Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle

I really love the Fall here in Ohio.  Football starts and while the leaves falling make me sneeze, I just love it here.  That really doesn't have anything to do with listening to records, you might think, but I assure you I've listened to an amazing amount of records while I watched football with the sound off on the TV.  Everything about Fall seems new to me.  It's weird that I feel that way, but I suppose it has to do with memories of school and new classes, clothes, friends and all that stuff.  We'd get all new radio shows on the college stations and I'd always blow some clothes money on records instead of clothes.  So if you ask me, New Year's Day should be September first, because everything seems new then.  Nothing seems new January first.  It's like celebrating the middle day of a long coma.  There's no fun clambakes or anything, and the media has messed up New Year's Day football.  So my idea is better.

Which brings me to Bruce Springsteen.  I got The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle when I was supposed to be buying school jeans or shirts and I convinced the friend I was with we should go to a record store instead of The Levitation or The Pant Scene.  I think I remember getting talked into buying "some Springsteen" by my friend.  I don't dislike Bruce, but I never understood the people that were head over heels for him, like Kid Leo on WMMS.  That dude loved Bruce, and I think he's the one that initially nicknamed Bruce The Boss.  So here in Cleveland, Bruce was huge.  This album was older than other records that were out at the time, but I had already owned Born to Run on 8 Track and I think I gave it to a friend that liked it more than me.  I knew I didn't like the way Bruce sang "darkness on the eh-eh-eh-eh hedge of town," so I figured I'd get an older album and see if there wasn't something there I'd like a little more than what everyone was listening to.

Now I know that the Internets make it seem like Bruce was huge right from 1973, but I assure you - in 1978 when I bought this album no high school kids had heard any of it.  Maybe Rosalita got some airplay, but probably not until after the first of the year in 1979, when Bruce did two sold out shows New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  So I figured if I got something older, maybe I'd get a way into hearing and feeling all that was special about Bruce that I was kind of missing.

Because all my friends had his records and seemed to love the guy.  I went and saw those New Year's shows two years in a row and the shows were really fun.  I still never cared if I heard Bruce on the radio or not.  I had a shirt that I liked, too, but I got it at one of those New Year's shows.  So I don't really know why I'm so ambivalent about Bruce.  I had fun at his shows, my friends all loved the guy, so what gives?

I think what gives is that he's just too much.  It's too many musicians, too many stories, too many sax solo's, too many words and just too much for my head.  As I listen to this I've got to wonder, "will I ever play this again?"  I don't know.  I might and then again I might not.  I'm sure I could get some decent store credit if I took this in, but I've had it so long, and what if I finally "get it" someday?  It's happened before.  I was in hate with Aerosmith for a long time, and I kind like some of their stuff these days.  This is a nice, flat and quiet record (because I hardly ever play it) and these days there are plenty of people that would love to have it.  I just can't seem to decide if I'm that guy.