The Cult of Bruce: The fawning over Springsteen is now officially nauseating

Opinion Journal ^ | 08/23/2002 | MARK GAUVREAU JUDGE

[weegee]

Watch the 1950s movie Kiss Me Deadly (a gritty Mickey Spillane "Mike Hammer" movie) and you'll at least pick up on some of the framing of Lost Highway.

Yeah David has been off in his own world for awhile now. And he doesn't seem particularly concerned in letting his audience in on his secrets.

[dfwgator]

He supposedly sings about the working man, and yet he's called "The Boss", what's up with that?

[weegee]

There are those who buy into the "working man" image. A example of the cult of illusion built up around Bruce is the concert scene in "Dancing in the Dark" where a "fan" gets onstage to dance with Bruce. Years later we know this actress as Courtney Cox.

He seems accessible to his fans.

[secret garden]

I agree with a previous poster in that your thoughts are similar to mine. His best stuff was done years and years ago. Now it's just one whiny drone after another. And Nebraska? I can sum it up in two letters - P U.

[GATOR NAVY]

The dude grates my nerves even worse than Billy Joel

LMAO! Guess who the other favorite of the Springsteen nuts I mentioned in my first post was?

[MadIvan]

Have never read Dune or watched the movies however,

You have no idea what you are missing.

Regards, Ivan

To give you an idea...

[Clemenza]

Had I only realized then what I do now: There is no reasoning with Springsteen fans. They form their own religion, or rather their own cult. Bruce's return is their Second Coming, and third and fourth, depending on how you count. Indeed, religion is the only way to explain the Pauline tone of the Return of the Boss.

WHOA! This boy better have an asbestos suit.

I agree, while I like many of Springsteen's songs (Born to Run, Hungry Heart, Badlands), I still find him to be an overrated bar room singer. Like Billy Joel, however, he is a great lyricist when it comes to reaching "regular guys."

What do you call a black guy at a Springsteen Concert?: Clarence Clemons.

Don't get me started on that third rate Springsteen wannabe from Sayreville, John Bon Anchovie.

[Clemenza]

Some perfomers have it, guys like CCR

True. I played "Hey Tonight" twice on the jukebox yesterday, a song that doesn't get enough airplay.

Lynard Skynard

"Ooh that smell, can't you smell that smell" OF SKYNARD'S OVERRATED PILE OF HORSEDUNG! The only song that "reaches me" is "Simple Man" off of the first album.

and John Cougar Mellencamp

Others may flame you, but I will agree with you here with one reservation: Mellencamp has been very inconsitent throughout his career (and a real asshole, according to many who've met him). Nevertheless, when the Sage of Seymour is at his best(American Fool, Scarecrow, Lonesome Jubilee., he blows Springsteen away.

[Clemenza]

The only song that he did that I liked was Blinded by the Light.

"Blinded by the Light. Revved up like a Douche another roamer in the night."

Just who the hell is "Gocart Mozart" anyway?

[martin_fierro]

Just try criticizing David Lynch's version of Dune, and see what grief you'll get. Some people get attached to one person and can see no wrong in anything that person does.

Nevertheless, Sean Young still looked pretty tasty in that stillsuit. <|:)~

[Clemenza]

If I want to hear real honesty and working class values, I'll listen to the Ramones ;-)

The Greatest Rock and Roll Band of All Time. GABBA GABBA HEY!!!

[A CA Guy]

He's good, but his new album sales are already dropping off.

[Clemenza]

You better not go to Lawn Guyland and say that. The holy trinity of my home region is Jones Beach, Carvel Ice Cream and Billy Joel.

[avenir]

Yeah David has been off in his own world for awhile now. And he doesn't seem particularly concerned in letting his audience in on his secrets.

But for a diversion, try Lynch's "The Straight Story" (rated G, with William Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek). It is a sweet movie about an old man who drives a long way to see his estranged brother...on his slow tractor trailer.

[x]

Bruce was an original when he started. His songs were a mixture of ingenuous teenage tunes and something more Dylanesque. But he convinced himself that he was Woody Guthrie reborn, and lost the originality. Springsteen's later work is in that "the poetry is in the pity" vein and it doesn't always work. Too often what he thinks poetic or evocative is too cookie-cuttered and predictable. That stoic-affirmative-populist or poignant-suffering manner is too one-note. And it usually didn't capture a large public. And maybe it's easier to stay in that downbeat-downtrodden groove than to try something new. But he's not a bad man and has some talent.

[Wallaby]

In the interest of bringing a dissenting voice onto this thread, let me say that I've given "The Rising" a casual listen -- and I liked it. I'm not part of any Springsteen "cult" either. Years aago, I tried to like "'Born in the USA" but just couldn't quite succeed. I did like "Fever" which was long a bootleg, but finally made it onto an album ("18 Tracks").

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Just try criticizing David Lynch's version of Dune, and see what grief you'll get.

Burn in hell, heretic scum.

We have worm-sign, the likes of which even God has never seen. ATOMICS!!!

[notdownwidems]

I can't believe none of you guys mentioned BS's only truly great album, 1976's Born to Run! Success completely ruined him, as it does so many others...haven't heard his new album, but for the most part his whiny diatribe sucks!

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I can't believe none of you guys mentioned BS's only truly great album, 1976's Born to Run! Success completely ruined him, as it does so many others...haven't heard his new album, but for the most part his whiny diatribe sucks!

As folk singers go, Bruce Springsteen is probably at least the equal of Harry Chapin and Joe Cocker... well, maybe. "Born in the USA" really was a good song, a really good song, at least to a young fella like me who was raised by that odd breed of FDR-Democrat parents who believed in the same breath that the Vietnam War was wrong, but that America's post-war treatment of Vietnam Veterans was nonetheless a shameful travesty against all that was right and good.

Springsteen's lyrics are obviously inferior to Dylan's overall, but some of his music is better. Better thousand-mile-highway-with-the-stereo-cranked music, anyway.

---

Of course, none of these hacks even begins to compare with Leonard Cohen, of course. Let's not be gettin' silly.

[Clemenza]

young fella like me who was raised by that odd breed of FDR-Democrat parents who believed in the same breath that the Vietnam War was wrong, but that America's post-war treatment of Vietnam Veterans was nonetheless a shameful travesty against all that was right and good.

Your parents sound like my grandparents.

As folk singers go, Bruce Springsteen is probably at least the equal of Harry Chapin

In other words, not as good as Oscar Brand.

Of course, none of these hacks even begins to compare with Leonard Cohen, of course. Let's not be gettin' silly.

Only have the Greatest Hits album. LOVE "Suzanne" and "Famous Blue Raincoat." Can't stand "The Partisan."