Well, hello there!
I hope you’re enjoying your summer so far (or winter, for those of you down under).
It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these updates, and as this blog’s readership has grown so has the volume of incoming mail. I love hearing from you guys, and I do my best to reply to each and every letter I receive. I’ve noticed a few common themes of late, though, so I thought I’d address a few of them here.
By far, the most frequent question I’ve been asked over the last month is: “Hey Ken, when are you going to review Western Stars?”
That’s a pretty easy one. If you’re asking about the album, the answer is: probably never. I haven’t written any album reviews on this blog and have no plans to. No particular reason other than that it doesn’t fit the theme I established on Day One. And besides, there are so many great reviews of the album out there that I doubt I could add anything of value to the discussion.
But: if you’re wondering about “Western Stars” the song (or any other of the songs on the Western Stars album), the answer is: yes, I’ll write a Roll of the Dice essay on each of them sometime over the next three years or so.
As soon as the album came out, I entered all the songs in my master spreadsheet of songs I haven’t yet written about, so as soon as the Google randomizer picks one of them for me to write about, that’s when I’ll do it.
(Yes, that’s still how I plan out my content–I have every song Bruce has ever written, recorded, or covered in a master spreadsheet, and I’m whittling it down one by one, day by day. As you can see above, I have 1,026 days left to go, not including covers that other artists do of Bruce songs–that’s a whole separate list.)
And honestly, while I’ll obey the randomizer, I kind of hope for a little time before Western Stars songs start turning up–it’d be nice to have some live performances and some time-tested insights to include before I start writing.
The other question I’m getting a lot of lately is: “Hey Ken, I’d love to share my really cool Bruce story for your Where the Band Was series, but I’m not a great writer and I don’t have videos or photos to include with the story. Can you help with that?”
Absolutely! If you’d like to submit a Where the Band Was story like Anna, Sandi, Kevin, or Mark, all you need to do is contact me through the blog and send me your memories via e-mail in whatever form you’re comfortable writing it. I’ll gladly copy edit, and if you like, I’ll take a polish pass or even ghost-write–whatever makes you most comfortable. And regardless, I’ll absolutely punctuate your story with video and audio from my collection and any photos I can dig up.
So please do send me your stories! Where the Band Was is quickly becoming my favorite part about writing this blog.
Finally (for this installment), there’s the common “Hey Ken, if I send you an advance copy of my Bruce-related book, will you review it?”
Okay, that’s actually not a common one. But it should be, because yes!
The kind folks at Rutgers University Press sent me an advance copy of a new book releasing in September, and you should absolutely pre-order it right now, wherever you pre-order your books.
Long Walk Home will be in bookstores on September 23rd, and that release date was very deliberately chosen.
Subtitled Reflections on Bruce Springsteen, Long Walk Home is an anthology of essays meant to mark and celebrate the artist’s impact on his 70th birthday.
Edited by Jonathan D. Cohen and June Skinner Sawyers (the latter of whom should be familiar to collectors of written words devoted to Bruce Springsteen), Long Walk Home is a thoughtful, provocative, and inconsistent (in a deliberate way) read.
The book is comprised of 26 essays, thematically grouped. The expected categories are here, to be sure–Bruce as songwriter, Bruce as live performer, Bruce and politics, Bruce and religion, etc. But the most engrossing reads for me were the less commonly represented ones: Bruce and race, gender, sex, and–perhaps most significantly given the occasion of its publishing–Bruce and aging.
I mentioned that the book is an inconsistent read, and honestly that’s probably the first word I’d use to describe it. Writing styles vary from dryly academic to page-turningly intimate, and the thematic organization sometimes leads to some jarring juxtapositions. Some essays are meant as broad societal commentary, others are intensely personal.
That means you’ll probably enjoy some essays more than others (I certainly did), but any Springsteen fan should appreciate each essay even though not all of them will resonate with you.
As I mentioned earlier, all of this is, I’m sure, by design. If there’s an over-arching theme to the book besides simply a look back over an artist’s life, it’s that for an artist whose music and audience is typically pigeon-holed and stereotyped, Springsteen’s impact and influence is far more global and diverse than most of us realize.
My favorite essays–the ones I most enjoyed while reading them–were the opening time-travelling autobiographical essay by Eric Alterman (which may be my single favorite Springsteen essay ever) and Peter Ames’ Carlin hilarious tale of his youthful fan-fiction come true. While I certainly admire and appreciate their writing style and voice, I also recognize that I identify more with Alterman and Carlin than I do with most of the other writers.
And that’s why more than a month after I finished reading Long Walk Home, the stories that stay with me are the ones with perspectives foreign to my own:
- Deepa Iyer shares with us how at age twelve, Bruce helped her adjust to her family’s move from India to Kentucky.
- Natalie Adler explores Bruce’s appeal to the lesbian community and the embodiment of butchness in his music.
- Wayne Swan describes how Bruce’s music influenced Australian politics long before he ever traveled there.
There are many others as well.
Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen did something I wouldn’t have thought possible: it deepened my appreciation for the artist by broadening my understanding of his relevance and influence.
I’d long known that Bruce had wide, diverse, international appeal. Now I have a better understanding of why.
Highly recommended.
Here’s a link to the book on Amazon, but if you can, support your local bookseller instead.
