Ah not again

Hello dear reader, been a while. Busy man you see.

So I changed jobs recently and my commute has gotten a bit longer, “what to do with all that time sitting in the car”, says I.

“Why not listen to the Bruce Springsteen back catalogue” I answer, “haven’t done that for a few years”

So off young Brophy goes, CD’s in boot, on his merry way.

Now Mr Springsteen has 18 studio albums and another 7 or 8 live albums as well as demo releases and so on, so I’m no where near through even a half of it at this stage but I’m working at it and maybe by the middle of the summer I’ll be done.

I decided to start not at Bruce’s beginning, but mine and off I went. I’ve told you before about my fist full of birthday money and my copy of “Born to Run”, all those long, long years ago.

I’m trying to remember and to keep to the time line of albums I bought and to listen to them in that order, I think I’ve battened that down and the effect of it all is quite astounding.

One of the things I have noticed is how listening to an album brings back so many memories. Different songs on albums remind me of people, places and situations that I haven’t thought about in years.

Listening to “Born to Run” and a song called “Meeting across the river”, I’m 13 years old again, looking out my bedroom window, watching rain rolling down and thinking about whatever long ago sorted calamity was bearing down on me at the time.

“Dancing in the Dark”, “Bobby Jean”, reminds me of, well…..my “Glory Days”.

“Racing in the Street”, a song I owe so much of my emotional health to. The song that got me through and still gets me through the death of my cousin.

My favourite lyric of all time “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come through, or is it something worse?”, from “The River”, I had it scrawled on my school bag and after I told my son Cathal that, he had it printed on a tee shirt for me.

So, what have I learned from my continuing trip down memory lane?

Well, along with the love of my beautiful wife, kids, and the very best of family and friends, these songs, I’ve realised, have contributed massively to me, at nearly 50 years old, being the man I have become, and I humbly submit that I’m not a bad aul sort.

I know it’s corny, I really do, but I’ve a debt of gratitude to Bruce for his part in that. I’ve never met him and most likely never will but I owe him, he helped me grow up, in fact he’s still helping me to grow up.