The Passion of the Boss

Three months ago I bought a new car.  After taking test drives in five different makes, I went back to my default, Honda.  This is the fifth Honda I’ve owned.

I thought I had researched the car well, but I was pleasantly surprised that it came with a three-month trial subscription to XM satellite radio.  And I was downright delirious to find on channel 20 “E Street Radio.”  Bruce Springsteen’s music 24/7/365.   Fan-dang-tastic!  My first thought was, where do I sign for a lifetime subscription?  My second was, will parishioners laugh at me if I start sleeping in my car to listen to the Boss all night?  My third, why did I take me so long to find this treasure?

As you might guess, I’ve a big Springsteen fan.  I’ve seen him in concert five times in Pittsburgh, once in Cleveland.  (I had a ticket to his concert in Buffalo a year ago, but was held back by 18” of snow on the I-90 snowbelt.)   I mention his lyrics in sermons, bulletin columns and – sorry Mom and Dad – even in the homilies I gave at my parents’ funerals.   One column I did for our diocesan newspaper summers ago motivated the editor to place a photo of Bruce on the front page. 

Listening to E Street Radio has widened my knowledge of the 300+ songs he’s written.  I’m still encountering songs he wrote I never heard of.  It’s also neat to hear different versions of the same song—studio, live with the E Street Band, and acoustic live.    

The thing I love about Springsteen most is the passion in his music-making.  Every concert, every song, every lyric, is delivered with utter conviction, even if he, and you, knows that it’s the 2000^th time he’s done it in public.  Passion might be top-of-the-lungs screeching in “Born to Run” or “Streets of Fire.”  It means broken-hearted intensity in ballads such as “Back in Your Arms” or “Racing in the Street.”  It’s also having-a-grand-ole-joyful-time in “Glory Days” and most of the Seeger Sessions classic American folk tunes he recorded in 2006.  Would it surprise you that my will states I want Springsteen’s live recordings of “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In” and “This Little Light of Mine” played at my funeral Mass?

Just about every time I hear a Springsteen song, my conscience reminds me, do I put the same passion into my ministry, my prayer, my life, as this artist does into his life’s work?  As he sings in “Racing in the Street”:

Some guys they just give up living/And start dying little by little, piece by piece

Some guys come home from work and wash up/And go racin’ in the street.

As I’ve heard the Boss so many times ask us at concerts:  “IS THERE ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE?!!!”