Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week’s edition of Music Monday.
(Image found online. Original source unknown.)
In August we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run. This month marks the 45th anniversary of The River released on October 17, 1980.
The cover photo for the album was taken by Frank Stefanko. (Image found online. Original source unknown.)
Here is the post I wrote five years ago on the 40th anniversary:
On a typically hot humid Long Island summer day in July 1980, I was sitting in a wonderfully cool air conditioned movie theatre waiting with bated breath for a movie to start. There were only two other people in the multiplex that day-a young couple a few rows behind me. The film we were all there to see was the “No Nukes” documentary from the concerts held at Madison Square Garden in September 1979. I will not bore you with the details as to why I was not allowed to go to see one of the shows in person with three of my cousins (hint-they were boys and I was not, as my father sternly reminded me) but suffice it to say I had been waiting close to a year for this moment.
I sat through nearly every other performance and enjoyed many of them (Crosby, Stills & Nash, James Taylor, The Doobie Brothers) but I was desperate to see the love of my life, Bruce Springsteen. Finally a picture of the marque with his name came on the screen and suddenly there he was backstage. First he was with Jackson Browne, then with The E Street Band walking to the stage for their performance as the crowd cheered “Bruce!”. In the next scene the band was in front of the audience and then that beautiful man, Springsteen himself, walked up to the microphone. And the camera stayed on him and that microphone for the entire song. Swoon.
“This is new. It’s about my brother-in-law and sister”, he told the crowd. Then he started playing the harmonica until he introduced us to the characters in the first verse.
“I come from down in the valley where mister when you’re young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school when she was just seventeen
We’d drive out of this valley down to where the fields were green“.
“We’d go down to the river and into the river we’d dive
Oh down to the river we’d ride“.
The album’s back cover. (Image found online. Original source unknown.)
The guy sitting with his girlfriend a couple of rows behind me shouted “turn it up!” and the volume increased as The Boss continued telling us the true story of the couple in the song.
“Then I got Mary pregnant and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle, no flowers no wedding dress“.
“We went down to the river and into the river we’d dive
Oh down to the river we’d ride…“.
More consequences followed as the couples’ downward spiral continued.
“I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain’t been no work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important, well mister they vanished right into the air
I just act like I don’t remember, Mary acts like she don’t care“.
Then a memory of better days………and how quickly they ended.
“But I remember us riding in my brother’s car, her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I’d lie awake and pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take
Now them memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true or is it something worse“.
“That sends me down to the river, though I know the river is dry
Oh down to the river tonight
Down to the river, my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride…“.
Tears were rolling down my face as the last line from the final verse just played over and over in my head.
“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true or is it something worse“.
What is worse than a dream that does not come true?
I don’t think anyone tells the stories of those haunted by broken dreams better than Springsteen does. The movie concert was the first time I ever saw him sing on a stage and I still remember every second of that performance. Today’s heartbreakingly beautiful song is the title track from his only double album-which was released 40 years ago today-October 17, 1980. I have written this before and will continue until I take my last breath: Bruce Springsteen’s music saved me like no one else’s. I owe him everything and “it’s a debt no honest man can pay”. Swoon.
The album’s inside cover features a picture of the whole band (L-R): Garry Tallent, Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, Clarence Clemons, Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt and Danny Federici. (Image found online. Original source unknown.)
Edit: The 1997 film, “Cop Land“, features two songs from The River. Even without those incredible tracks, it is an excellent film.
In December 2015, in honor of the album’s 35th anniversary, Springsteen released The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set. The following year, he embarked on “The River Tour-2016” where he played the entire album live at many of the shows that year (unfortunately for me, not the concert I attended on September 14, 2016 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, but it was still a great show. And it was one week after his longest U.S. show on record-4 hours and 4 minutes-which took place at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 7, 2016. His longest sow ever took place in Helsinki in 2012, which clocked in two minutes longer.
(Image found online. Original source unknown.)
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: “The River” (From the 1980 film, “No Nukes”, as performed at the concert of the same name in September 1979. Written by Bruce Springsteen).
Bruce Springsteen: “Fade Away” (1980, written by Bruce Springsteen).
Bruce Springsteen: “Stolen Car” (1980, written by Bruce Springsteen. Featured in the 1997 film, Copland).
Bruce Springsteen: “Drive All Night” (1980, written by Bruce Springsteen. Featured in the 1997 film, Copland).
Stay safe & well.
Lilacs & Rust 