BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Ever feel like you’ve said it three times when you haven’t said it at all?

What a weird weekend. My band went on vacation and left me alone for 72 hours to finish up vocals on some demo songs. Nine-and-one-quarter songs, of which I made two sound partially tolerable. I finished about half of the rest, but blew out my upper register during hour 30 of the 32 hours I spent trying my best. A light bulb went out in the room minutes before my voice turned to mush. It was terrifying.

As my Last.fm can testify, I couldn’t really listen to any music when I was away from the rehearsal room. In my apartment—where I took most of my meals—I sat in silence, alone and gravelly, drinking a cup of Throat Coat per hour. All I could think about were melodies that didn’t quite work and lyrics that I did or didn’t find oppressive, insincere, too-ridiculous or any of the other things that drive me crazy about lyrics. Literally, I would go to the practice space around 2 pm, then come home around 2 am. Before going to sleep all I could do was drink tea and watch Twin Peaks Youtube’s until I knew I’d have some sort of nightmare. On Sunday night I dreamt I was in a house that only had stairs on the left side of this ochre room, and when I walked up the stairs it became pitch black until I emerged in the same room I was in before, with the same crooked frames on peeling walls, unsavory faceless people on torn velvet couches, and that same flight of stairs going up to the left. Somewhat logically, I looked out a window. Outside looked like that dreamy desert from Beetle Juice, with a few more of these houses that went up five or six stories to the left. Like I said, weird weekend.

Friday was great, though. All day long I felt excited about being alone with these songs that have been months in the making. I threw my iPod on shuffle at work and enjoyed the randomness of the 12,500 songs crammed in there. Admittedly, I hoped for inspiration. The third song to come up was this Bruce Springsteen song, “Downbound Train.” I’d never really listened to it before and until The Boss comes in I swore it was a twangy Cure song. It’s a great song about lonliness. I listened to it three times in a row. I thought about the song all weekend. It hovered above my own songs, a distant statute of tamed greatness blurred across a weird desert of my own flat notes, awkward words, and imagined monsters with Michael Keaton’s face.



Click to download “Downbound Train” by Bruce Springsteen from the album Born In The U.S.A.







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