What My Fractured Relationship With Bruce Springsteen Taught Me About Approval-Seeking

It’s hard not to love David Bowie’s beautifully insightful quote about the passing of your time on this earth. “Aging,” he said, “is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”As a young man I could not reach this state of consciousness due to a terrible vice — people-pleasing. Because of it I lost a relationship with Bruce Springsteen. People-pleasing is a behaviour pattern characterized by an excessive need to gain approval and acceptance from others, often at the expense of one’s own needs and desires.Since leaving my children’s home in 1976 — I spent eight years there — I had consistently and desperately sought the blessings of others. On numerous occasions, I saw myself nodding my head in agreement to people I did not agree with, attending events I had no desire to go to, or pretending to like art I had no time for.Then I was a staff writer at Melody Maker, the weekly UK music magazine. In 1981, Bruce Springsteen released “The River,” his first double album, and I made sure it was mine to review. Why? Because I cherished his album “Darkness on The Edge Of Town,” still for me one of his greatest ever achievements. But whereas the “Darkness” album was foreboding, “The River” danced and laughed and contained one of his greatest songs in the title track. To say I praised the work was an understatement.A month later, a call came through from Bruce’s record company. Bruce had read my review and would be happy for me to interview him on his European tour, prior to his London shows. I was duly packed off to the south of France to witness my first ever Bruce Springsteen concert. People use the word wow a lot these days – but wow. The energy, the musicianship, the choice of songs — Bruce, and his E Street Band, magically made a four-hour set seem like an hour and a half.They knocked me off my feet. I had never witnessed such power nor such endurance. Their ambition and reach were remarkable. After the gig, I was taken to his dressing room to meet and interview him. But on the way there I was handed a major problem. Bruce was more than happy to talk to me, but he did not allow tape recorders. That too knocked me off my feet. I had no experience of interviewing like this.Despite this, I warmed to him. He was extremely likeable, warm, intelligent, insightful. I liked him a lot. I think he dug me as well, because on my return to London, CBS called saying Bruce would like to carry the chat on in Sweden. I was duly flown to Sweden. After another knockout show, I was taken backstage where I sat in a room with a tall leggy blonde in leather trousers for about an hour. A PR person appeared. She explained Bruce was sorry, but he could not do the interview, but he wanted a quick chat. I left the room and standing in the corridor was the man himself. He could not be more apologetic. After the show, things had caught up with him, and he was so sorry to have messed me around, and he did not mean to and was I okay with all this. He said it with genuine sorrow.I was more than okay with because the fact that he sought me out to apologise was something nine out of ten musicians would not have even thought to do. I went home and wrote a very positive piece about the man which ran the week of his London shows. I was not happy with the piece but that was no surprise; I was not happy with anything I wrote at that time. Thankfully, I read it now and I think it was good work. At the time, Melody Maker’s office was filled with people I enjoyed hanging out with. There were a couple that did not suit but overall, despite huge musical differences, I got on well with many. I covered soul and American black music, and the likes of Dexys Midnight Runners or The Specials. They were all characters in the MM office. I recall Max Jones, for example who covered jazz, coming into the office most days, round about four o’clock, always wearing his beret, sitting down, opening his drawer, and offering me “a quick snifter,” from his small flask of whiskey. One day, he sauntered in and Brian Case, who sat opposite him, asked him where he had been. “Interviewing Ella Fitzgerald,” Max replied. Brian thought about this: “Max, all due respect, you must have interviewed Ella at least thirty times. What do you talk about?” “Oh, I never talk to her,” Max replied. “I take along the wife. She and Ella swap cooking recipes and the like, and I write the same piece, I have been writing for thirty years, and nobody notices. Quick snifter, Paolo?”But it was not all plain sailing. There was one tricky editor, a passive aggressive guy, whose gang you wanted to be in, but who kept you at bay with highly barbed comments about your writing or your musical taste. I walked out once because of the venom he directed my way over the writing of a piece on the band Level 42. He was also abusive to many of the staff. But he was excused on the grounds that, “Well, you know, he is legendary…”Bruce Springsteen in 1982. Aaron Rapoport//Getty ImagesThis is where the people-pleasing comes in. I had heard that Mr. Springsteen’s next album was going to be a work made up of his demos. Bruce and his guitar would be the album. No band, no frills. On hearing this, I thought — wow, that word again — that is such a radical idea.The album was called “Nebraska,” and musically had been created on a level far away from “The River.” It was an astonishing work. It was raw, Steinbeck-like in its descriptions of the American landscape peopled by those who truly struggled, the forgotten people that Bruce had elected to represent with a series of songs recorded at home and then released as an album. I think it is one of the great punk albums of all time.It was a daring and brave move made by a highly popular musician with the world at his feet – and I tore the album apart in Melody Maker. Why? Simple. The aforementioned editor had made it clear how much he hated Springsteen and how he would look favourably upon me if I should attack the work.Which I duly did. I singlehandedly destroyed it. I knew at the time it was wrong, but I had not the strength to stand up and be counted. I regret that now.A week after the review ran, CBS called to say I would no longer be welcome on any Bruce Springsteen tours. That hurt. But, of course, I pretended I did not care and covered up my feelings with a “who cares about him anyway” attitude. In my work, “Colour Me Father,” I apologised to Bruce and I do so here. My bad, Bruce. But do you know the kicker? Last year I went to see the Springsteen film “Deliver me From Nowhere,” whose story is the making of the “Nebraska” album. I thought it a great piece of work, although I would have ended it at Bruce’s first session with the psychiatrist. But what killed me was watching Springsteen grapple with heavy mental depression during the making of that album. I had no idea of his turmoil at the point in his life.I felt even guiltier. I had no idea of what he had gone through. After the film, I imagined him reading my review and sleep did not come easy that night. In telling this story the other day to the writer, Patrick Humphries, a big Bruce man, he replied, “Well that does not surprise me how that editor acted. We all know what he likes. But I hate to tell you this…he absolutely adores Springsteen these days.”“What?”“Oh yes. Big Springsteen fan now.”And that, dear reader, is where people-pleasing will take you.

What My Fractured Relationship With Bruce Springsteen Taught Me About Approval-Seeking

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