Weird rock fact #415: Boss, 1987

It’s been a weird few weeks. Everybody here is sick, and the conditions keep changing. I myself, am only just healthy enough to write and complain, alternately and as one awesome task. That fact, married with the nearness of both Halloween and Christmas, and - you guessed it - Weird Rock Fact son!

I remember 1987, right around Christmas, clearly. Actually, I remember just one aspect of right around Christmas 1987 clearly, and that’s having this weird conversation with a relative, regarding the Boss. Specifically, the Boss’s creative choices of the period. 1987, you’ll remember, was the year Springsteen “split” with his long time back-up personel, the fabled E Street Band. The reason I remember all of this, is because - while the music press was totally agog, talking about the "end of an era", and the "new beginnings!" of this and that… - I just didn’t get it. Bruce was still Bruce. He hadn’t had a stroke, or found Jesus, or renounced rock. The record in question was "Tunnel of Love". Still an awesome spin,and was then, especially so in finding a listener in a breakup-y frame of mind, yes, but awesome, also, in general. Most importantly, there WAS NO SPLIT. Despite ominous creative way-parting talk on MTV, all the E-Streeters played on the new record, and they’d just announced a tour. To my 12 year-old ears, shit sounded like business as usual. Nobody could explain the big noise in the press, and I must have been curious, cause I remember asking a lot:

“What’s the big deal ? He’s not breaking them up forever, and the record is awesome…

Well, he’s been with them a long time and…

But he’s still with them. They ALL play on the record. They’re going on tour…

Well, people worry that he’ll change…

But he’s clearly NOT doing that. These songs sound like all the other Bruce songs. What’s the problem?

Well, you go ask Clarence Clemons what the problem is…

There was no way to do that, as the information super-highway was still under construction. We were all of us forced to use the information side streets back then, and information horse and buggies. In retrospect, I guess Clarence maybe would have been a little PO’ed at the time. In the book “Big Man” he describes having heard about the record, and the Boss’s E-Street-less vision of the immediate future, during a hurricane which he rode out at Kinky Friedman’s house. I have to include however, that no less an authority than Bob Zimmernman his own self closes the matter for readers, and in doing so, agrees - whole heartedly - with a young me.

“what’s the big deal” Asks a storm-besotted Dylan, just having mysteriously arrived mid-storm at the Kinkster’s place. “I play with everybody”.

Fuck yeah Bob. And Fuck yeah 1987 GC. For an early display of what would become a lifelong penchant for skepticism where the entertainment press is concerned.