Irresistible possibilities

Jan. 22, 2004

Dear Patty,

As a young man, I aspired to be a songwriter. Joni Mitchell made me swoon, Jackson Browne understood my soul, James Taylor made me want to learn to play the guitar. Soon enough I knew I lacked Taylor's musicianship, Browne's poetry and Mitchell's stunning, passionate voice. That didn't stop me.

I submitted some lyrics to the address in an ad in Rolling Stone magazine. Somebody wrote back to say they loved my lyrics and would happily turn them into real songs with real melodies for a reasonable fee. I was not quite naive and eager enough to believe in this fairytale.

My friend, Randy, was writing songs then. We teamed up on one recorded by a young country singer who never made it. At some point, I accepted that songwriting didn't come naturally to me. Many songwriters don't let that stop them.

The first time I heard a Bruce Springsteen song, I think it was "Rosalita," I knew here was the Natural, out in the street pre-rap rapping "I'm comin' to liberate you, confiscate you" to Rosie framed in the window.

But "Rosalita" could not prepare anyone for the flabbergasting "Born to Run."

Here it was, the American rock 'n' roll dream, in one package: Passion and soulfulness and a Telecaster.

At the time I was in college at Mizzou, where a classmate from New Jersey made fun of Springsteen for romanticizing a place -- Asbury Park -- he knew to be a grimy little beach town nobody would live in if they had a choice.

He didn't understand. Springsteen's art was making Midwestern boys like me fall in love with the idea of Asbury Park and with the idea of hiding with a girl on the backstreets. They were exhilarating songs about heartbreaking lives.

I responded to the wail in his voice and to the feeling that produced it.

There was something dangerous and fun-loving about it all at the same time. The possibilities of the night and the road were irresistible.

In Rolling Stone, Greil Marcus observed that "Born to Run" invariably suggests the old tattoo "Born to Lose." His songs are set somewhere between the two, Marcus wrote, "as if to say, the only run worth making is the one that forces you to risk losing everything you have."

That was it. That's still it.

More than a century earlier, Walt Whitman said something similar in "Leaves of Grass":

"Sail forth -- steer for the deep waters only,

Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,

and we will risk the ship, ourselves and all."

That's where Springsteen took you, hand in hand toward the Promised Land.

Though they're still magnificent, I don't listen to those Springsteen songs anymore. When you finish with running, you stop so you can listen for your own voice.

Randy still writes songs -- good ones. I still don't.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is the managing editor for the Southeast Missourian.