelling ability Bruce has and the unique way he creates these essential, particular images while embracing all the muscle and power of American rock and roll. It's like the musical equivalent of a performance racing car.
I wanted to see if I could find my tape, but for the hell of it, I Googled Springsteen and Roxy and Thunder Road, and lo and behold, some kind soul has actually put it up on YouTube. Roy Bittan is a piano genius; I took piano most of my life, and I've tried to learn some of his parts, like the gorgeous, haunting piano intro to "Jungleland" and this beautiful backup music, but it is really hard. You have to be a damn good keys master to play his stuff, and I never was.
So, yeah, this one, I could see a story for. I should make myself a Bruce icon.
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