Springsteen Coasters!

It's a little early to do another holiday gift guide for this year, but once you see what I recently received, you'll understand why I had to share (and slightly brag) in late October.  Given to me by infrequent blog contributor and creator of the creator of the blog - my mom - we have a set of four Bruce Springsteen coasters!

Each coaster is adorned with an iconic Springsteen album cover, starting with his debut album and ending with 1984's Born In The USA.  While one may complain about the omission of Darkness On The Edge of Town, I'd counter by saying your complaining over something so trivial is why we can't have nice things.

While I've broken down these albums in every conceivable way, let's rethink the way we see these albums.  And, by that, I mean: what types of beverages would these albums best support?

Greetings From Asbury Park: With this postcard picture, I can't help but think of summer vacations.  Therefore, a summer-y drink is the clear choice for this coaster.  Putting hot cocoa on this coaster would be a grave sin.

Recommended Drinks: Lemonade, Margaritas, Bud Light Lime, Anything That Has An Umbrella In It 

 

Born To Run: This is the piece-de-resistance of the coaster set.  You aren't going to just put any old drink on this; it has to be a SPECIAL drink.  This is the coaster you bust out when the pope comes to town.

Recommended Drinks: Fancy Wine, Fancy Beer, Fancy Whiskey, That Bottle Of Champagne You've Been Saving To Open When The Mets Win The World Series

The River: Boy, Bruce does not look good on this cover, and the coaster adds to his misery by punching a hole right through his nose.   This is the coaster you use after a long night of partying.  Put your hangover cure on this coaster, and every time you lift your drink up, you see Bruce staring back at you, with no judgement in his eyes.  He's been there, man.

Recommended Drinks: Water, Diet Coke, Smoothies, Hair Of The Dog

Born In The USA: Don't be distracted by that awkwardly placed hole.  This is a pure-American coaster, and the drinks it supports will encapsulate the country - freedom, freedom, eagles, baseball, and freedom.

Recommended Drinks: Cheap American Beer, Whole Milk

Unfortunately, it appears this particular set of coasters is difficult to find for sale on the Internet, so I apologize if I got you excited for nothing.  However, googling "Bruce Springsteen Coaster" does bring up other coaster options (as well as lyrics for "Spirit In The Night").  So, if you know a Springsteen fan with rings on his coffee table, consider your Christmas shopping done early.

Counting On A Package Deal, Part 1 - Greetings From Asbury Park

Being the mini-hipster that I am, I have found my apartment infested with a vinyl record collection.  I don't know how or when this happened - I just moved to Brooklyn about two years ago, and within weeks, there they were.  While I'm not as much of an audiophile to claim that I can hear a huge difference in sound quality, I do enjoy owning stuff.  And, what better stuff to own than trendy, hopelessly outdated, will-be-annoying-to-move-when-I-switch-apartments pieces of Springsteen memorabilia?

So, in this new series Counting On A Package Deal, I will be reviewing the packaging of these Springsteen records.  No, I won't be discussing any of the songs.  No, I will not be dissected the cover art.  Just, you know, the box it came in.  Still with  me?  Yes?  God bless you.

So, first up, we've got Greetings From Asbury Park, Springsteen's debut album.  Here, we've got a standard looking record.  While the front features very little to identify this as anything other than "Jersey music", the back tells another story:

Flip the record over, The back is crammed with Springsteen's crazy lyrics and a small picture of the young rascal.  It really shows off Springsteen's early, more verbose songs, as they can barely fit 5 songs on the back (although there is a tremendous excess of empty space at the bottom.  So far, it's a pretty by-the-book album package, but what's this?

The post-card is die-cut, revealing more lyrics!  It's extremely simple, but I must say, I do not own any other albums that make use of such a gimmick.  Plus, take a closer look at the back of the fake postcard - you even get to see little Bruce's face on a fake stamp (sadly, an honor we couldn't get Clarence Clemons). 

The album is nothing special, as we get the red Columbia records label.  That's something I have to give credit to CDs for - in their later years, they would make the discs stand-out more.  A spoiler alert for future Package Deal posts: you will be hard-pressed to tell the difference between Springsteen records, and probably assume I'm just re-using the same photo.

Sadly, the original record sleeve seems to have been lost to the ages, so I'll have to make due with the tiny pictures and microscopic notes that accompany the re-released CD.  I'm sure there's some fun Bruce stuff I could make snarky jokes about in here, but I'm not going to strain my eyes reading 2 point font.

So, there you have it: the first (and hopefully not last) installment of Counting On A Package Deal.  I hope you had fun reading it, or, failing that, I hope you enjoyed scrolling through the pictures.

Want a copy to call your own?  Purchase it here!

Great Moments in Springsteen Fandom: The Orchard Grill Incident

This story goes back to my college days at Niagara University. Go Purple Eagles!  During my senior year, my roommate Sean and I had a bit of a tradition. After our last class on Thursday (of course we designed our schedule to give us Fridays off) we would get absolutely annihilated drunk. That's not fair, we did it a lot more often then once a week, but Thursdays were special.

Every Thursday we would meet our friends Cara and Kate at The Orchard Grill. Most students at NU never even heard of this place. While most of the campus was out at the clubs or overpriced bars, we spent our time at Orchard Grill because it was so cheap and we loved the people who worked there. There were rarely other customers there, and if there were other customers, they didn't stay for long. This was like our own private bar. At the end of the night we got our tab, which was always something stupidly cheap like $20.  How could life be any grander?

They also had one of those old fashioned jukeboxes with the full albums on it, including Springsteen's Greetings From Asbury Park. Usually at some point during the night, I would put a few bucks in the machine and play the full album, much to the annoyance of my friends and the one or two other patrons in the bar.

But on one night in mid September of 2007 something "magical" happened. Somewhere during "Spirit in the Night", this big guy came up to me and said "Are you the guy who keeps playing Springsteen?" I assured him I was and he then asked me to come outside with him. Being chock full of whiskey and cheap beer I gladly did, but looking back on it now I can't believe I did this. This bar was in a crappy area of an even crappier city. You don't just follow strange men by yourself in the dark.  But I did, and as we approached his car, he gave me a copy of the new Springsteen CD, Magic!

I couldn't believe it, the album wasn't due out for a few more weeks!  I thought for sure it was hoax, but he assured me it wasn't. All he asked was that I buy him a beer back at the bar. Ah, that's what he wanted all along!  Well, beers were so cheap there I figured why not?  This was the most clever scam I had ever seen to get a beer. But it wasn't a scam. When I got home and put the CD on heard the opening chords of "Radio Nowhere" I realized this guy was for real. I don't know how he got it, I don't know who he was, as I never saw him again, and I don't know why he gave it to me. But I was sure glad he had, as it's one of my favorite Springsteen albums ever.

Lyrics Spotlight- "Mary Queen Of Arkansas"

“I don’t understand how you can hold me so tight and love me so damn loose.”
(“Mary Queen of Arkansas“, Greetings From Asbury Park)

Greetings is one of those albums I have to be in the mood to listen to.  That is not to say that it’s a bad album, or even one that I don’t enjoy.  But I just can’t throw it on, like I would Darkness or Born In The USA.  Bruce still hadn't established himself as Bruce yet.  He was still trying to figure out his own identity and gave in too easy to his influences and tried to write songs like Dylan and Elvis.  It wasn't until Born To Run when he identified himself as Bruce Springsteen, and would go on to inspire an entire generation of singers and songwriters himself.

But he still had some great songs before Born To Run, and they are counted among his fans as some of his best work.  I wouldn't exactly call this song that, but there are some who do, and good for them.  I was listening to this song and never noticed this lyric before.  It’s pure Springsteen, and it’s lyrics like that foreshadowed the Bruce that was to come and would become so beloved.

I haven’t exactly had the best luck with the fairer sex.  I won’t act like I have been terribly wronged by them, or lost the great love of my life.  But like everyone, I've had my share of heartbreak and great moments too.  But it’s only in looking back at them that we realize that maybe some of them weren't as great as we think they were.  Maybe if we paid a little more attention to signals at that time, instead of interpreting them the way we would want them, it would have helped.  At least there’s always Bruce to help us.

Springsteen Lyrics of the Week - Spirit in the Night

"We'll pick up Hazy Davy and Killer Joe
And I'll take you all out to where the gypsy angels go"
- Spirit in the Night, Greetings from Asbury Park

Right now there's a really good movie (but not for the faint of heart) called Killer Joe playing in limited release. Whenever I read about it or think about it I can't help thinking about the above lyrics from "Spirit in the Night." The song is not played in the movie (nor would it fit) and isn't referenced anywhere in the dialogue. I don't suspect the playwright Tracy Letts had it in mind when writing the play in 1993 either.

In fact, I doubt anyone except the Bruce obsessives would connect the film with the song. But maybe I'm wrong! Maybe I'm underestimating the staying power of the many vivid characters Bruce has created, especially the large casts assembled in his first two albums. Regardless of the filmmakers' intentions, I've been listening to the song with increased interest the past few days and thank them for that.

Springsteen Lyrics of the Week - Blinded By The Light

"Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat

In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat"

--Blinded By The Light, Greetings from Asbury Park

I know we've just recently discussed this song in a lyrics of the week post,  but I wanted to call special attention to it again, as this was the first song on Bruce's first album.  These two lines, with their plethora of internal rhymes and nonsense imagery, are what Bruce chose to make his first impact on the musical world with.  While this was a risky move, the lyrics displayed youthful playfulness and energy, encapsulating the strongest element of Springsteen's career at the time - his live performances.

Springsteen Lyrics of the Week - Blinded by the Light

He said, "Take a right at the light, keep goin' straight until night, and then, boy, you're on your own"
- "Blinded by the Light," Greetings from Asbury Park

The version of “Blinded by the Light” released by Manfred Mann's Earth Band has long been a favorite song of mine. I vividly remember the first time I heard it. I was fifteen and listening to the car radio while my Dad picked up groceries from Publix during a vacation in Florida. I was instantly captivated by its energetic intro, distinct synthesizer, drastic tempo changes... and baffling lyrics.

I listened to it nonstop that summer. The more I listened to it, the more I decided that the only explanation for the lyrics were that they were hastily scribbled down by a psychedelic rocker in the throes of mind-altering drugs. I couldn’t fathom any other explanation for the flat out bizarre lyrics.

Years later I discovered the song was written by Bruce Springsteen and I realized, “Oh it's just Bruce being Bruce.” Few rock stars have as squeaky clean a history as Bruce. To my knowledge there is no evidence or even conjecture that he's ever had any drug usage in his life. It’s tempting to posit the lyrics to “Blinded by the Light” (or “Bishop Danced”) as indication that Bruce at least tried drugs in his youth, but upon reading the lyrics closely and listening to Bruce’s original version from Greetings from Asbury Park, they seem to reflect Bruce’s observation of a surfeit of oddball characters on the Jersey Shore boardwalk and his attempt to cram them all into one song.

The lyrics above are omitted from Manfred Mann's epic toe-tapper. In a certain respect they are quintessential Bruce lyrics – they involve literal and metaphorical driving and the existentialist undercurrent that if you want to make it out of this town, you have to do it yourself. This is too deep for the Manfred Mann version – which in many respects is a superior song – but they reflect the care and precision that Bruce puts into what otherwise seems like haphazard song writing in the hands of another performer.