Every Word Handwritten Or, Pull It Out, Turn It Up, What’s Your Favorite Song?

I have this really great knack for making friends with people who love music.

Like, really LOVE it without being pretentious Barry-esque chowderheads.

Barry is judging you. With his eyes.

A couple of days go, Dana texted me with lyrics to Prince’s Raspberry Beret. Let’s be honest here – ain’t nobody gonna love you more than the person who texts you Prince lyrics. True love is Fountain Diet Cokes, Prince lyrics and shoulder kisses and if anyone tells you otherwise — they’re lying.

A friend and I have been having this ongoing conversation about the generational shift in listening to music. My boy is a little older than I am so he grew up in the album era where you let your tape rock til your tape popped whereas I was an album girl for a hot minute when I still bought CDs but made the smooth transition over to individual songs via mp3 and haven’t really looked back since.

Lately, I’ve come to a realization. Listening to individual songs is like reading favored quotes from a novel. They sound good but you’re not seeing the whole picture.

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

It’s beautiful, right? A great love story – lush, poetic and effulgent with hope but unless you read the entire text, you have no way of knowing that this gorgeous scrawl is actually about how the very hope that sustains a man will eventually destroy him (unless you’re a real cynic who thinks all stories about pretty girls end in heartbreak).

That being the case, I’m coming back around to listening to entire albums straight through. And that has a lot to do with Spotify and The Gaslight Anthem’s Handwritten.

Spotify is like being best friends with a really good DJ who doesn’t try to make you listen to shit you don’t care about and Handwritten? It might just be a perfect album.

It is a labor of love – every word handwritten. Every track painstakingly handpicked. These songs have this incredible ability to make me nostalgic for my own life. I’ve never been down to Biloxi Parish or driven on Mulholland Drive, but I get it.

The sentiment is universal and listening to the record, your nostalgia kicks up like dust swirling in a summer breeze.

My favorite thing about this record is how I don’t have a favorite thing.

However, I play this game where I try to choose and much like picking your favorite sandwich, it’s an exercise in futility (Go ahead. Try to pick your favorite sandwich. You can’t do it, can you?) as well as a testament to Brian Fallon’s skills as a songwriter:

I love the cadence of the chorus in Howl – “From your hips on down like elec-tric through the ground.”
No.
Wait.
It’s the Van Morrison-esque Oh-Sha-La-La sweetness in Here Comes My Man.
No.
Wait.
Biloxi Parish. Totally Biloxi Parish because he’s right – nothing truly matters that you cannot find for free.
Wait.
I take that back.
Desire has that great line about giving anything for the touch of your skin and the song is damp with longing. Like, the same kind of longing that Bruce sang about in I’m On Fire.
Oh and God, Mae! Because it’s rooted so deeply in Thunder Road and damn if it ain’t pretty…

I’ve always had a space for this album inside me. I just didn’t know it until I heard it and I’m so glad I did.

Having heard it, I feel a little more complete and isn’t that the whole point? To find missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle until you’re whole?

Bitch Bad, Woman Good, Lady Better Or, Hip Hop Heteronyms

I can rhyme every word of Juicy by Biggie, I took a hip hop class in college where I wrote papers about the Geto Boys’ Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta and the whitewashing of hip hop culture and I can, have and will continue to get into raging arguments who can truly be considered the G.O.A.T. (Hov’ obv’)

Despite this, I don’t consider myself a hip hop head.

Mostly because the hip hop I listen to is equal parts party and bullshit and party and bullshit.

I know that hip hop can be lush and poetic. Lyrical, gritty, eloquent, intellectual and socially-conscious. As someone who loves words, I should devour this stuff. Gorging myself with a half-mad ferocity but for reasons utterly unknown, I don’t.

Instead, I shimmy shimmy ya and gleefully boast that I see some ladies tonight that should be havin’ my baby, baby…

Luckily, I have a litany of people in my life far more plugged in than I am and who have no problem dropping some knowledge.

A couple of months ago, Biffle sent me this video:

I didn’t know much about Lupe Fiasco other than I really liked the track he did with Jill Scott (Daydreamin‘) and The Show Goes On – a gem that based on a Modest Mouse sample but after one listen, I was hooked.

Bitch Bad is a pretty interesting commentary on misogyny in hip hop culture and the double-edged duality of the word ‘bitch.’

(Tangential aside: I Googled ‘Most Misogynistic…’ and it immediately auto-completed to ‘rap songs’ which I feel is slightly unfair.

Yes, the Ying Yang Twinz says some really shitty things about women but you know what, dudes? So does Mick Jagger.

And as utterly repugnant as the words to The Whisper Song are, Under My Thumb is so much worse.

I love the song. I really do. I think it is a great piece of music and when it comes on, I turn it up loud but the lyrics terrify me.

“It’s down to me, oh that’s what I said /The way she talks when she’s spoken to/Down to me/A change has come/She’s under my thumb,”

Kaine and D-Roc are practically vibrating with testosterone-fueled bullshit braggadocio. But Jagger? He genuinely seems to abhor the woman in his life. That is real misogyny, not some pissing contest between two clamheads)

There’s a school of thought that reclaiming a negative word abjures it of its power, thereby empowering the formerly disenfranchised. The grande dames of hip hop like Missy, Nicki and Queen Bitch herself, Lil’ Kim brandish this word like a flaming sword.

Oh, you think I’m a bitch?
No, no, no, honey.
I’m the bitch.
The meanest, the prettiest, the baddest mofo lowdown around this town.
Sho’Nuff.

And there’s the other razor-edge of the scimitar.

Where a bitch isn’t all She-Ra powerful and in total control of herself but rather a conniving harridan who betta’ have your money or a gyrating, semi-naked piece of bubblegum – delicious and disposable.

So, which one is it? The latter? The former?

Personally, I believe it’s both. Words are malleable and intensely personal. A revolutionary can be a freedom fighter or a terrorist depending on which side of the line you’re standing on just as a bitch can be a zenith to which a woman should aspire to or a nadir to which she can sink.

I’m not a fan of the word ‘bitch.’ I never have been. I just feel there are better ways to extol your bad-assery than repossessing venom and spitting it back out with equal rancor. There are just too many good words out there to merely settle on an arrow shot in your direction

And despite never being mistaken for a lady or ever being called a woman (‘Muppet-esque baby child’ is much closer to the truth), I’m with Fiasco on this one: bitch bad, woman good, lady better, but my name is probably best.

Or if you wanna be real sweet, call me honey. Seriously. It’s ridiculous how far that’ll get you.

They Call Me Guitar Hurricane Or, It’s Only Rock & Roll But I Like It

Every year, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame releases a list of inductees and my blood pressure spikes a little.
Every year, I look over the list, realize they’ve made the same glaring omission, my blood pressure shoots up and I have a rage blackout.
And by rage blackout, I mean I write a cranky blog post.

See, when I was nineteen, I fell in love.

Hard.

I convinced a buddy of mine (heretofore known as Guitar Boy) to give me guitar lessons and every week, we’d meet on his driveway where I would learn how to play an A chord, figure out tabs and expand my musical horizons. My favorite part of these sessions was my weekly assignment — “Dude. Go home and download this. Next week, we talk about it.”

This is how I learned about Bad Brains, Anthrax, Rush and Steve Vai.

One afternoon, dude looks at me and says, “Alright. Go home and download Stevie Ray Vaughan. He’s a blues guitarist. Listen to Texas Flood and we’ll talk blues next week.”

I went home and downloaded Texas Flood.

It was good. Really good – all sweltering summer storms and fat beads of condensation slowly running down the necks of beer bottles. I liked it so much, I checked out his other work and the next week, headed over to my buddy’s place bubbling over with the kind of enthusiasm one can only get from true love.

Me: DUDE! Stevie Ray Vaughan is amazing. How come I’ve never heard of him? Have you heard Mary Had A Little Lamb? Holy shit! And Pride and Joy? Oh my God, that song! Can you imagine how great that would be live?
Guitar Boy: Dude, you know he’s dead right?

I stop. A total pause as if I’m being simultaneously punched in the solar plexus, doused with liquid nitrogen and walking in on Aunt Jemima rogering Crispin Glover (Yeah. Sleep easy at night with that mental image)

Me: What?
Guitar Boy: Yeah. Like, ten years ago, It was a plane crash or something*.

I stared at him and this utterly irrational surge of rage rushed through me.

Then, I basically Hadouken’d this kid

Considering he’s 6’4″ and I’m 4’11″, this was actually kind of impressive.

Me: You asshole! You knew I would love this and you knew he was dead and you made me fall in love with him anyway and I can never see him or hear new music from him and I hate you!
Guitar Boy: … (but his face is a mask of, “Wow. You’re just a teeny little gerbil of crazy!”)

I felt like I had been robbed.

And every single year, I get irrationally angry when I see the list of inductees and Stevie Ray isn’t on the list. Again.

Look. I know in the grand scheme of things, it’s not important. I mean, not really. There are other things in this world I should be focusing my energy on. But this matters to me.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was this amazing guitarist and when I listen to his music, I feel something. It strikes a chord in me that precious little else does.

Lenny might be an instrumental but it says more about that blissed-out dreamy stage of being in love than anything I’ve ever read. And he bends those notes and makes his guitar cry, I’m right there weeping with him.

So, Stevie Ray deserves this. He deserves to have John Mayer give a stirring elegy about how six strings animated Stevie Ray and in turn, Stevie Ray bought that guitar to life. He deserves to have a ragtag band of bluesmen and rockers rattle the stage with covers of The Sky is Crying, Crossfire and Testify.

He deserves to have people know his name, his music and the legacy he left behind.

And hopefully one day, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will realize this and honor the man in the way he deserves…but until then, I’m going to keep banging this drum and turning up the volume because they call him Guitar Hurricane and he came to rock my town…and he does. Every single time.

* It was actually a helicopter crash.

Something To Believe In Or, Last Night, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Changed My Life. Again.

I don’t really believe in God and I certainly don’t believe in angels, ghosts or the afterlife.

Most religious rituals leave me cold, I am not moved by scripture and nor am I frightened by hellfire and brimstone preachers – all fury, self-righteousness and condemnation. All empty words and outstretched empty palms.

Sometimes, in my more cynical moments – I wrestle with the notion of a human soul. Does a soul really exist or is it something that we conjured up to serve as a salve? A false reassurance to kiss our foreheads and tell us that we’re special little snowflakes and that deep down, way down – there is good in spite of it all.

And then, I am reminded of Bruce Springsteen.

I’ll hear Born To Run on the radio just as I hit 50 miles an hour on an open road. Asphalt stretching endlessly into a cornflower blue sky.

Or, if I’m really lucky — I’ll get to stand in a stadium with thousands of the faithful, screaming myself hoarse, clapping until my hands sting and grinning until my cheeks ache.

I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band again last night. And just as it did every time I’ve seen them, all my cynicism washed away in the warm summer rain like sin dissolving after baptism.

I was born anew and any skepticism I had regarding the existence of the soul? Erased as my own human soul was yanked clean out of my body, scrubbed until a bright and healthy pink and thrust back into me – rejuvenated and restored.

Everyone needs something to believe in and I know (much to Mom’s continual disappointment) I don’t believe in much.

I also know that I am forever questioning what I do believe in – “Is this real? Why do I believe in this? Should I believe in this?”

However, I have never wavered in my belief of the potency of music. A song can change your mood, change your day, change your life.

So, hail hail rock ‘n roll. This music may never save my soul but thanks to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, I know I have a soul to be saved. A soul worth saving.

I know this because every time I find myself lucky enough to be in the presence of music I truly love, I can feel my soul rising within me – buoyant and phosphorescent with hope and the promise of a better tomorrow.

In an uncertain world where faith is so easily shattered, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band serve as continual reassurance. A silver sliver of hope reminding me that this is something to believe in. That it’s real, that it’s honest and that it will always be here whenever I need it.

So to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band with all the love I have which is not nearly enough – thank you.

Again.
Always.
Thank you.

So, This Is Happening Or, Happy Labor Day From Me, Bruce and The E Street Band

It’s been raining all weekend and this is happening tonight.

Isn’t there something in some book somewhere about water washing away all your sins?

Tonight’s going to be a good night. Tomorrow’s going to be one helluva rough morning, but tonight is certainly going to be a good night.

Six Songs Of Me Or, Dude. You Need To Chill With The Parentheses

A few days ago, I came across this – an NPR article about music with information culled from The Guardian which features a link to a Spotify playlist.

As a result, I have a painful bruise on my knee (I got excited and smashed my knees into my desk. It wasn’t cute) and a mind that will not stop effervescing about this topic.

(Yes. I’m that girl. I also get excited about the feta-mint quinoa salad at Whole Foods, handmade jewelry and fonts. Come at me, bro).

My life is defined by music – I listen to it constantly, I write about it, I read about it, I talk about it and say remarkably insulting things when I disagree with people in regards to music. I’m a musical moron twin.

Music is the foundation on which I have built my existence. The one thing I have always loved. The one thing I will always love. The one thing that makes me believe in the concept of the human soul.

So obviously, I’ve been fizzing and ruminating about the Six Songs of Me Project.

My Six Songs can be found here (you should do this too! And then send me the link so we can talk about it!) but as usual, I felt the need to elucidate:

First Song You Bought

I cannot really remember the first song I bought.
Does anyone remember the first song they bought?

I’m old, dudes.

I didn’t spend my formative years buying songs at $0.99 a pop. We bought vinyl, tapes and CDs. We raced home, furiously peeled off that thin layer of plastic, popped the CD into the stereo and then spent the next hour poring over the booklet and trying to memorize the lyrics.

Alright, I’m gonna stop yelling at clouds now.

For the sake of this project, I’m going to say the first song I bought was One Headlight by the Wallflowers because Bringing Down The Horse was the first tape I bought and I’m sure that song had a lot to do with it.

Gets You Dancing

Despite being terrifyingly bad at it, I love to dance. I’m the first girl at the wedding to take off her heels and shimmy around the dance floor, splashing her G&T all over the place.

70s funk and soul makes me want to dance – Wilson Pickett, The Commodores and Earth, Wind and Fire.

Latin-inflected rhythms make me want to dance – Pitbull (shut up. I’m from South Florida), Proyecto Uno and Shakira.

Buoyant pop music makes me want to dance – Madonna, Prince, The Go-Gos, Justin and Gaga

But the one song that I cannot resist, the one song that fills me with unmitigated joy is I Want You Back by The Jackson 5. I literally cannot sit still after hearing that slip-n-slide tickle of the ivories and that irrepressibly funky bassline. I will shimmy in my seat, I will drag your ass out onto the dancefloor and I will do so with the sunniest smile on my face.

Takes You Back

Because Paps is a bad-ass, he let my sister and I watch all sorts of awesome albeit inappropriate movies when we were children – Commando, Robocop and my personal favorite – Beverly Hills Cop.

We loved it so much, we had the soundtrack – a delicious piece of vinyl encased in white cardboard with Axel Foley on the cover- and that was the first record I learned to put on the record player – “Gently, Jemmy! Now drop the needle carefully….”

Whenever I hear the opening of Glenn Frey’s The Heat is On, it takes me back to when I was kid – dancing with Paps in the living room and playing ‘thumb saxophone’ (two shaka signs joined together pinkie to thumb).

Great movie. Great song. Great memory.

Perfect Love Song

I’m obviously going to pick Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones. BUT, I am blogging the shit out of my top ten love songs in a bit.

Your Funeral Song

I’ve been working on my own obit for the past couple of years.

I’m fine and don’t have any plans to die anytime soon but I figure if I’m going to die — I want to be the one eulogizing.

This way, I’m guaranteed of a eulogy devoid of sentimental pablum and references to the afterlife.

That being said, I’ve put some serious thought into the song I want played at my funeral.

Ain’t No Sunshine by Freddie King is a great song but seriously? Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone and she being me kinda makes me sound like an asshole…but who cares? I’m dead. And the one nice thing about being dead? People are all about blowing sunshine.

Tupelo Honey by Van Morrison is another contender because I think Van Morrison should be played at all major life events – weddings, funerals, births, graduations, divorces – but the whole, ‘she’a an angel’ refrain? Yeah. Not so much.

After much deliberation, I think La Cienega Just Smiled by Ryan Adams would be a good song to play at my funeral. It’s a pretty piece of music and it features a lyric that I figure would be apropos in the event of my death:

How’d I end up feeling so bad/For such a little girl?

I figure you feel bad because I’m deader than Lindsay Lohan’s career and we didn’t hang out as much as we could have. It’s cool, dude, but if you still feel bad — give someone a really good hug today. Like, hold them tight and breathe them in and don’t say a word. Just let the hug tell them how much you love them. Oh and eat the shit out of something delicious that you know I would have loved. Like huevos rancheros with avocado and chipotle hot sauce.

The Encore – The One Last Song That Makes You You

This one was tough because I’m torn between two very disparate songs. In the red corner, we’ve got Into The Groove by Madonna – a song I’ve been shimmying and bopping to since childhood. A song I’m shimmying and bopping to right now as I type this sentence. If music can be reminiscent of personality (and I believe it can), I think this is what my personality sounds like – fizzy and kinetic. Seriously dude — you can dance! For inspiration! Come on!

And in the blue corner, we have Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen. A song that hits me where I live – right there on the sleeve where I wear my heart. It’s the chorus that gets me — “Everything dies/Baby, that’s a fact/But maybe everything that dies/Someday comes back/Put your make-up on/Fix your hair up pretty/And meet me tonight in Atlantic City.”

I believe in second chances and that hope dies last.

I don’t believe in much but I do believe in the promise of a better tomorrow so for that reason, the song named after an overpriced shithole by the sea is what I chose for my encore. To best represent the person I am and the person I want to be.

And really, when you pick Springsteen to best represent who you are – you’re doing something right.

My Stupid Mouth Or, That’s Enough, John Mayer…

I’ve become obsessed with the Palladia channel as of late. If I could climb into the Delorean, I would totally go back a decade and make 19-year-old Jaime’s life:

Present Day Jaime: Dude, so you have this channel and it’s nothing but concerts and music documentaries. Like, 24 hours a day.
19-Year-Old Jaime: What? Dude, that is amazing! I’m never leaving the house! Oh God, do we turn into like, Howard Hughes hermits?
Present Day Jaime: You know, I don’t even notice the jars of urine anymore…

Anyway, totally besotted with this channel, right? And I’ve been DVRing like a fiend: Shine a Light, Red Hot Chili Peppers: Live in Belfast, Bruce Springsteen: Storytellers, Fade to Black: Jay Z at Madison Square Garden…

I have no idea what’s going on in the world because right now, my life is all about Palladia and The Newsroom.

I also accidentally DVR’d John Mayer: Storytellers.

I’ve never been the biggest John Mayer fan. I liked his first couple of albums – soft acoustic pop for bumming around on a rainy Sunday afternoon – and I love the version of Why Georgia featuring Brad Paisley, but Mayer? Just kinda floating on the periphery of my world.

And then, I saw him perform Your Body is a Wonderland.

My thoughts before I watched Storytellers:

“Ugh. You dumb glurgey bastard. I hate this song. Does this even work on anyone? “I’ll never let your head hit the bed without my hand behind it.” Ugh. You are the worst, John Mayer. The worst.”

My thoughts after seeing Mayer perform the song on Storytellers:

“Goddamn it…”

Look, it’s not entirely my fault, alright?

There’s a smart girl rattling around in here somewhere and she knows that Mayer is a interminable d-bag with a Klansman dork and a propensity to say really stupid things about the women he dates.

There’s the superficial dummy who thinks he’s kinda cute because he’s got that hedgehog hair and tattoos.

And now, imagine him with a guitar. Yeah. See what I mean?

And then there’s music junkie. And she is the world’s biggest sucker.

Behold:

John Mayer is a Stevie Ray Vaughan fan.

I love Stevie Ray Vaughan. Love him with the sort of irrational madness one reserves for their first love or their own flesh and blood.

Ninety percent of the reason I want to visit Austin is because I want to leave guitar strings at his memorial.
When I found out he had died ten years prior to my discovering his music, I yelled at my guitar teacher – “What the hell is wrong with you?! You knew he was dead and you let me fall in love with him?! I can never see him live?! I hate you! Why would you do this to me?!”

And here’s this hedgehog-haired, guitar-slinging d-bag who loves Vaughan so much that he got the man’s initials indelibly inked on his flesh.

How’s a girl supposed to resist that?

So, you win, John Mayer. You win. You might be the world’s biggest tool but I’m in, pound for pound.

Word of advice, though? Stop saying things. Just play guitar, look all cute and hedgehoggy and throw a girl a little Stevie Ray cover action – a little Texas Flood or Life Without You. It’s good for the soul.

 

 

 

If I Could Write, I’d Tell You How Much I Miss These Nights Or, Wrap A Couple Chords Around It and Let It Come Out

I can’t remember who said it, but I’ve heard that every writer – deep down in his bones – wants to be a musician.

This could not be a more true statement in my case.

Every hairbrush I’ve owned has been a microphone, I’ve suffered (and made others suffer) through countless abortive efforts to play guitar and when I discover a sound I really like – the quick tattoo of drums, the sly slide of guitar strings, a bassline with a booming Brazilian bottom – I spend frustrated hours trying to grab onto it – it being as intangible as smoke – capture it and turn it into words.

It’s a losing game I can’t stop playing.

I wish I could write songs.

I don’t wish to write music. It’s transcendental and stultifyingly stunning and proof of the divine and I’m not even asking to be allowed into that club. I know I don’t belong there and I’m happy to stand on the periphery BUT I do wish I could write lyrics.

Good ones.
Powerful ones.
Honest ones.

Ones that make others go, “Fuck. That’s good. That’s really good,” before upending a coffee table, enraged at the fact that they didn’t think of it first

(I cannot be the only one who had this reaction when she first heard Left of the Dial by The Replacements — “Little girl keeps growing up/Playing make-up/Wearing guitar/Growing old in a bar/You grow old in a bar” — Fuck, that’s good, right?)

You hear stuff from guys like Dylan, Springsteen, Tori Amos, Biggie, Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith and their genius is almost old hat at this point:

“Who wrote that?”
“Dylan/Bruce/Big/Tori.”
“Shit, that’s good.”
“Yup.”
“Yup.”

So, it’s kinda nice when you discover something new. A fresh songwriter whose words and music make you wanna upend coffee tables and sing along and make a dozen mixes for everyone you know because dude, this is so good. You need to listen to this.

I’ve written about The Gaslight Anthem before. When I was a girl with a crush on Great Expectations and Brian Fallon in a flat cap.

Hello sailor!

I know one thing/Sure is true/I never kept a secret – I’ve got a crush on Brian Fallon but more so, I’ve got a bigger crush on all those songs he writes.  And it’s definitely the real thing because it’s that tremulous high-wire act between being dizzy and waking up with sheets soaking wet with a freight train running through the middle of my head.

Yeah…other people don’t do this, do they? Moving on…

Anyway, I started listening to the band constantly:

And the more I heard, the deeper in love I fell. And the deeper in love I fell, the more it killed me.

Why can’t I do this? Why is it so hard to write a song? How come I can write blog posts and articles and essays and stupid little piddling bits of writing that meander all over the damn place but I can’t write a song.

Not even a good song. Any song.

Is it because I don’t have anything to write about?
‘Cause that’s horseshit. I’m one of the most garrulous people I know.

Is it because I’ve lead this sheltered little suburban life?
Those little Hanson kids had an average age of about 15 and they wrote a platinum-selling album.

Is it because I don’t have a muse?
You know, I might be onto something with this one. After all, Prince had a succession of them – Vanity, Appolonia, Mayte Garcia…

Or maybe it’s just because I’m a writer and being so, I’m mired in my destiny — to be a failed, aspiring musician with a dream furiously scratching the recesses of her soul, a litany of song lyrics tumbling around in her brain and a hairbrush, firmly grasped in her hand. Just a little girl growing up playing make-up, wearing guitar and wishing she could write a damn song.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band — Philadelphia, PA. March 28, 2012.

There are few things in this world I believe in as much as I believe in Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and last night, my faith was once more renewed.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band rolled into Philadelphia last night and brought with them absolution — sanctifying a sea of thousands. They do not, will not, cannot promise life everlasting but they sure as hell delivered on the promise of life right now.

The show was a combination of:

- New stuff: tracks from Wrecking Ball all of which were pretty great and some of which were heavily inspired by Irish music. Crank up the volume a little and Death of My Hometown could be the greatest song Flogging Molly or the Dropkick Murphys ever wrote.

- Old stuff from The Rising album including the eponymous track, Waiting On A Sunny Day and My City of Ruins.

- Really old stuff: The Way You Do The Things You Do by Smokey Robinson and 634-5789 by Wilson Pickett.

- The classics: The ones that live deep inside of you – Thunder Road, Dancin’ In The Dark, Glory Days and the ineffable Born To Run.

And Atlantic City.

I love this song. No, really. I love this song with the sort of irrational ferocity usually reserved for one’s own flesh and blood. And I am the worst kind of canonist in defense of this piece of music.

“You don’t like that song? What is wrong with you? You know, I don’t even care what’s wrong with you. What I do know is that your mother is ashamed of raising a child with such piss-poor taste. Oh and for the record? You’re half the man she is.”

Yes, I am both horrible and passionate.

Last night, I heard this song the way it is meant to be heard — live with the entire E Street Band backing Springsteen’s gravelly vocals.

And I know I’m this little ball of hyperactive, hyper-verbose hyperbole but I swear — my life is changed as a result. I feel a little more complete. Like I experienced something that was meant to happen. Guess that’s what happens when you truly love some silly little piece of music so much that it hurts.

The show was definitely bittersweet, serving as part memorial to the dearly departed Big Man himself, E Street saxophonist Clarence Clemons.

Nowhere was this more evident than during 10th Avenue Freeze Out.

A staple of the E Street catalog and requisite barn burner, the song features the lyric:

When the change was made uptown
And the Big Man joined the band

Usually, this is the part of the show when Clemons kicks in with a sax solo, the entire audience breaks out in goosebumps and Bruce Springsteen’s face lights up with an almost child-like joy. As if he has just realized that he’s Bruce fuckin’ Springsteen.

However last night the music dropped, Springsteen held out his mic and the audience launched into two whole minutes of the most raucous cheering and applause I have ever heard.

Springsteen used the power and glory, the ministry and the magic of rock ‘n roll to make a joyous noise unto the Lord and punch a hole straight to heaven in the hopes of showing the Big Man just how much he is missed.

I hope he heard us. In fact, I’m willing swear that he did.

Clemons’ nephew, Jake stepped into some huge shoes as the new saxman of the E Street Band and the guy did an amazing job, proving that as usual – Bruce was right.

The E Street Band will never really die. Palm Beach may take his bones but E Street will forever keep the Big Man’s soul.

I heard a rumor that Bruce and the band will be back in the fall and when he is, I will be there once again. Standing in my seat and cheering until my voice is hoarse.

No retreat, baby. No surrender.

Holy Shit, I Love You, Or The Dave Grohl Edition

Dave Grohl is a unicorn.

He’s mindblowingly talented, funny, charming, down-to-earth, gainfully employed and easy on the eyes.

Yeah. All of that. Present in one really decent body.

His blood may not sustain Volde…I mean, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and I don’t see a giant horn in the middle of his forehead, but based on the aforementioned, dude’s gotta be a mythical beast, right?

So in honor of my favorite (living) rock star – here are five reasons I love Dave Grohl (holy shit)

1. Mindblowing talent. I’m not going to rundown the litany of his accomplishments or the list of people he’s worked with because it would take forever. I’m just going to ask that you check this out:

The urgency of that guitar – its fingerprints pressing indelibly into your flesh, the drums that sound like mastodons stampeding through a valley of bones and those throaty, raw vocals. The drummer did this, dudes. The drummer.

2. Look at him.

All scruffy and sexy with the tattoos and the hair. He’s got the hot band guy/rock god thing down.

And then, he double-downs on it with that wide and easy grin.

I can’t even, Mr. Grohl. I cannot even.

3. The miner story. If you haven’t already heard it, here’s a bare bones version:

There was a mine collapse in Tasmania, Australia and the trapped miners requested an iPod loaded with the Foo album, In Your Honor. Our boy Dave gets word of this and faxes a note to be given to them:

“Though I’m halfway around the world right now, my heart is with you both, and I want you to know that when you come home, there’s two tickets to any Foos show, anywhere, and two cold beers waiting for yous. Deal?”

A couple of months later, one of the miners takes Dave up on his offer and meets him for a drink after the show.

Wait. It gets even better.

On the band’s next album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace – Grohl wrote an instrumental tribute to the miners entitled Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners. And damn, it’s pretty.

4. He loves music. Like deep-in-his-bones DG+M=4EVER love. From the thunder and fury of Motorhead to the ethereal and moonlit prettiness of Norah Jones. And he gets it. The magic woven into notes and chords. He gets that the right song at the right time can help save the world, get the girl and change your life.

5. He seems like he’s a good dad. Case in point:

Kids don’t care about Grammys or the fact that you’ve played onstage with living legends. You know what they care about? When you’re gonna hook their ass up with a smoothie. Oh and if you’ll do the voices when you read the bedtime story.

So, to Dave Grohl — a fucking unicorn of a man who pounds the skins with the fury of an enraged god, has a voicebox made of blood, salt, iron and honey and would totally split a pitcher and pie with you?

Holy shit, I love you.