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Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen
As he enters his sixties, Bruce Springsteen remains a paragon of all that is cool and right. Born in the U.S.A. still ranks as one of the top-selling albums of all time, and Springsteen the man is an unstoppable force, selling out multi-city arena tours year after year. He's a genuine voice of the people, the bastard child of Woody Guthrie and James Brown, and an elder statesman who has inspired generations of bands, including U2, the Hold Steady, and Arcade Fire. He's won twenty Grammy Awards, an Oscar, and two Golden Globes and is a double hall-of-famer.
There are dozens of books about the Boss, exploring every facet of his career. So what's left to say? Nothing objective, perhaps. But when it comes to music, objectivity is highly overrated. Robert Wiersema has been a Springsteen fan since he was a teenager. By most definitions, he's a following tours to see multiple shows in a row, watching set lists develop in real time via the Internet, ordering bootlegs from shady vendors in Italy. His attachment is deeper than fandom, he's grown up with Springsteen's music as the soundtrack to his life, beginning with his working-class youth in rural British Columbia and continuing on through dreams of escape, falling in love, and becoming a father.
Walk Like a Man is liner notes for a mix tape, a frank and inventive blend of biography, music criticism, and memoir over the course of thirteen tracks. Like the best mix tapes, it balances joy and sorrow, laughter seasoning the dark-night-of-the-soul questions that haunt us all. Wiersema's book is the story of a man becoming a man (despite getting a little lost along the way), and of the man and the music that have accompanied him on his journey.
There are dozens of books about the Boss, exploring every facet of his career. So what's left to say? Nothing objective, perhaps. But when it comes to music, objectivity is highly overrated. Robert Wiersema has been a Springsteen fan since he was a teenager. By most definitions, he's a following tours to see multiple shows in a row, watching set lists develop in real time via the Internet, ordering bootlegs from shady vendors in Italy. His attachment is deeper than fandom, he's grown up with Springsteen's music as the soundtrack to his life, beginning with his working-class youth in rural British Columbia and continuing on through dreams of escape, falling in love, and becoming a father.
Walk Like a Man is liner notes for a mix tape, a frank and inventive blend of biography, music criticism, and memoir over the course of thirteen tracks. Like the best mix tapes, it balances joy and sorrow, laughter seasoning the dark-night-of-the-soul questions that haunt us all. Wiersema's book is the story of a man becoming a man (despite getting a little lost along the way), and of the man and the music that have accompanied him on his journey.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 28, 2011
Can't think of enough superlatives for this book. Although the author's experiences with Bruce Springsteen are often different from mine, there is so much for a Bruce fan (or indeed any music fan) to identify with here. The first time you saw him live. The time you stood in line overnight for wristbands, the anticipation of the next album, the time you came within inches of touching him, the acoustic versions of rockers that brought a huge stadium to a hushed reverence, the lyrics that seem to echo what you were feeling right at that moment, that saxophone, that feeling of belonging, the never wanting it to end. It's all here, along with the author's life moments that resonate with all of us, high school, small-town life, first move away, marriage and family. A wonderful, wonderful book.
April 11, 2019
My review for this book was first published by The New York Journal of Books in 2011. I reproduce it here:
In my home office, past my bookshelves and movie racks, beside my record collection and beneath the computer desk, sit seven large binders of sleeves filled with hundreds of CDs mailed from across the country. They appear in chronological order, each disc annotated by Sharpie with a date and location. The sound quality ranges from crystalline to barely audible, but untold amounts of time have been spent procuring, cataloging, and of course, listening to this music.
It’s unclear when I first got the itch to collect bootlegs of Bruce Springsteen concerts, but I do know that this obsessive-type behavior is not uncommon among his fans. It defies rationality and any prudent cost-benefit analysis, but having these shows has, in some hard-to-define way, enriched my life.
I suspect Robert Wiersema knows what I’m talking about. A bookseller and reviewer from Canada, he is also a stone Springsteen disciple, and his deeply personal book Walk Like a Man takes a noble stab at explaining quite why. It is structured primarily as a mixtape, 13 songs (plus a bonus song as performed by another band) culled from the Boss’s catalog, chosen for their relevance to the author’s life.
It is also a biography of Springsteen (the first 30 pages are an effective Cliff’s Notes rundown of his career, up to the recent death of Clarence “Big Man” Clemons) and a piece of music criticism. Each song comes prefaced with some remarks about the history of its recording and where it fits into the Springsteen canon.
These parts are informative but not illuminative; they seem like prologue to the greater project of showing how Bruce Springsteen’s music became inextricably linked to events in Mr. Wiersema’s life.
So the social misfit in “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” will always remind the author of his own alienated adolescence in Agassiz, British Columbia.
The version of “Born to Run” that resonates most isn’t the all-familiar studio track, but an acoustic rendition performed in 1988, which he heard after bumming a ride across the border to Tacoma with a couple of drug-addled kids who left him before the show ended.
And “Thundercrack,” a freewheeling ode to a girl who loves to dance, is cemented in his memory as the song that best describes the girl who would later become his wife (“she’s got the heart of a ballerina”).
One may wonder why Mr. Wiersema merits an autobiography; certainly the experiences he describes at the various way stations of his life seem perfectly banal. “I’m as ordinary as it gets,” he writes. “A smalltown kid living in a small city, a guy with a job and a wife and son . . . I’m not famous, I’m not in recovery, I’m not bouncing back from a scandal, and I haven’t triumphed over crippling odds. I’m just a guy with a laptop and a record collection.”
But then again, given the subject, that somehow seems perfectly right— depending on how you feel about him, Springsteen’s gift/shtick has always been finding the heroic in the everyday, the extra in the ordinary (Jon Stewart put it best while honoring Springsteen at the Kennedy Center in 2009: “When you listen to Bruce’s music, you aren’t a loser; you’re a character in an epic poem . . . about losers”).
Springsteen, to his fans, has been telling a 40-year story that can be tracked alongside their own, and that’s what Wiersema’s book deftly captures. The songs stay the same, but our relationship with them evolves.
Take one of the author’s selections, “Living Proof,” a song Springsteen wrote following the birth of his first son (“Searching for a bit of God’s mercy/I found living proof”). Released in 1992, it flew under Mr. Wiersema’s radar at the time, but when his wife gave birth to their son a few years later, it took on new meaning. Here he reflects on that first moment holding his new son, whispering his name:
“There’s a photo taken that day or the next. In it, I’m holding Xander slightly away from myself, both of his feet on my chest. I’m leaning slightly from myself, enraptured, and he’s looking back, tiny and pale . . . The way the light falls on his face, the way it seems to shine back at me. It feels holy. Sacred.
“It feels like living proof.”
If you listen to the song as you read this, it’s hard to deny the emotional power of his anecdote. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always trust himself to let those stories speak for themselves, all too often undercutting his candor with distratcing, cloying footnotes.
There is no question that that Mr. Wiersema gets it. He has learned the trivia, logged the miles, and memorized the little details that comes only from years of listening to sketchy bootleg recordings (I’m glad he’s not the only one who can tell what song the band will play simply by how Springsteen counts it off)—his credentials as a Springsteen diehard are ironclad.
But will Walk Like a Man appeal to a nonbeliever? Though there’s a lot of inside baseball, at root this is a book less about the Boss or how much the author digs him than it is about the nature of fandom itself, how people can forge inexplicable connections with one artist’s work.
It’s certainly inexplicable for me—I know I’ve strugged in the past to articulate exactly why Bruce Springsteen’s music cuts so deeply for me. Thanks to Robert Wiersema’s heartfelt book, though, I think I’m a little closer.
In my home office, past my bookshelves and movie racks, beside my record collection and beneath the computer desk, sit seven large binders of sleeves filled with hundreds of CDs mailed from across the country. They appear in chronological order, each disc annotated by Sharpie with a date and location. The sound quality ranges from crystalline to barely audible, but untold amounts of time have been spent procuring, cataloging, and of course, listening to this music.
It’s unclear when I first got the itch to collect bootlegs of Bruce Springsteen concerts, but I do know that this obsessive-type behavior is not uncommon among his fans. It defies rationality and any prudent cost-benefit analysis, but having these shows has, in some hard-to-define way, enriched my life.
I suspect Robert Wiersema knows what I’m talking about. A bookseller and reviewer from Canada, he is also a stone Springsteen disciple, and his deeply personal book Walk Like a Man takes a noble stab at explaining quite why. It is structured primarily as a mixtape, 13 songs (plus a bonus song as performed by another band) culled from the Boss’s catalog, chosen for their relevance to the author’s life.
It is also a biography of Springsteen (the first 30 pages are an effective Cliff’s Notes rundown of his career, up to the recent death of Clarence “Big Man” Clemons) and a piece of music criticism. Each song comes prefaced with some remarks about the history of its recording and where it fits into the Springsteen canon.
These parts are informative but not illuminative; they seem like prologue to the greater project of showing how Bruce Springsteen’s music became inextricably linked to events in Mr. Wiersema’s life.
So the social misfit in “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” will always remind the author of his own alienated adolescence in Agassiz, British Columbia.
The version of “Born to Run” that resonates most isn’t the all-familiar studio track, but an acoustic rendition performed in 1988, which he heard after bumming a ride across the border to Tacoma with a couple of drug-addled kids who left him before the show ended.
And “Thundercrack,” a freewheeling ode to a girl who loves to dance, is cemented in his memory as the song that best describes the girl who would later become his wife (“she’s got the heart of a ballerina”).
One may wonder why Mr. Wiersema merits an autobiography; certainly the experiences he describes at the various way stations of his life seem perfectly banal. “I’m as ordinary as it gets,” he writes. “A smalltown kid living in a small city, a guy with a job and a wife and son . . . I’m not famous, I’m not in recovery, I’m not bouncing back from a scandal, and I haven’t triumphed over crippling odds. I’m just a guy with a laptop and a record collection.”
But then again, given the subject, that somehow seems perfectly right— depending on how you feel about him, Springsteen’s gift/shtick has always been finding the heroic in the everyday, the extra in the ordinary (Jon Stewart put it best while honoring Springsteen at the Kennedy Center in 2009: “When you listen to Bruce’s music, you aren’t a loser; you’re a character in an epic poem . . . about losers”).
Springsteen, to his fans, has been telling a 40-year story that can be tracked alongside their own, and that’s what Wiersema’s book deftly captures. The songs stay the same, but our relationship with them evolves.
Take one of the author’s selections, “Living Proof,” a song Springsteen wrote following the birth of his first son (“Searching for a bit of God’s mercy/I found living proof”). Released in 1992, it flew under Mr. Wiersema’s radar at the time, but when his wife gave birth to their son a few years later, it took on new meaning. Here he reflects on that first moment holding his new son, whispering his name:
“There’s a photo taken that day or the next. In it, I’m holding Xander slightly away from myself, both of his feet on my chest. I’m leaning slightly from myself, enraptured, and he’s looking back, tiny and pale . . . The way the light falls on his face, the way it seems to shine back at me. It feels holy. Sacred.
“It feels like living proof.”
If you listen to the song as you read this, it’s hard to deny the emotional power of his anecdote. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always trust himself to let those stories speak for themselves, all too often undercutting his candor with distratcing, cloying footnotes.
There is no question that that Mr. Wiersema gets it. He has learned the trivia, logged the miles, and memorized the little details that comes only from years of listening to sketchy bootleg recordings (I’m glad he’s not the only one who can tell what song the band will play simply by how Springsteen counts it off)—his credentials as a Springsteen diehard are ironclad.
But will Walk Like a Man appeal to a nonbeliever? Though there’s a lot of inside baseball, at root this is a book less about the Boss or how much the author digs him than it is about the nature of fandom itself, how people can forge inexplicable connections with one artist’s work.
It’s certainly inexplicable for me—I know I’ve strugged in the past to articulate exactly why Bruce Springsteen’s music cuts so deeply for me. Thanks to Robert Wiersema’s heartfelt book, though, I think I’m a little closer.
March 16, 2012
I really enjoyed this book, even though I'm not really a Springsteen fan. I'm not a hater, just he doesn't really move me. But that's okay. You can enjoy this book even if you're not a Springsteen fan, because it's really about one man's life and his connection to music. I did learn some interesting things about Springsteen and Springsteen fans (I do like rock trivia and I GET musical fandom), but I also enjoyed reading about Rob, who recently tweeted that he gets the most fanmail related to this book. I can understand why. There's a lot that people will be able to identify with. My friend Mike is a big Springsteen fan, and so I've been trying to convince him to read it. He's intrigued, so hopefully he'll get around to it soon.
April 4, 2013
I read this book last year on holiday and although I tried to limit myself to a chapter a day, I couldn't.It was impossible, I couldn't put it down. I am a great Springsteen fan and collect anything and everything about the man but you really don't have to be a fan to read this book by Robert J. Wiersema.
Although the book is a biography of Springsteen it is also mixed with amusing memoirs and stories about music, gigs and getting to gigs in cronked out cars.
The author's eloquent and at times beautiful prose shows his appreciation of the Boss and his music but at the same time he takes us on a personal journey of a young man growing up in a working class environment. We understand his passion for wanting to move away, just like the young Bruce, we feel happiness when he falls in love and joy when he becomes a father. There are funny moments and Mr Wiersma's life doesn't always go according to plan but he gets through and does okay with the help of his hero and his music.
On the downside, I feel the author tends to get a bit self -indulgent but overall this is a super book and I have to recommend it.
Although the book is a biography of Springsteen it is also mixed with amusing memoirs and stories about music, gigs and getting to gigs in cronked out cars.
The author's eloquent and at times beautiful prose shows his appreciation of the Boss and his music but at the same time he takes us on a personal journey of a young man growing up in a working class environment. We understand his passion for wanting to move away, just like the young Bruce, we feel happiness when he falls in love and joy when he becomes a father. There are funny moments and Mr Wiersma's life doesn't always go according to plan but he gets through and does okay with the help of his hero and his music.
On the downside, I feel the author tends to get a bit self -indulgent but overall this is a super book and I have to recommend it.
January 9, 2012
I really enjoyed this. I think you have to like Bruce Springsteen at least a little bit to truly enjoy Walk Like A Man, but luckily I've seen him live and so Weirsma's book really spoke to me. I think that at least part of it is that is seems that the author is the same age as me and also grew up in a small town he couldn't wait to leave. He has an engaging conversational tone that makes me think of Chuck Klosterman or Hal Niedzviecki.
What's in WLAM for the casual Springsteen fan? I would say that it is the way that Weirsma writes about the power and pleasure of falling in love with a band or a musician at a point in your life where the music seems to express otherwise inexpressible longings. My pre-internet teenage self just *knew* there was "something happening somewhere" and Weirsma captures how Springsteen was the music that expressed this for him. Cleopatra says in Antony and Cleopatra, "I have immortal longings in me" and Weirsma's book, like Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, shows how in contemporary culture these iterated through popular music
If you are at all interested in Springsteen I recommend this highly.
What's in WLAM for the casual Springsteen fan? I would say that it is the way that Weirsma writes about the power and pleasure of falling in love with a band or a musician at a point in your life where the music seems to express otherwise inexpressible longings. My pre-internet teenage self just *knew* there was "something happening somewhere" and Weirsma captures how Springsteen was the music that expressed this for him. Cleopatra says in Antony and Cleopatra, "I have immortal longings in me" and Weirsma's book, like Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, shows how in contemporary culture these iterated through popular music
If you are at all interested in Springsteen I recommend this highly.
April 2, 2012
Great book for people of a certain age who grew up during the Born to Run / Tunnel of Love era. The author is a few years older than me (he would have been a senior when I was a freshman), and the book brought back early to mid teenage years nostalgia for someone entering their late 30's. The book talks of how Springsteen songs influenced the author's transition from an adolescent into early adulthood, into full I am a grown up, with a marriage, house payment, kids and a million other worries stage. Again as someone in their late 30's, something I can totally relate too.
It is good that people like myself and Mr. Wiersema can escape from those worries for a few minutes by listening to Bruce. Give the book a read if you have ever liked a Springsteen song.
It is good that people like myself and Mr. Wiersema can escape from those worries for a few minutes by listening to Bruce. Give the book a read if you have ever liked a Springsteen song.
August 11, 2012
This book was fun! At the start, Wiersma invites the reader to listen along, as he introduces his Bruce Springsteen playlist through stories from his life, and their connection to Springsteen's music. I'll admit, I was not a Sprongsteen fan before this book, because I only knew the Top 40 songs that have flooded the airways. He introduces the reader to the BEST Sprngsteen music, and I watched and listened on my iPad as I read, which enriched the reading experience. I am about the same age as Wiersma, and grew up in a town very close to where he grew up, so his references to music in the 80's, Expo 86, Vancouver, the Fraser valley etc. were a walk down memory lane. You do NOT need to be a Springsteen fan to like this book. In fact, you may become a fan as a result of this book.
February 21, 2012
This book was a lot of fun. The author takes Springsteen songs that have had an impact on his life, or better yet remind him of a period or event in his life, and then he discussed that impact/event, and how the song related to it. I am not sure if I am a fast reader, or it was meant to be this way, but the chapters (one per song), pretty much read as long as the song takes to play. It was a lot of fun to have a built in soundtrack. The topic is relatable, the pace is good and the overall topic and song selection is spot on.
February 16, 2012
Although initially troubled by the copious amount of footnotes, I soon came to appreciate them as they were intended to be. I really, really enjoyed this book and the interesting thing was how the book was about growing up as much it was about the music of Bruce Springsteen.
Highly recommended to lovers of Bruce and music of all types.
Highly recommended to lovers of Bruce and music of all types.
March 28, 2012
Novelist Robert Wiersema writes a memoir in the key of Bruce Springsteen, relating events of his life refracted in the lens of his favorite Springsteen songs. An interesting hybrid, and a good read for fans of the Boss.
February 23, 2012
I'm a Bruce fan so i read this. Always fun to read someone else's thoughts on the tunes,
February 26, 2013
Decent stories about songs and their meaning in the writers life. A very good mix tape of Springsteen songs.
May 10, 2014
A must read for any Springsteen fan or any fan of live music.
April 27, 2024
Walk Like a Man resonated with me as I lived some of the same experiences and was at some of the same shows! Not quite the equivalent level of fandom that Robert details in his memoir of sorts but yes I have many Bruce live shows on Cass/CDR sitting in boxes and now Hard Drives so I can relate!
It's much more than a catalog of how much Springsteen means to one rabid fan though. Wiersema deftly integrates his let us call it "infatuation" with Springsteen with his "coming of age" story and it works really well. Perhaps best if you know Springsteen's music and are somewhat familiar with his life story and additionally you are a father with a family, grew up in a small-town with all that that entails. The footnotes initially irritated but I gradually became used to them, indeed started to look forward to them. Don't quite hold with his level of enthusiasm for Counting Crows and The Hold Steady, bands he highlights in his older years as bands that supply the same heady rush that we get from music in our younger years but hey that's a mere quibble on my part. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
It's much more than a catalog of how much Springsteen means to one rabid fan though. Wiersema deftly integrates his let us call it "infatuation" with Springsteen with his "coming of age" story and it works really well. Perhaps best if you know Springsteen's music and are somewhat familiar with his life story and additionally you are a father with a family, grew up in a small-town with all that that entails. The footnotes initially irritated but I gradually became used to them, indeed started to look forward to them. Don't quite hold with his level of enthusiasm for Counting Crows and The Hold Steady, bands he highlights in his older years as bands that supply the same heady rush that we get from music in our younger years but hey that's a mere quibble on my part. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
February 4, 2020
A music book like this - part autobiography, part love letter - is a revelation. This book is structured perfectly, with a quick biography of Springsteen to start off, then it weaves a wonderful tapestry of the author's life and Springsteen's songs. I found it really hard to find fault with this book. I found it utterly inspiring, devotional, and rapturous. The author didn't shy away from life's most difficult moments. He recognizes his own flaws, as well as Springsteen's.
Wiersema's writing is humorous yet all-consuming. It encompasses a gorgeous and all too human range of emotion. Transcendent yet grounded.
Wiersema's writing is humorous yet all-consuming. It encompasses a gorgeous and all too human range of emotion. Transcendent yet grounded.
December 11, 2017
Part demonstration of Springsteen geeksdom and part memoir, this book uses the device of a mixtape of Boss tunes to describe memorable events in the life of the author from school days through to marriage and parenthood.
Thankfully, the author seems a good bloke and it's easy to enjoy the highs and lows of his journey through life.
Thankfully, the author seems a good bloke and it's easy to enjoy the highs and lows of his journey through life.
October 6, 2022
one book does not need that many footnotes
July 18, 2021
Brilliant concept for a music book. Solid execution. Some of the author’s experiences are similar to my own which added extra weight to the book.
March 19, 2016
an often humorous, personal take on the music of bruce springsteen, robert wiersema's walk like a man is "liner notes for a mix-tape," collecting 13 of the most personally iconic springsteen songs (as decided by the author). following a brief biographical sketch of springsteen, wiersema expounds upon each of his chosen musical selections, blending them with his own autobiographical accounts and relating their meaning to his own particular life experiences. having read not even a single line of wiersema's fiction (nor, admittedly, even knowing of his existence before encountering this book), no part of his personal reminiscences ought to have been of interest. yet, inexplicably they were.
wiersema, as ardent, dedicated, and thorough a springsteen fan as we tend to be, knows the songs in, out, and all-around. it comes as no surprise that springsteen's music was relatable to so many different parts of wiersema's own coming-of-age and adult development (as aspiring novelist, husband, and father), but in deconstructing their meanings, wiersema's personal (footnote-laden) accounts ably jive with what draws us to particular artists in the first place. an admirable appreciation of both springsteen and his music, walk like a man transcends music criticism, instead distilling the essence of why springsteen matters individually and how it is his songs have spoken ongoingly to the author over the years — and for each of us who continue to indulge one of the most breathtaking songwriting catalogs in american history.
wiersema, as ardent, dedicated, and thorough a springsteen fan as we tend to be, knows the songs in, out, and all-around. it comes as no surprise that springsteen's music was relatable to so many different parts of wiersema's own coming-of-age and adult development (as aspiring novelist, husband, and father), but in deconstructing their meanings, wiersema's personal (footnote-laden) accounts ably jive with what draws us to particular artists in the first place. an admirable appreciation of both springsteen and his music, walk like a man transcends music criticism, instead distilling the essence of why springsteen matters individually and how it is his songs have spoken ongoingly to the author over the years — and for each of us who continue to indulge one of the most breathtaking songwriting catalogs in american history.
it's deeper than fandom, though. i've grown up with springsteen as the soundtrack to my life. from my often painful childhood and youth in agassiz, british columbia, dreaming of escape, to finally getting out of town, falling in love, becoming a husband, becoming a father, finding a place in the world, the music of bruce springsteen has been there.
July 7, 2015
You have to like Springsteen (just a little bit); you have to like words. Qualify on both counts and you can't help loving this book.
Springsteen knows the power of words. For many like me the lyrics are more important than the melody. Robert J Wiersema can write a bit too. This is a Desert Island Discs (apologies to readers outside the UK who may have to Google this) of Springsteen's songs, some well known and some unfamiliar, layered with Wiersema's reminiscences that play a chord on at the heart-strings or strike the funny bone.
If you've never been able to conjure in your mind's eye a dusty beach road with the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets then this book will leave you cold. But if you've ever thought in your life that you were just a scared and lonely rider and that someday [you'd] walk in the sun you're a bit of a tramp like me and it's likely you'll love this book.
(For the record - and if you need to know this you probably won't enjoy the book - the phrases in italics are Mr Springsteen's.)
Springsteen knows the power of words. For many like me the lyrics are more important than the melody. Robert J Wiersema can write a bit too. This is a Desert Island Discs (apologies to readers outside the UK who may have to Google this) of Springsteen's songs, some well known and some unfamiliar, layered with Wiersema's reminiscences that play a chord on at the heart-strings or strike the funny bone.
If you've never been able to conjure in your mind's eye a dusty beach road with the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets then this book will leave you cold. But if you've ever thought in your life that you were just a scared and lonely rider and that someday [you'd] walk in the sun you're a bit of a tramp like me and it's likely you'll love this book.
(For the record - and if you need to know this you probably won't enjoy the book - the phrases in italics are Mr Springsteen's.)
May 23, 2012
Wiersema clearly has a deep knowledge of/ love for Springsteen, but his personal stories can be difficult to truly connect to, and the commentary provided for selected tracks from The Boss' will provide little insight for even modest Springsteen fans. A quick read, but feels insubstantial, too personal to be universal.
September 15, 2014
A great overview of Bruce Springsteen's life and how the musician's journey through life can be connected to his music. A suggested list of songs is included, tied to how the author's own life experiences were influenced by each song.
A great starter for someone interested in the meanings behind songs and albums.
A great starter for someone interested in the meanings behind songs and albums.
Want to read
August 25, 2011One of the titles on our Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2011 list.
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