Springsteen & I Page #4

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want any money from you."

"I don't want any recognition. Please

don't point me out to other people."

"Thank you for your support.

Enjoy the show."

And he was gone.

So we're looking at the tickets,

entrance whatever it was.

We thought, "We'd better

find this entrance, then."

So we walked round Madison

Square Garden at the top

and there was no entrance

and I thought,

"I've just given my tickets

to a complete stranger"

"and we've got tickets that

don't get us in anywhere."

Kath, my wife, pointed out that

we'd just gone past a cocktail bar,

like they do in America, not a

beer stand like in England.

And she said, "There's a couple in

there with orange wristbands on."

"Let's go and ask them."

We went to the cocktail bar.

Sure enough, very elegant

couple sitting there,

and we said, "Excuse me".

And we told them our story.

He said,

"Let me see your tickets."

He looked at the

tickets and he goes,

"You got the best seats in the house.

What's your problem?"

I still found it

a bit hard to believe.

But sure enough we went to

a staff member, showed him

and he just pointed us down

through that entrance

and then the next level down,

keep going, keep going.

We got to the back

of the front section

with the maroon rope

across and thought,

"Oh, we must be behind here somewhere.

This is fantastic."

We showed the man.

He unclipped the rope.

"Down to the front, sir."

And we ended up on the front

row at Madison Square Garden

to see Bruce Springsteen

and the E Street Band

in the year 2000.

I got so excited

I bought my wife

three glasses of champagne

at seven dollars a glass.

And I was a factory

worker at the time.

And it was phenomenal.

So that's what it's like to

be a Bruce Springsteen fan.

Early in the morning

factory whistle blows

Man rises from bed

and puts on his clothes

Man takes his lunch,

walks out in the morning ligt

It's the working, the

working, just the working life

Through the mansions of fear

Through the mansions of pain

I see my daddy walking through

them factory gates in the rain

Factory takes his hear,

factory gives him life

The working, the worki,

just the working life

End of the day,

factory whistle cries

Men walk through these gats

with death in their eyes

And you just

better believe, y

Somebody's gonna

get hurt tonight

It's the worki, the working,

just the working life

It's the working, the working,

just the working life

(HUMMING)

Here we are just hanging out in the

evening at home in our living room,

talking about Bruce Springsteen,

like we do every night.

Yes, we do.

(LAUGHS) Okay.

Anyway, this is my vintage shirt.

Remember this one?

I hardly ever wear it, because

I have to preserve it.

And I never even went to a show.

How did you get that shirt?

I never even went to a show.

We'd never been able to get

tickets when we had money

and then we didn't have

money, so we couldn't go.

Unfortunately not, but we're

still huge Bruce fans.

Oh, God, honey.

What? We are.

I know we are.

All right, so?

(LAUGHS)

Anyway, yes, this was my ex-boyfriend

who I was living with in Manhattan

and he was a musician and I was

a writer-actress-waitress.

And I think he went to the show,

but I was already seeing you.

Then he was trying to woo me

back with the Bruce shirt.

And it didn't quite work.

And I won.

He might have been able to woo me

back if he'd bought Bruce with him.

Anyway, yeah, so it's

my favorite shirt.

I don't wear it too often.

I don't want to wear it out.

Right, but for this occasion...

But it's funny because we

were talking the other night.

We were saying about how...

You know, we were talking about like

how Bruce is kind of in our lives

and stuff like that and...

And we were talking about

like the fact that we're...

It sounds so stupid, but we

are kind of like the people

that are in his songs

in different ways.

Very much so, blue collar.

Blue collar.

Together 28 years.

Struggling.

Yeah, struggling with the kids

and you go to work

every day in Manhattan

and works with his hands and has

been doing that for over 30 years.

But we're still together.

That's the main thing.

But if you say it one more

time, we might not be.

MAN:
So I've got these tickets to see

Bruce with my girlfriend in Hamilton

and she calls me on October 20th,

the night before the concert,

while I'm at work and just

tells me, "It's over."

And I think, "This is going to

be the worst day of my life."

So I get home, I get drinking and

I don't know what else to do,

or what to think except I

guess I need somebody else

to go see

Bruce Springsteen with me.

And I guess that

won't be too hard to find.

And then I think, "I've got

tickets on the floor."

And I realized, "No, no, no,

what I need is a sign."

BRUCE:
Hi, Bruce,

I just got dumped.

We all know what that's like.

Where's my man, right there?

What happened, bro?

She didn't think I was

spending enough time with her.

(ALL LAUGHING)

You probably weren't.

(CHUCKLES)

Can you get a hug?

Come on up here.

It's going to be okay.

It's going to be all right.

Don't worry about a thing.

I got dumped

plenty of times myself.

Oh, they're regretting it now.

That's right.

She'll be regretting it.

That's right. They left too

soon, man, too soon they quit.

Aha!

And missed that record company

advance money, they left too soon.

We sit in the car

outside your house

I can feel the ht

coming round

I go put my arm around yu

You give me a look

like I'm way out of bounds

Well, you let out one

of your bored sighs

But baby when I lok

into your eyes

I'm going down,

down, down, down

I'm going down,

down, down, down

I'm going down,

down, down, down

I'm going down, down, down

We get dressed up and we go

Out, baby, for the night

We come home early burning

Burning in some fire fight

I'm sick and tired

of you setting me up

Setting me up just to

knock-a-knock-a-knock-a e

Down, down, down

I'm going down,

down, down, down

I'm going down, down, down

I'm going down

Take me!

All right, my three words are

poet,

comfort,

and gluteus maximostus.

Hope, insurance and redemption.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

Working-class hero.

And I think that in general Polish

people could relate to his music,

especially during communism, because

he was singing about freedom.

When you... At the time people

couldn't speak English so well,

so when like in the song

Born in the USA,

they could understand

only the chorus,

so everybody was thinking that,

"Oh, he's praising the fact that

he's an American. It's so great"

I guess that if you hear him singing

Born in the USA with such charisma,

you want to be like that.

I want to be an American, too.

So those were like the sounds of

freedom, I would say, really.

Born down in

a dead man's town

The first kick I took

was when I hit the ground

You end up like a dog

that's been beat too much

Till you spend half your

life just covering up

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