“The Dime Store Version”: Bruce Springsteen and the Burden of Myth
nonfiction by MICHAEL KOBRE
illustrations by Geoffrey Hamerlinck
On the morning of July 30, 2002, a crowd of more than 15,000 spills out of the elegantly decaying art deco hulk of the old convention hall on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Surging across the boardwalk and down to the beach itself, the crowd is littered with small American flags and handmade signs held aloft for the cameras. “NO BETTER COLORS,” reads one, melding corporate promotion and resurgent patriotism in a single phrase, with the network’s initials, NBC, highlighted above a smaller slogan at the bottom of the sign, “RED, WHITE, AND BRUCE.” Inside the convention hall—and live on TV screens all across the country—Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are concluding their four-song set with the first public performance of “Into the Fire,” a dirge for fallen rescue workers of September 11, in which echoes of country blues and gospel-tainted affirmation struggle for precedence. “The sky was falling and streaked with blood,” Springsteen sings over the desolate intertwining of his electric guitar and bandmate Nils Lofgren’s slide, while a line of women in brightly colored bikini tops out on the beach sway in time to the music and wave at the cameras. READ MORE
