Springsteen Cases the Promised Land

by Bart Bull
published in Sounds, 1975 (excerpt)

[Scene: Arizona State Fair, middle of the week, late]

Springsteen is brooding still, walking, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, only slowing his pace to look sideways at a big heifer. The heifer grunts as he goes by. Leaving the barn, a security guard lets them out a gate and they converge on the now-empty lot where the car is parked. Somebody put the homemade cardboard parking sign on the windshield. Miami Steve's discussion with the photographer is getting more and more, uhm, involved, and R.M. the road manager has gone over to supply reinforcements to Van Zandt, who's punctuating a very important point by prodding the photographer with his stuffed snake. The kid and Springsteen are standing off together, over to the side, and the the kid is saying something about a hype. "Like I said, I ODed on publicity," Springsteen mutters. "I mean, I like it, I like to talk to people about my music, but it's gettin' to be so much, ya know? I mean the only people who read what a writer's got to say is other writers."

But aren't you a writer?, the kid asks.

"Yeah, but what I'm doin' . . . it's like I'm here, and that's all you can say. I'm doin' what I want. I mean, all I ever wanted to do was make records, have a band like this . . . " His hands, which had been pulled out of his pockets to illustrate his intentions, get jammed back in, and he rocks back and forth on the heels of his boots. "I don't want all this other stuff, ya know?"

[More excerpts will appear until this story is complete and entire]