I just had the thought last time I listened to this song, about how Bruce-Stu in this song is the guy who CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT HIS EXES. (I've met that guy and then like months, years, later, I've heard, "So-and-so had such a crush on you" and I said THEN WHY DID HE KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE GODDAMN GIRL WHO DUMPED HIM? I will never get this behavior. Anyway).
The totally-fucking-serious metaphor about his shirt getting stuck in the tilt-a-whirl makes me laugh every time. I kind of imagine Joey is the ride operator and he's got a mutual crush on Bruce-Stu and Sandy and he doesn't know how to EXPRESS it, so he just mocks Bruce-Stu when his shirt is stuck, and Joey and Sandy both laugh about it. And then Sandy and Bruce-Stu go to make out under the boardwalk and Joey is sad.
The only reason I own a Springsteen album at all, because try as I might I just can't care (except for Thunder Road and that's because my ex made me care) about his songs (not a lyrics person at all, have I mentioned that RECENTLY??) is that I love Brucemas to death.
If his songs sounded, ever, at all, even a little bit, as interesting to me as your analysis of his songs does, I would totally convert.
Heh, after the last two Brucemases I went out and d/l'd a bunch of Bruce, thinking that now, with these explanations, I would like the songs better. But here's the thing, and the compliment I am meaning to pay even if I am doing it backwards --
I did that two years in a row, because the way you write about Bruce is compelling enough that I thought it might work a second time, having failed the first. :)
I have a similar, if opposite, reaction to your Brucemas posts as resolute: I like Springsteen's music a lot, a fact I discovered largely through the influence of you and likeadeuce and others on my flist, but I tend to prefer the songs where I really enjoy the music first and foremost, and the lyrics second. Songs like this have slipped below my radar, because the music feels kind of... discordant? Or just not something I'd regularly listen to for fun. So it takes something like this, like your post and your analysis, for me to go, "Oh! The lyrics!" And then I really love those songs, too. :)
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Danny. :(
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The totally-fucking-serious metaphor about his shirt getting stuck in the tilt-a-whirl makes me laugh every time. I kind of imagine Joey is the ride operator and he's got a mutual crush on Bruce-Stu and Sandy and he doesn't know how to EXPRESS it, so he just mocks Bruce-Stu when his shirt is stuck, and Joey and Sandy both laugh about it. And then Sandy and Bruce-Stu go to make out under the boardwalk and Joey is sad.
Yeah. What she said.
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Poor Joey. Maybe he finds himself a factory girl.
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If his songs sounded, ever, at all, even a little bit, as interesting to me as your analysis of his songs does, I would totally convert.
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I did that two years in a row, because the way you write about Bruce is compelling enough that I thought it might work a second time, having failed the first. :)
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