Grappling With a Monday Morning Springsteen Conundrum (or Two)

One is clearly more pressing than the other

I don’t normally do a lot of pondering, reflecting, or thinking in general on a Monday morning. Even though I write pretty much every day of the week now, four decades of Monday through Friday jobs have conditioned me to simply try to survive Mondays with as little thought as possible. But as we transition out of the month during which we in the Catholic Church focus on those who have gone on before us and into the month preparing for Christmas, I have been smacked with a parting conundrum regarding my eternity. Two, actually, but one is infinitely more important.

I say conundrum rather than the more popular “dilemma” because a dilemma is a choice between two equally undesirable things, and that is not the case here. It is quite impossible for any choice involving Bruce Springsteen to be even remotely undesirable. But enough pontificating; here’s my Monday conundrum. Earlier this month I published the following piece after finally getting my funeral/burial situation sorted so my kids don’t have to worry about it and can just get drunk at the wake, tell funny stories about me, and play Springsteen songs.

When it comes to sending me off into the afterlife, one thing was always certain: “Born to Run” would be played at my funeral, with the final “tramps like us” shouted by all in attendance as the casket exited the church. The priest will likely not approve, but my daughters assure me he’ll get over it and still come to the graveside to plant me. This choice of song will come as no surprise to readers who followed my “August is the Month of Born to Run” series or to my Facebook friends who endure my posting of a different live version of The Greatest Song Ever at the start of each month. It is nice to have at least one certainty in life.

Certain, that is, until the great man himself threw me into confusion a few days ago with the release of “The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts.” Over the years I had seen bootleg footage of “The River,” “Detroit Medley,” and “Quarter to Three” from these shows, but was not prepared for this version of “Thunder Road:”

Sweet baby Jesus, that was amazing. You have to understand that while I am a constant evangelist for “Born to Run,” “Thunder Road” has always been my second-favorite Bruce song (my friend Terry Barr would even argue that these should be flipped). I have heard hundreds of live versions of the song and seen him play it in person multiple times. But something happened when I heard this version for the first time. I don’t know if it was St. Paul (my patron saint) or the ghost of Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, but I clearly heard “you have to go out with this.”

Ignoring for the moment that I’m hearing voices, if that is true, what of “Born to Run?” Do I move it to the graveside rather than the actual funeral? Or does “go out with this” mean this should be the graveside tune? I could leave the decision up to the kids, but knowing them they would drop me into the ground to the Smiths’ “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” (a fine choice as well). This is my first Monday conundrum, and though it may seem ridiculous to you, it vexes me. I am very vexed.

The second, far less crucial (and less eternal) conundrum also involves Springsteen, more specifically the articles I write about him here. In recent months, any time I use the tag “Bruce Springsteen” the article basically explodes (I had a comment that mentioned him hit 500 views, for crying out loud). I am more than thrilled that people are reading about him, of course. Less thrilling is the fact that 95% of those readers are not Medium members.

I have preached about Bruce for free since I was 9 years old and will continue to preach even if it doesn’t earn me a dime. But you non-members can help close that gap by signing up for Medium for just $5 a month (less than a gross Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte). As non-members you only get three free articles a month, and as anyone will tell you (usually with an exasperated sigh), I write way more than three Bruce articles a month. With that membership you also get all the other amazing writers here, like Simon Dillon, Eric Pierce, Sarah Paris, The Garrulous Glaswegian, Kevin Alexander, Alex Markham, Danielle Loewen, Pierce McIntyre, Jessie Waddell, David Acaster, Aimée Gramblin, Arpad Nagy, Lindsay Rae Brown, Patrick Metzger, Paul Mansfield, Chris Zappa, B.G. Warren, the aforementioned Terry Barr, and a host of others I am surely forgetting. Click on any of those names and you’ll see what I mean. Hell, click on all of them.

You can sign up using the link at the end of this article (if you do, I get a small percentage of that membership fee) or from the Medium homepage. Either way, it helps both you and me, which would surely make the ghost of the Big Man smile.

And if you want to help me with that first conundrum, here is the version of “Born to Run” that is vying with the newly-found “Thunder Road” to shuffle me off this mortal coil. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. And remember: “show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.”

Tramps like us…