Old Glory

...on the occasion of my tenth Springsteen gig....

I never liked Bruce Springsteen. The lumpy bar-band groove, the gruff vocals, the snare reverb—that, if I listen carefully on winter evenings—I can still hear forty-two years later. A rifle shot echoing in waves through the chill air. I didn’t understand back then, but that was the whole point. “Born in the U.S.A.” put me off Springsteen. I was fifteen. Not only was I anti-Springsteen, I was anti-America.

My teenage years were spent in Suffolk. Whichever direction you cycled to see friends or sneak to the pub, you’d pass an American air force base. Sometimes during a games lesson, the sound wave from a Fairchild A-10 flying fast and low over the pitch would knock the taller kids flat. I had low self-esteem paired with a low centre of gravity; sensing trouble, I usually stayed out of the way. But if someone shouted “plane”, it was often too late.

Early warnings were similarly useless elsewhere. In those dark nuclear days—when “Duck and Cover” mutated into “Protect and Survive”—we knew they were empty phrases. A newspaper printed a map showing which parts of the country would be struck in the first wave of missiles; Suffolk was awash with red. I took this as a sign to stop studying. Algebra felt pointless anyway, let alone in a post-apocalyptic world. Like a prey animal, I kept an eye on the sky.

Dale sat next to me in maths. He was fifteen when an American air force man, drunk on stronger beer than he was used to, and forgetting which side of the road to drive on, knocked him off his bike and killed him. One day he was at school being taunted for his unruly hair by the cool kids, the next he was dead in a ditch. The airman was sent back home. The cool kids found someone else to pick on.

So anything American was bad. To be pictured on your album cover against the backdrop of the Stars and Stripes put you firmly in the enemy camp for Suffolk teenagers. Or at least for me and Dale.

The calendar ticked over to 1985 before I listened again to “I’m on Fire” and heard it with the ears of someone falling in and out of love. Still, I wasn’t totally convinced. Reagan was in the White House, Thatcher in Number Ten, and Foreigner at Number One. Seemed none of us were sure what love was. A solitary teenager, relationships were a mystery to me, but Bruce understood simple lust. You could hear it in the keening, wordless falsetto. Sometimes language runs out.

I was beginning to warm to him, but then “USA for Africa” came out a month later, and we were back to square one. Band Aid at least had the humility to find a pun for their charity efforts the year before. Typically, America was late to the party and still all about America.

Other songwriters began to occupy my thoughts. Billy Bragg became my hero. Vehemently left-wing and with an unadorned sound, his songs became the soundtrack to my teenage political awakening. I added Politics to my list of chosen A-levels, began researching my dissertation on Vietnam, video-taped M*A*S*H, and forgot about Bruce Springsteen. Or at least I did for a while.

Then something happened. Andy’s Records in Ipswich had a sale. Browsing for anything by Big Country or The Waterboys, I heard a plaintive harmonica and a hollow-sounding voice telling me about someone standing on their front lawn, twirling a baton. For a second I pictured my new girlfriend outside her house, trampling the grass it was my Saturday job to mow.

The album was propped up on the counter: NOW PLAYING. Were there two Bruce Springsteens? This wasn’t the Meat Loaf-adjacent music I associated with him. And the cover: a widescreen black and white photograph. Landscape that seemed to be a snow-capped mountain range and possibly a lake, but on closer inspection was a road stretching into the distance, viewed through a car windscreen.

Even now, typing the word feels jarring; “windshield” holds more poetry, as did the name Nebraska back then. Later, when I moved there, America came to represent not just the land of possibility, but the possibility of language—of rhyme. Route 66 held romance and mystery; the A12 was an accident black spot.

I began to revisit the songs, and found new meaning in the words. It had always been there, but ambiguity and teenagers aren’t an easy fit. I worked the lyrics from “Born in the U.S.A.” into my A-level dissertation, and suspect I got a higher grade than I deserved, possibly from another Springsteen fan.

Years passed, the love grew until I found myself on the same record label. I still couldn’t quite refer to him as “The Boss,” but by then he definitely occupied a position of artistic authority in my life. When he spoke, I listened. Not yet an E Street Band acolyte, I preferred the solo contemplative Bruce. But free tickets were free tickets, so I thanked Sony and began to go to shows.

It’s at this point that I feel obliged to police my language. Raised in a religious household, to describe anything as a spiritual epiphany is to run the risk of parental approval, and denial of my atheist conviction. I seek neither. As a child dragged round Europe on Christian pilgrimages, I am wary of mass euphoria. I never felt part of a community. I’m still childishly resistant to it. But when Bruce counts in the band, picture me anointed and falling backwards into the arms of family.

Yesterday in Lille was my tenth Springsteen show. More than I’ve seen any other artist. I’ve seen him solo in Albany and Hamburg, on Broadway, and seven other times with the band. My fidelity doesn’t scratch the surface of the true disciple, but these days I buy my own tickets, and he remains worth every penny. Every cent.

Recently he’s been showing the signs of the ageing he has defied for years. But he’s still running the band through its paces, even if he no longer runs across the stage. And in doing so he gives us permission to keep chasing our own dreams, even as we all grow unsteady on our feet.

Last night in the crowd at the Stade Pierre Mauroy, a handful of Stars and Stripes were unfurled—just as they were in Manchester the week before. A gesture of resistance now, not unquestioning patriotism. In the age of Trump, it takes courage to be a true American, not arrogance.

At school we jeered at the flag when the bus skirted the edge of the nearest runway, or grew silent as we passed the spot where Dale died. Now, in the church of Springsteen, I find myself wistful at the sight of this seventy-five-year-old Bruce, and that unsettling flag: old glory indeed.

As long as he continues to tour, we’ll keep coming. The burden of care shifting from performer to audience, and back again. We want the best for him because he represents the best of ourselves. And when it all ends, as one day it must, the road he sings about—the same road depicted on “Nebraska”—will still stretch out before us fans, and those yet to discover him. Whoever you are, wherever you are, there is a version of Bruce waiting for you, calling you out onto the streets. I’ll meet you there.

P.S. My full band tour is on sale now, tickets available for all venues. I’d love to see you, it’s going to be a very special tour. Tickets here: