The Boss

In the days I was a skint student, low on income and struggling to keep a lid on my increasingly feverish record buying habit, I would get my hair cut at a barbers shop round the corner from the house I grew up in. Luckily back then I didn’t sport quite the same quiffage that I do now (which naturally requires a vat of wax and a tanker of hairspray to maintain) and so the theory was that my chosen parlour would be a quick in-and-out job, cheerful but relatively cheap with none of the added frills that a more luxurious salon might offer. Little did I know, however, that my burgeoning (but not exactly significant at the time) musical interest in Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was about to become an obsession, thanks in large part to my gentleman barber. Casting aside the typical “been anywhere nice on your holidays?” chat so redolent of similar establishments within minutes of getting his hands on my tousled barnet, it soon became very apparent that my hairdresser (Alan, for that was his name) was a dedicated employee of the man they like to call “The Boss”. His passion knew no bounds, and as the weeks and months passed – my hair tumbling to the shop floor with gay abandon – he laid down his love for the man only the most devoted would know as “Scooter”.

I became intrigued – where had this fanaticism come from? Though I certainly didn’t buy into the oft-peddled nonsense that Springsteen was nothing more than a denim-clad jingoistic working class hero – only writing about cars, girls and the American Dream in the broadest of strokes – I did have some difficulty seeing beyond the sound and feel of some of his mid 80s records (Born In The USA, Tunnel Of Love) for which he was perhaps best known. “Start at the beginning and work your way through” my creative clipper advised me, “then come back and see me when you want to get really serious and into the live stuff”. I duly obliged, taking flight to my local record store to purchase Bruce’s first two albums – Greetings From Ashbury Park, NJ and The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle – and the result was revelatory. Here was an artist I wasn’t familiar with: at the beginning of his career, rough around the edges, over-wordy and uncertain at times perhaps, but also with a voice and a style all of his own. What’s more, those early albums revealed a songwriter with guts and ambition, and in 4^th of July, Ashbury Park (Sandy) and Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) a glimpse of the cinematic sound that was soon to become his trademark.

Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge of Town came next, and I was slipping deeply under the Springsteen Spell. “Thunder Road” became like a hymn to me, a song of almost religious proportions that kept me coming back time after time to kneel at the altar of New Jersey’s favourite son. In 4 minutes and 50 seconds it seems to encapsulate Springsteen’s greatness in its entirety: the wide-eyed romanticism and wildly poetic imagery found in his words, the fragility and the power of his voice, and the epic widescreen majesty of the music. I remember putting the song on my then girlfriend’s iPod in an act of attempted proselytism and being met with vague indifference, only for that to suddenly turn to passionate obsession. After five or six listens she suddenly “got it” and was utterly hooked. My work here was done.

The reason Bruce – and what he means to me – has been on my mind is because next week he visits Hampden Park in Scotland to play for the masses. I’ll be there, hearing him play live for maybe only the 4^th or 5^th time in my life as a fan, and as usual I can’t wait to see what he includes (and doesn’t include) on the set list. It also got me thinking of all the great Springsteen live moments, of which there are many, and perhaps one of his most famous live performances at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975. With his faithful E Street Band in tow he arrived in London riding an almost unfathomably large wave of hype and expectation to debut songs from Born To Run, and in true style blew the roof off the place. In fact it was a defining moment in his career – the “future of rock and roll” now firmly planting himself in the present – and so to celebrate we’ll have some choice moments from that very show as our Live On Arrival this week (alongside a fine Record Of Note from KT Tunstall, Undercover Elvis Costello and some great new releases).

To this day my passion for the music of Bruce Springsteen remains undimmed because, as many of you know, truly great music is something that stays with you for a lifetime: it’s only the haircuts that change.