Discussing
Bruce Springsteen’s Long and Noisy Prayer

In Bruce Springsteen's memoir, Born to Run, we hear both the buzzing of guitar amps and the ringing of church bells.

Ohboyohboyohboy! This book's going on my Xmas list. My wife and I took a road trip earlier this month. "Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits" (the only CD of his I own) accompanied the drive down through Appalachia and up the Atlantic Seaboard from Charleston to D.C. It struck me again that many of his songs ("Thunder Road," "Born to Run," "Born in the USA," "My Hometown." among others) do not so much "provide an escape from workaday reality"--despite what the blog and Springsteen himself say. Rather, they articulate evocatively, with pathos, deep emotion, memory (without sentimentalized nostalgia) and empathy much of the vacuity of industrialized, imperial and militarized US society. There's protest, anger, but there's also hope--and now I learn for certain that that is Hope with a capital H, based in Jesus. And that is good, very, very good. Thanks much for the blog.

It's good that he believe's, but some of his recent grandstanding against democracy in certain states, which had opposed men in women's bathrooms, only solidifies the fact that Mr. Springsteen needs to take a deeper look at The Bible.

John!
Great review of Bruce's new book. I'm 300 pages in right now, and I'm really savoring it. Trying to read it slowly and enjoy it, but it's a page turner!
Stay inspired,
-cj