The Many Faces and Sounds of Springsteenian Eloquence

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The name should immediately conjure up images of our mundane and free-spirited youth, our realized and shattered dreams, our invincibility and vulnerablity.

Springsteen's human depictions of our collision with life's twisted and predictable plots and themes seem all too real and easy in their connectability. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are the apex of an evolution begun with timeless and immortal rock legends of a bygone era. In Springsteen the ghosts and spirits of Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and Bo Diddley find a voice. Springsteen, however, is not just about rock'n roll and guitars though this is his leitmotif. Springsteen is both Wagnerian and Verdi-esque in his operatic stances and chants. He has a soul. Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin and Curtis Mayfield and other conveyors of gospel too have a voice in his music. Like jazz is...Bruce is. He literally and figuratively transcends rock as a form of music. "One, two, three four! The highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive....!"

Yes, we all drop into a tenth avenue freeze-out when listening to the scope and poetic lyricism that is Sprinsteenian elegance and eloquence. Best of all, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band make us head for our imagined cars like Jimmy the Saint on an unclear mission. Just like 'James Dean in that Mercury '49' with our tailored version of Rosalita in our arms and ride into a long empty San Diego highway in the summertime, in a sunrise or sunset it doesn't matter, into nowhere. Nowhere too eventually has a point. A point of origin - a new beginning and an impossible end.

No one loves, races and laments quite like a Bruce Springsteen figure. All were born and made in the U.S.A but they know national boundaries. They are international citizens too. At their core, make no mistake, they are instinctively and distinctively American and bound for glory.

Who can forget being thundercracked for the first time? Love is an elusive yet conquerable reoccuring theme in the timeline of human consciousness known to sometimes crush and redeem a soul. In the end "ain't nobody like to be alone." Who wouldn't want to race in a "hot stepping hemi with a four on the floor"? Metaphorically, "she's a roadrunner engine in a '32 Ford." The Magic Rat too had a purpose. We all 'stood stoned at midnight suspended in my (our) masquerade." The "flag of piracy" flew a little to high for some. We all seek respect in this oft tiresome and challenging world. "Mister, I ain't a boy. No, I'm a man and I believe in a Promised Land." Yes, there is hope. Even though "I've done my best to live the right way" and sometimes nothing good comes of it. We want it all "poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything." Internal and eternal personal satisfaction can be elusive and destructive. Navigating deep into ourselves is a daunting and haunting task.

Yes, there is a 'darkness on the edge of town' on an isolated Nebraska highway in the dead of winter and yes 'growin' up' is tough enough without the Chicken Man lurking about. We all leave or left our homes "with skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra" with no intentions of being saints in the city since, as he put it, it was so hard to be so. But if you care enough, just a tiny bit, there is a call to 'the rising' in all of us. We can go 'racing in the street' to a 'Cadillac ranch' or the 'Seaside Bar' or on the 'backstreets' or down 'Thunder Road' with 'no surrender' to "pull out and win". But smitten, we will always want to 'give the girl a kiss' and this keeps us coming back for more of life. It keeps us honest and just. There is a Sandy, Wendy, Mary, Linda and Bobby Jean for all of us.

There is an eternal plot to Springsteen. "Her brains they rattle and her bones they shake. Whoah she's an angel from the inner lake." "Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat." "Well, maverick daddy got a one-eyed bride she glides like a monkey-mule kicking on the back side." "Come waltz with me tonight senorita 'cause only fools are alone on a night like this." "Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays." Let it all unfold before you. Let it....