I can sing very comfortably from my vantage point because a lot of the music was about a loss of innocence, there’s innocence contained in you but there’s also innocence in the process of being lost.
Basically, I was pretty ostracized in my hometown. Me and a few other guys were the town freaks- and there were many occasions when we were dodging getting beaten up ourselves.
Until I realized that rock music was my connection to the rest of the human race, I felt like I was dying, for some reason, and I didn’t know why.
If you’re good, you’re always looking over your shoulder.
And whether you’re drawn to gospel music or church music or honky-tonk music, it informs your character and it informs your talent.
The release date is just one day, but the record is forever.
You can go from doing something quite silly to something dead serious in the blink of an eye, and if you’re making those connections with your audience then they’re going to go right along with it.
For me, I was somebody who was a smart young guy who didn’t do very well in school. The basic system of education, I didn’t fit in; my intelligence was elsewhere.
It’s always felt natural, because I’m generally very comfortable with people.
Pessimism and optimism are slammed up against each other in my records, the tension between them is where it’s all at, it’s what lights the fire.
Certainly tolerance and acceptance were at the forefront of my music.
You can’t be afraid of getting old. Old is good, if you’re gathering in life. Our band is good at understanding that equation.
You make your music, then you try to find whatever audience is out there for it.
I was the only person I’d ever met who had a record contract. None of the E Street Band, as far as I know, had been on an airplane until Columbia sent us to Los Angeles.
It’s a fairytale so tragic there’s no prince to break the spell. I don’t believe in magic, but for you I will.
I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that’s the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up – either religious or social laws – become meaningless.
Dancing in the dark. Does fortune wait or just the black hand of fate, It’ll take your God filled soul. Fill it with devils.
I hadn’t performed by myself in a while. It feels very natural to me, and I assume people come for the very same reasons as they do when I’m with the band: to be moved, for something to happen to them.
I had tried to go to college, and I didn’t really fit in. I went to a real narrow-minded school where people gave me a lot of trouble, and I was hounded off the campus – I just looked different and acted different, so I left school.
I had a ten-piece band when I was 21 years old, the Bruce Springsteen Band. This is just a slightly expanded version of a band I had before I ever signed a record contract. We had singers and horns.