Now I have new issues with Bruce Springsteen's music

If you have listened to the latest You, Me and An Album episode, you already know that I have never cared much for Bruce Springsteen’s music. I have never bought one of his albums, and while there are a few of his songs that I like well enough, he hasn’t made any songs (that I know of) that would make me stop on a radio station that was playing it. Springsteen does have plenty of songs that would make me change the station.

When Rain Perry said she wanted to discuss Nebraska on the latest YMAAA episode, I knew it was going to be a challenge for me to give the album a fair listen. Now that it’s been two weeks since we recorded that episode, I am still not sure I have been fair in my assessment of the album. As I told Rain, one of the reasons I have had a hard time connecting with Springsteen’s music is that, as someone who grew up in upper-middle-class suburban neighborhoods, I have a hard time relating to his characters.

As I thought more about this, I realized this was a bogus excuse. Maybe that was a valid reason when I was 14 or 15, but I manage to find the empathy to connect with other stories about people who have led lives that are very different from my own. Also, as I noted on the episode, many of my high school classmates who LOVED Springsteen grew up in the same affluent conditions that I did. I have had other reasons for not liking his music, ranging from “I don’t like his voice” to “his music is too bombastic,” but those don’t hold up either, at least not since I started to enjoy Rush more than 40 years ago.