Heroic Perspectives
Springsteen, live, onstage—in a living room chair.
Earlier this week, I found myself about thirty feet away from Bruce Springsteen—again. As was the case last time, this was because of my friend and theater maven Lizanne Rosenstein, who took it upon herself to get me a free ticket to see Hamilton at the Public Theater in 2015 (I had no clue about the greatness I was about to witness) and who put me in the third row for a Springsteen on Broadway show two years later. This time, she saw to it that I was again in the third row for what was billed as a “conversation” with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, whose memoir, Like A Rolling Stone, was published on Tuesday. Springsteen, a longtime friend of Wenner, pitched him a series of softball questions in what was a light and entertaining evening at the 92nd St. Y on the Upper East Side.
I’ve never met Bruce Springsteen, which at this point in my life I consider a personal failure. Twenty-five years ago, I published a book about his place in American culture, and right now am writing another. I know people, fans and writers, who have managed to do so, including biographer Peter Ames Carlin, who overcame stiff resistance to achieve sustained access to Springsteen in the process of writing his 2012 New York Times bestseller Bruce. (Carlin once gave me an unforgettable tour of Springsteen’s native Freehold, New Jersey.) I’d like to think that my diffidence about pursuing Springsteen is a matter of becoming modesty, but I know the truth is closer to cowardice.
So beyond my intrinsic interest in this event—I’ve read both Robert Draper’s and Joe Hagan’s books about Wenner, published in 1990 and 2017 respectively—I relished the opportunity to see Springsteen as close-up as I am likely to ever again. My initial reaction was one of disappointment: he looked just like he would have on a computer screen (we live in an age where the simulacrum seems more vivid than the real thing). But as my gaze intensified I did begin to achieve a reassuring granularity, like observing the worn soles of his boots and the precise cuffing of his blue jeans. Springsteen once explained his couture as a tribute to this father: “I put on his clothes and went to work. It was the way I honored him.” A conceit, but a loving one.
Indeed, it was striking in this context to see Springsteen juxtaposed against the purple sweater-clad Wenner, a golden California boy who ascended to the ceiling stratum of American celebrity culture by embodying the youth culture of the 1960s. (Wenner was 21 years old when the first edition of Rolling Stone was published in 1967; Springsteen, whose prospects at the time were distinctly unpromising, had just graduated from high school.) It’s easy to make too much of this: both are now members of a global elite, confidants of presidents. Springsteen repeatedly drew self-effacing contrasts between Wenner’s burnished youth and his own hardscrabble one, a tactic that had a distinctly performative quality. But it is a tribute to the elasticity of late 20th American society that it could absorb two genuinely different people and put them on equal standing (or, in this case, sitting).
Actually, I found Springsteen’s jokey persona interesting—more precisely, unexpected—because it seemed to reflect a touch of insecurity. He had a looseleaf binder he consulted to ask Wenner questions, and I found myself unselfconsciously thinking: Wow, I could do this better than him. Springsteen got better as the conversation persisted and I thought he did an excellent job of asking Wenner how he edited writers like Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe, making an apt comparison between the work of an editor and that of a producer (Springsteen’s, Jon Landau, had once been the record review editor of Rolling Stone).
For me, the key moment of the evening occurred when Wenner compared Springsteen to the Rolling Stones. Wenner said he loved seeing the Stones, but that he was aware when doing so that he was witnessing an oldies act: the band had stopped making new music. Springsteen—Wenner also cited Bob Dylan—was different in that even in the autumn of his life he continued to push himself creatively. It is worth noting in this regard that Springsteen has released nine albums in the last twenty years, a pace that would be daunting for an artist half his age—I’m looking at you, Taylor Swift; I’ve preordered your next one. Springsteen, Wenner asserted, remained relevant.
Springsteen looked abashed by this praise. “I have to pretend that’s true,” he said quietly in that jokey voice he was using. “My job depends on it.” At some level, there was something disingenuous about this: Springsteen loves to compare being the world’s greatest living rock star to a “job” when a closer, if still imprecise, term would be “career.” (In his brand new book Status and Culture, sociologist W. David Marx says “artist” is not an occupation—it’s an honorific title.”) There was nevertheless a genuine vulnerability in this reply. Springsteen will turn 73 years old next week, an age when many people have retired, willingly or not. (Wenner, for his part, surrendered control of Rolling Stone in 2019, a painful moment that’s the point of departure in his memoir.) Moreover, however impressive, it’s been 20 years since Springsteen made an album—The Rising, his monument to 9/11—that had the force of a major statement in American culture at large. The sense of frailty seemed real, even as, it should be said, Springsteen looked wonderful: a gleamingly robust septuagenarian. It appears he has the good genes of his 96-year-old mother, Adele; let’s hope he can escape the Alzheimer’s that afflicts the life force of a woman who endowed her son with so much of what’s best about him, notably a capacity for unbridled joy. But Springsteen seemed to be under no illusions about his limits, and was making only a partial effort to hide them.
Wenner was not quite as vibrant. He has undergone open heart surgery, two back operations, and four eye operations in recent years. His mental acuity was fully intact there onstage, and he spoke convincingly about gratitude and savoring the fact of being alive. At the end of the evening he rose and walked without obvious challenges, though I noticed that Springsteen, who was unexpectedly tall beside him, instinctively sprang to his feet to make sure there would be no difficulties.
Amid the artifice and subtle but unmistakable perquisites of fame, there was nevertheless a becoming, and instructive, modesty about the whole affair. For over forty years of my fandom now, Springsteen, thirteen years my senior, has been pointing the way. It’s reassuring that he’s still doing so—that legends can still live, usefully and authentically.
Coming Soon: My forthcoming book 1980: America’s Pivotal Year. Pre-order now!
