I Have Seen Rock and Roll's Past, and Its Name Is Bruce Springsteen

If you get that allusion, points for you, and you can tell where I grew up (and the allusion is not meant to infer that Bruce's day is done, but rather that his current music is clearly an origin point for rock and roll.)

If you get excited that Bruce brought out Peter Wolf for the last song, and they played "Dirty Water" seguing into "Buffalo Gal," then you probably grew up where I grew up (and if "Buffalo Gal" makes you think of Malcolm Maclaren, you get a few more points).

If I say that we took the girls to the opening night of the Seeger Sessions tour, then you can easily figure out where I live (but you don't need to mention it).

***

I've been disgruntled with the blog lately. Partly because I'm disgruntled with myself, but also because the way I've set this up isn't working for me right now.

I'm annoyed with trying to post every day, which keeps my head buzzing with topics, opening lines, even entire posts--I want to let other things buzz. I'm tired of letting my stats get me down, or up--my moods turn on a dime too easily anyway. I'm frustrated with my semi-anonymity--I want to blog about Blue State dramas, like a ridiculous sexual harassment scandal at a major local institution, and our appalling governor (who, besides thinking that Iraq is part of his jurisdiction, just booted three members of the state public health commission who voted to ban formula from maternity ward giveaway bags, and reversed the ban which benefits...uh...newborn babies? new mothers? oh yeah, large corporations!).

I've toyed with quitting altogether, and obviously I took a break, but then I found myself wanting to post about the Bruce Springsteen concert, so, for now, I'm taking down my stats, abandoning my post-every-day policy, posting only when I want to about what I want to (sorry, folks, nothing to say about the Brangelina baby) , and relaxing about the anonymity schtick (really I just want not to be Googleable, which seems feasible).

***
Me: Did you like the concert?
E: [shrug] I don't know?
Me: Why don't you know?
E: Because I wasn't there for the whole thing.
Me: Did you like it before you feel asleep?
E: [shrug] I don't know. I can't believe I fell asleep.
Me: It's kind of funny that first it was too loud for you, and then you fell asleep.
E: I liked "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" and "Erie Canal."

Regardless of whether she actually liked it--and I'd say that her assessment is accurate, because she liked the idea of it, and had a bit of fun during some songs, and when we walked around, but she also was a bit perturbed throughout--I hope that adult E will enjoy telling her friends that her first concert was Bruce Springsteen when she was five, and she fell asleep.

***
I had no intention of going to my 20th college reunion, but my friends started working on me a few months ago. It's hard to resist when people say things like "all I want is to see you." Really, though, I didn't want to go. I went to college with a lot of very successful people, and while I'm no slouch, I'm pretty transitional and angsty these days, and I don't particularly want to share. Plus, as S pointed out, all my classmates will be talking about their investment banking deals and the renovations to their houses in the Hamptons, and I would have to face my bad choices (joke).

Still, I vacillated. I like my friends; could be fun; what if my looks are peaking now and have deteriorated by 2011?

Then it was announced that the first night of the Seeger Sessions tour would be Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend in East Coast Big City. Then the show was moved outside. Then it became clear: if we could get tickets, I was meant to skip the reunion and take the girls to see Bruce Springsteen; if we couldn't, I was meant to go.

We got tickets.

At about 8, I turned to S and said, "They've just finished their gin and tonics, and now they're sitting down to their beef tenderloin." And I was happy to be where I was.

***
K: M, how did you like the concert?
M: AWESOME!

***
It doesn't get much better than outdoor music on a beautiful summer night. Especially when M is standing on the chair next to you, rocking out, with a beautific grin on her face (and even when you're sitting down with sleeping E's head on your lap, watching the giant tv screens). Especially Bruce (I am not a diehard Bruce fan, but you've got to admit, he puts on a show, and, being the 70s white girl/40something mom that I am, I can't help swooning a bit when he does that back-to-the-audience butt wiggle across the stage).

You can read a review for details. I'll just say: thumbs up to the banjo, the fiddle, the raggedy rocking horns, the politics, the acoustic versions of "Cadillac Ranch," "Ramrod," and "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)," and, of course, all my favorite folk songs.

***
So I'm watching this amphitheater of middle-aged white people singing along to "John Henry" and "Erie Canal" and "Jesse James" and "Pay Me My Money Down," and I'm thinking about the intertextuality of the whole thing, because everyone sings along at a Springsteen concert, except usually they're singing about Rosalita and Wendy, and Pete Seeger is the master of singalongs--I remember Arlo Guthrie once talking about how Pete Seeger taught him to say the line just before you sing it so everyone can sing with you--and about how much I love American folk music, and how I wish everyone loved it, and I'm wondering whether I just love it because I sang it as a kid--I know just about every song on that record--and then I realize that it is much more than that.

What is so great about American folk music--work songs and spirituals, ballads and protest songs--is that it is profoundly collective. It is about ordinary people singing together about shared experiences. Even the music itself, the danceable tunes and clappable beats, or the haunting melodies, works to bring people together. Which is why it's so great for kids. Which is why that whole amphitheater was rocking out. Which is why it is so profoundly political.

And then I thought about contemporary politics, and how I wish the Democrats, some Democrat, any Democrat, would stand up and say "The goal here isn't to get more and better and bigger for yourself. The goal is to help each other, to work together, to make life better for everyone. So let's kick these big-business-loving, poor-people-and-immigrant-hating, war-mongering assholes the hell out of Dodge, and get down to business."

At least Bruce is saying it, but that just isn't enough.