Back to music

As this morning's other post suggests, the news of the country have depressed me this Wednesday. I am trying to reclaim that and music is a good place to start.

In tracing my favorite albums, I have already discussed Bustin Out and Joshua Tree. My third, as I hinted yesterday, is a backtrack--kind of.

Perhaps it is an occupational hazzard, but I find it interesting how we remember the past. When I was going through my musical evolution (sorry, Kansas), I remembered Joshua Tree much earlier in the 80s decade. I had forgotten it came out in 87. And while I liked U2's earlier stuff, songs like "New Years Day" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" were great, but didn't make me listen to the album over and over.

In 1984, Bruce Springsteen really hit it big. He released Born in the USA and I really should have remembered that because as I recall, the Reagan campaign wanted to use that song, even though it was not the jingoistic song they thought it was, nor did it really represent Republican values. I liked some of the songs off that album at first, but was still in the mode of thinking that I was really not a rocker. My brother again made an impact. During a visit to his house, I discovered this album and found out that my older brother loved this album. When Springsteen came through town in those stadium concerts, he went.

Somehow that gave me permission. I started listening to Springsteen more. And discovered Born to Run. I like songs on his other albums, but Born to Run is the most consistent and thematic. Starting with Thunder Road and ending with Jungle Land and only 8 songs long, the album really doesn't strike a bad note. They are all strong and all worth listening to.

We had an interim youth minister about that time who was cool. He had the album on vinyl and lent it to me so I could tape it. His vinyl was scratched from constant playing, and it wasn't until I finally replaced it on cd that I heard the album without the scratches. In some ways, that was even better.

A really great album. I still remember SOF and I driving one late night from Houston to Dallas listening to it from beginning to end, turned up as loud as we could stand.