There’s a beauty in having natural talent. While those who meticulously hone their work and continually aim to craft their art with rigorous and devoted practice command respect, there is a giddy thrill in our favourite artist being blessed by a creative deity. Bruce Springsteen is one such lucky soul.
That’s not to say that Springsteen hasn’t worked hard. To make it as a songwriter is, by nature, to work hard to be heard. Add to this that Springsteen sprang up during the peak of the singer-songwriter explosion as the 1970s shone a light on a new era of rock and roll, and you have yourself a seriously difficult path to greatness. But ‘The Boss’ has always had two things that set him apart: natural charisma and unbridled talent.
That talent can be heard across a whole range of his music. Born To Run, Nebraska, and The River are albums that will outlast most of the people who first picked them up off the shelves of their local record store. They can traverse generations, as Springsteen once noted when speaking with author Nick Hornby for The Guardian: “I remember I was playing over here a while back and I was staring down and there was a kid, he couldn’t have been more than 14, 15, he was mouthing every word to us, Greetings From Asbury Park, literally word for word and this kid – forget about it, his parents were the glimmer in somebody’s eye.”
But Springsteen has rarely allowed his humility to be outdone by ego, and has kept his feet firmly on the ground for the majority of his career. It has, in part, been one of the driving forces of that career reaching such heights, meaning his work is still reaching millions to this day. Able to hone in on the collective feeling and give it a new life within a song.
During an interview with Howard Stern, Springsteen would reflect on that when asked about the tracks he was most proud of. Struggling to find just one, noting many tunes from the aforementioned albums, he did land on ‘The Rising’ and how the track allowed him to convey the heartbreak America was enduring following the tragic 9/11 attacks in New York.
“You write what you can,” Springsteen noted about the album and the titular song that was released during a new era of what it meant to be American. “You go, ‘Do I have anything to say?’ and — in the case of the 11th — ‘Is it possible to say anything about this?’ … That’s why what I wrote was a prayer. All I [knew] how to do [then was] to pray.”
“When you can write those, you’re lucky,” Springsteen added. It’s difficult to ignore this part of the equation. Writing songs is certainly not without technique and talent, but it is also more easily understood as a localised piece of sonic sorcery that is able to be captured and transferred into a global connection. Springsteen continued: “It’s your craft, your talent, you’ve put the years in, you know how to put a piece of music together, but at the same time there’s always something going on that you don’t understand […] the x-factor. That’s why [when you ask,] ‘Will you write again?’ Who knows? It’s magic.”
With one song, Springsteen was able to portray an America that wasn’t sure about itself and what it looked like. Craftsmanship is one thing, but being able to understand a nation is something very special. Springsteen wasn’t the only one “lucky” to get that song.
