There were times in 2020 and 2021, when Covid-19 sank into the darkness, that I would visit a park in Connecticut, stare across the pond and out into the sky, look beyond the darkness and ask what lay beyond it. Beyond the darkness there was one voice I heard: Bruce Springsteen’s.
For months I prayed this terrible pandemic would end. I prayed for a sunny day, for the clouds to pass and for the sun to shine through my world. As I dreamt the moments where I crept towards the light on the edge of town,
I heard Springsteen’s voice on the other side of it.
And I resolved, dammit, I resolved to see The Boss when the Darkness gave.
It was only four years before then where my father’s copy of Born In the USA became. I would spin it in my flat on Mazenod Avenue, a stone’s throw away from Kilburn High Road and an eternity away from where I wanted to be. I felt so lonely but, as the needle touched the vinyl, the sounds of Springsteen’s America perforated through my tiny flat.
I felt less alone. I felt like dancing.
Fitzie’s track of the day, part one: Dancing In the Dark, by Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen sings for the kids born on the wrong side of the tracks, for the youths whose draft cards were pulled during the Vietnam War, and for all those running down a last-gasp chance at the American Dream – whatever that Dream might be.
And wherever it might be.
I would sit in my flat, all by myself in London, and dream of a better life. And I would sit on that park bench in Connecticut for this Darkness Got To Give. I dreamt of Springsteen.
Six years later – and after a 70-minute queue to get into the stadium – the Darkness gave.
I missed the first handful of songs of Springsteen’s concert in Washington DC. I entered the Promised Land as The Boss played on the harmonica in the aforementioned song. And then, as Hungry Heart played across the rain-soaked ballpark, the clouds that darkened the skies of Connecticut all those years ago broke wide open. The sun shone through, the rain filled the air.
Because, to me, listening to Springsteen is like listening to the triumphs of a journey and the journey’s destination to come. To listen to him is to listen to sunlight.
And, as the rain fell down in Navy Yard, I felt my eyes well up.
Fitzie’s track of the day, part two: Hungry Heart, by Bruce Springsteen
Perhaps this was the accumulation of years, so many years, of one of the kids to whom Springsteen sings to.
That, no matter what, there’ll be Better Days. The Glory Days may come and go, but Springsteen’s music is inherently optimistic and joyful. And what better, more powerful song to break through the darkness than the fist-pumping Badlands?
Listen to the song, rev up your motorcycle, drive up the I-95 and into the sunset. Break through into the darkness. Break into the night and god dammit, crank up the Springsteen baby.
Fitzie’s track of the day, part three: Badlands, by Bruce Springsteen
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