Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen
 "The Boss"

Bruce Springsteen was born on September 23, 1949 and is the iconic and legendary American singer-songwriter known and loved for his heartland rock, poetic lyrics, American sentiments and references to his native New Jersey. 

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him as the 23rd greatest artist of all time in its 100 Greatest Artists of All Time list. But to me, and to the millions of other Springsteen fans, he is more than just a song, or just a statistic. Bruce Springsteen has created and released songs so inspiring and relate-able. His songs, his words, his voice are so powerful and hard hitting that each album he releases, is like a revolution. 

The first time I heard a Bruce Springsteen song was probably when I was about 4 years old, when my dad would play it for me as I sat on the couch in my living room and he would listen to music for hours with nothing but his glass of Red Wine. When I saw Big Daddy, a big childhood movie and I heard Growing Up, the song would become childhood and my life's anthem. When I was 12 years old I learned how to play "Working on the Highway", and I performed it at my annual recital at the Princeton Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. In my sixth grade English class, I had to chose a song that represented my life and I chose "Growing Up". In a lot of ways Bruce Springsteen's music resembles my life. Thunder Road is one of my favorite songs of all-time. A big statement.

                                   Born in the USA is one of the best albums of all time. 

 Rolling Stone faithfully defined the album's spirit in its 1990 issue that called Springsteen "Voice of the Decade": "Like Nebraska, Born in the U.S.A. was about people who come to realize that life turns out harder, more hurtful, more closefisted than they might have expected. But in contrast to Nebraska 's killers and losers, Born in the USA's characters hold back the night as best they can, whether it's by singing, laughing, dancing, yearning, reminiscing or entering into desperate love affairs. There was something celebratory about how these people face their hardships. It's as if Springsteen were saying that life is made to endure and that we all make peace with private suffering and shared sorrow as best we can." The magazine also pointed that "Springsteen and [producer John] Landau designed the album with contemporary pop styles in mind — which is to say, it was designed with as much meticulous attention to its captivating and lively surfaces as to its deeper and darker meanings.
"Despite the dark spirit of Nebraska material, Springsteen noted a certain resemblance between the two records: "If you look at the material, particularly on the first side, it's actually written very much like Nebraska – the characters and the stories, the style of writing – except it's just in the rock-band setting."

My favorite Bruce Springsteen song is Thunder Road. It has been my musical aspiration. It tells a story. It has told the same story ever since I first listened to it.  I sit down at the piano and I just play. Whenever I  "rock out" on the  piano, the image of Springsteen on stage is in mind. 

"Its a town full of losers, and I'm              

pulling out of here to win"