Bruce Springsteen used the proceeds from his record "The River" to buy a grand piano and a sports car in 1980. 36 years later, the rock star is celebrating his first number one album with a world tour. 130 million records sold and 13 Grammys notwithstanding, the American working-class son from New Jersey has remained a do-gooder.
At 66, Bruce Springsteen is still rocking for justice.
Adele is his biggest fan. Just recently, Bruce Springsteen gave the British singer a big hello. Because "The Boss" wanted to prevent her from having to freeze at his concert in Lisbon, he lent her his coat. The musician has been living the dream of rock stardom for almost 50 years.
The latest example shows: The working-class son from New Jersey, who as a young boy was only allowed to marvel at the bright lights of New York from afar, has remained human. When Bruce Springsteen celebrates his first number one album "The River" at the Letzigrund in Zurich on July 31, he and his E Street Band will not only be playing for themselves, but above all for their fans. At least 33 songs are on the setlist. As befits the old master, he will present all the great numbers from his own rock history: "Born In The USA", "The Rising", "Streets Of Philadelphia", "Born To Run", "Hungry Heart" - and what they are all called.
In the 60s and 70s, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly were Bruce Springsteen's heroes. His first records were therefore characterized by rock 'n' roll, folk and blues. The young musician worked hard for his success. He worked all night on his songs, went to bed at eight in the morning and got back to work at four in the afternoon with a notepad and guitar. "I suffered from a serious lack of light for at least one winter," he later recalls.
Bruce Springsteen hated stadium concerts
The rocker only had a normal job for a short time - as a gardener. "Suddenly there's more money than we can spend," he said in 1978. Three years earlier, he had made his breakthrough with the record "Born To Run". In 1980, the album "The River" climbed to number one, and in the years that followed, Bruce Springsteen released anthems such as "Born In The USA", "Dancing In The Dark" and "Glory Days". This was pure stadium rock and suited the zeitgeist of the time, but he had also reached the peak of his career during this decade.
Fans were now flocking to the concerts in their tens of thousands. This was not planned. Just ten years ago, Springsteen had declared in an interview that large stadiums would make him "sick". "We will never play concerts with over 3,000 spectators," he said with certainty. This was not the only opinion the music legend later revised. During his career, Bruce Springsteen developed from a youthful rebel to an intellectual conformist.
A man in transition
The young musician saw life in Long Branch, New Jersey, as a dead end. Springsteen was a working-class kid with a lack of prospects. "I was
a dreamer, one of the freaks of the city." School was not his thing. He still remembers today how a teacher once pushed his head into the wastepaper basket and left him with the words "That's where you belong". His father didn't accept the rebel either. His mother, on the other hand, meant well by her boy. When Bruce was 13, she gave him a guitar and showed him the way out of his misery. Springsteen later dealt with his difficult youth in his songs by repeatedly slipping into the role of the American bourgeois with his everyday worries and hardships. He described his homeland as miserable and bleak. Lines like "Baby, we were born to run" speak volumes.
And today? After years of living the rock 'n' roll life, Bruce found his way back to his roots. The rock star turned his back on chic Beverly Hills. He now lives near Freehold, just half an hour from his hometown, and enthuses: "God bless the Garden State. It's a great place to live." The music legend has also changed his mind when it comes to family life. "I couldn't raise children. I could never do that. It's just too heavy," he said in his mid-20s. The 66-year-old now has two sons and a daughter.
Fighting for justice
After 13 Grammys and the last great pop ballad "Streets of Philadelphia" in the 90s, Bruce Springsteen also found his way back to his beginnings musically. With the album "The Rising" in 2003 at the latest - the first in 18 years with the E Street Band - the rocker had returned to where he came from: folk and blues. In terms of content, the album reflects his impressions of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. As a working class hero with an ambivalent relationship to his origins, Springsteen has since become increasingly politically active and fights for justice.
In 2008, he made a name for himself with the words "I want my country back. I want my dream back. I want my America back" for the election of Barack Obama. Four years ago, he wrote the song "My City of Ruins" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Last April, the musician canceled a concert in North Carolina at short notice to protest against a discriminatory law on transgender bathroom use.
Bruce Springsteen is a do-gooder. This is shown by another anecdote from half a century of rock history: he once wrote an apology to a nine-year-old for school because the little boy was afraid he would oversleep the morning after the Springsteen concert. The Californian fan knew: "The Boss" is known for his shows lasting several hours. With stories like that, you forgive the former rebel his somewhat conformist nature. And in the words of the old rock master: "It's not a sin to be glad you're alive."
