bruce

I do. In a way that perhaps a 29 year old Black woman shouldn’t. Why am I writing about this now? Because I was listening to my iPod on random this morning and ‘We Are the World’ came on. Don’t you dare judge me. Anyway there’s the gong, the trumpets… Lionel Richie, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Billy Joel (yeah, yeah, yeah) … but then in the second verse Bruce’s beautiful, raspy, voice comes in “We are the World, We are the children…” Game over. Bruce is killing y’all.

And it just reminded me #1 – I need to get more Springsteen on my iPod (right now I’ve only got Born to Run), and #2 – It’s time to reignite my adoration of this man.

Growing up in Jersey in the 80’s and 90’s, I had no choice but to love him — and by extension his band. Big Man Clarence Clemons (I saw you working it out on The Wire last season), Stevie Van Zandt (I still remember thinking wth is he doing on The Sopranos?), his ‘Red Headed Woman’, Patti. Love ’em all. To this day, my mother still buys every single thing he puts out, buys his concert videos, and we love him just the same as we always did. Real blue collar (or no collar) music for real people.

And I mean, The Boss. What an awesome nickname. Not too many recording artists have them. In the rock/paper/scissors game of entertainer nicknames, Bruce trumps all y’all ho’s. Plus, Springsteen barely even opens his mouth when he sings. How the hell does he do it? I swear, I don’t even know. And I don’t need to know. He is perfection in every sense of the word. Remember the cut off flannel shirts. The headband. HWWWHAAAT? (in my best Dave Chappelle imitating Lil’ Jon voice). He is so awesome. And I know that this may sound a little patronizing and you may be wondering whether I’m mocking or if I’m serious. Well please believe that I am serious. I love Bruce. I love Bon Jovi. I love Redman, Queen Latifah. Lauryn Hill (yes, still), and even Naughty by Nature. I have an unhealthy devotion to any and all artists from New Jersey — even though as you can see my musical tastes changed over the years. I was definitely white in the 80’s, but as you can see I ‘found myself’ in the 90’s. (BTW, I think that if there is an award for most parenthetical notes in a blog entry, this one should be the champ.) Out.

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