A baker’s dozen from The Boss on his birthday

I got started early on 9/23/19 and picked up speed later in the day. I posted comments on and links on Facebook to 14 songs by Bruce Springsteen on his 70th birthday.
They were done in chronological order based on release date, except for the last one. From 13 of his 19 studio albums.

#1 FB at 8:24
Bruce Springsteen is 70 today. Happy Birthday to The Boss.
His audition tape is pretty sweet.
“when they said ‘Sit down’ I stood up…”

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#2 FB at 9:00
I’ve been cranking this one UP for 46 years. That ain’t gonna stop anytime soon.
He said: “I wrote ‘Rosalita’ as a kiss-off to everybody who counted you out, put you down or decided you weren’t good enough.”
My favorite line:
“Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny…”
Crank. It. UP!!

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#3 FB at 11:22
I was a fan in my 20’s…back in the 1970’s.
I’ll be a fan in my 70’s in the 2020’s.
“So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore
Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night…”
Crank. This. UP!!

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#4 FB at 1:14
The record company and lawyers mucked everything up for awhile.
It was almost three years before The Boss released his fourth album. This song is the first cut on the long-awaited “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

“You spend your life waiting
For a moment that just don’t come
Well don’t waste your time waiting…”
And this: “it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive…”

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#5 FB at 2:08
“The River” was his 5th album, his only double album and the first of the 80’s. This was his first album to go #1 on the Billboard 200. (He’s never had a #1 single…)
It was never my favorite album, but I’m a sucker for a rocker.
The link has the lyrics…but all you really need to know is this: “I’m a rocker, baby, I’m a rocker, every day…”

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#6 FB at 2:44
This is the second cut of Springsteen’s sixth album, released 37 years ago on 9/30/82.
This song is NOT about Philip Testa. But Philly’s “chicken man” did get blown up in early ‘81 by a nail bomb as he was entering his south philly home. It started a gang war, with a couple of dozen made guys getting killed over the next few years.
Whatever…

Nebraska is a great album,,,but damned is it bleak or what?
Everybody knows this song. Damned near everybody covers it.
Nobody does it any better than my friend David and The Nace Brothers. Seriously.
I’ve always loved this line: “Everything dies baby that’s a fact, But maybe everything that dies someday comes back…”
But I love it even more now that i’m looking forward to being reincarnated and in 40 years or so reading about “the times in which we live.” (Dad uses that one often. 😉 )

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#7 FB at 3:22
“Born in the U.S.A.”
Released 6/4/84.
Seven top 10 singles.
The Boss & the E Street Band achieve commercial success.
My favorite lyrics from any of the 12 songs aren’t from one of those seven songs.
“Well, we busted out of class
Had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three-minute record, baby
Than we ever learned in school…”
(BTW…I loved school…most of the time…
I’ve learned a thing or two from 3 minute songs too.)
And: “We made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender…”
Resist.
And have fun like these folks.

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#8 FB at 4:24
“Tunnel of Love” is the 8th studio album. Springsteen married Julianne Philips in Lake Oswego, Orygun on May 13, 1985 in Lake Oswego. A bad relationship spawned a pretty decent album.
I lived in Portland at the time. There was a rare sighting of The Boss in the PDX area. None by me.
At the time, I had made several more trips around the sun than I deserved based on a bit of risky behavior. And I was still making some bad choices, especially for my liver.
But my perspective on life had changed a bit.
“Now some may wanna die young man
Young and gloriously
Get it straight now mister
Hey buddy that ain’t me
‘Cause I got something on my mind
That sets me straight and walkin’ proud
And I want all the time
All that heaven will allow”
The Mavericks often have this one on their setlist. 🙂

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#9 FB at: 5:08
I don’t own the next 3 albums.
On 9/11 I posted links to a couple of songs from his twelfth: “The Rising.” This was his first album with The E Street Band in almost 20 years.
Fifteen tracks. Damned near perfect.
For a 70th birthday party…or a wake, this one is also perfect.
“Seven days, seven candles
In my window lighting your way
Your favorite record’s on the turntable
I drop the needle and pray (turn it up)
Band’s countin’ out midnight (turn it up)
Floor’s rumblin’ loud (turn it up)…”
Turn. It. UP!

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#10 FB at 5:58
The E Street Band was back for album #15. “Magic.” 9/25/2007.
Rolling Stone put it at #2 for the year.
Once again, the first track is my favorite…at least for today. 🙂
“This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there…”
“I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues…”
“I just want to hear some rhythm,
I just want to hear some rhythm…”

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#11 FB at 6:56
Springsteen’s seventeenth album was released on March 6, 2012.
I’d been back in Missouri for 9 months. I was living alone. There was lots of music in A-306 at The Abbey.
“Wrecking Ball” was in rotation for awhile.
He wrote “Easy Money” right after the 2008 financial fiasco and said this about Wall Street walking away unscathed: “That hustle has been legitimized over the past four years, when you have the level of risk and greed at the top of the financial industry, and people basically walking away, relatively scot-free, completely unaccountable.” [Do NOT get me started!]

“There’s nothing to it mister, you won’t hear a sound
When your whole world comes tumbling down
And all them fat cats they just think it’s funny
I’m going on the town now looking for easy money…”

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#12 FB at 8:24
Jan 14, 2014. “High Hopes” is released.
I like the album. It’s different. Covers. Outtakes that didn’t make earlier albums. Songs that had been on live albums or promo CDs.
There is good stuff here.
But picking just one cut is too easy.
It’s a song that was written in 2000 re Amadou Diallo. He started singing it again in 2012 after Trayvon Martin was gunned down.
This is an Important Song.
So is “What it Means” by Drive-by Truckers.
Black Lives Matter.

“Is it a gun, is it a knife
Is it a wallet, this is your life
It ain’t no secret
No secret my friend
You can get killed just for living in your American skin
41 shots
41 shots
41 shots
41 shots…”

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#13 FB at 9:16
This makes it a Baker’s Dozen on The Boss’ birthday.
Just over 3 months ago, on June 14, 2019, Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen released his nineteenth studio album.
“Western Stars” is a solo studio album….and it is a dandy. I heard something about a documentary.
I loved this song at the first note…at the first sound of his voice…and the first time I heard this:
“Some find peace here on the sweet streets
The sweet streets of home…”

And this:
“When everyone’s asleep and the midnight bells sound
My wheels are hissin’ up the highway
Spinning ’round and ’round…”

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#14 FB at 10:18
Why stop at thirteen? This wraps up Birthday songs for The Boss on his 70th, 9/23/19.
I have cranked this song up more than any other by Springsteen. It has rattled walls and made cars shake.
It was released Aug 25, 1975.
We were living in Cape Girardeau and had gotten married 237 days earlier on 12/31/74.
We wanted the hell out of Missouri. (I never expected to move back. Thirty-five years later I did…)
Not much more than a year after I first heard this song, our 2 VW bug caravan arrived in Corvallis.
No doubt this song gave us a push…not that we needed one.

“I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Oh, someday, girl, I don’t know when
We’re gonna get to that place
Where we really wanna go and we’ll walk in the sun
But ’til then, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run…”

Happy Birthday Bruce. And many more.
Be. Just Be.