The audiences are there as a result of my history with the band but also as a result of my being able to reach people with a tune.
From Bruce Springsteen
But I think that your entire life is a process of sorting out some of those early messages that you got.
We all have stories we're living and telling ourselves.
You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses.
For an adult, the world is constantly trying to clamp down on itself. Routine, responsibility, decay of institutions, corruption: this is all the world closing in.
I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that's the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up - either religious or social laws - become meaningless.
The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad.
Somebody who can reckon with the past, who can live with the past in the present, and move towards the future - that's fabulous.
I don't like to write rhetorically or get on a soapbox. I try to make the stuff multi-layered, so that it always has a life outside its social context. I don't believe that you can tell people anything; you can only draw them in.
I'm interested in what it means to be an American. I'm interested in what it means to live in America. I'm interested in the kind of country that we live in and leave our kids. I'm interested in trying to define what that country is.
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