The only song Bruce Springsteen couldn’t live without: “A voice filled with bad attitude”
For as long as Bruce Springsteen can remember, his life has been soundtracked by music. Although Springsteen has now garnered wealth that he once deemed unimaginable, lives in lavish surroundings, and is called ‘The Boss’ by millions, he’s still a regular music fan like the rest of us.
Springsteen didn’t deliberately choose to become a professional musician; instead, it became apparent at an early age that he should follow his passion wherever it led him. At that stage, the singer-songwriter didn’t expect the road to be paved with gold and believed dive bars were more likely destinations for his talent than arenas.
As a result of his success, Springsteen is viewed as one of New Jersey’s favourite sons. In 2023, September 23rd became officially recognised as Bruce Springsteen Day in New Jersey. His home state has immeasurably shaped him into the person and artist he has become, which makes this an appropriate honour. Even the late Frank Sinatra doesn’t have a day dedicated to him in the New Jersey calendar, which signifies Springsteen’s cultural importance to the region. Nevertheless, if Springsteen were in charge of mayoral affairs, he’d make honouring Sinatra his first port of call.
Sinatra has been everpresent in Springsteen’s life. No matter where he finds himself, whenever he hears the crooner’s voice, it transports him back home to his childhood. He also had the pleasure of getting to know his hero during the latter stages of Sinatra’s life as they bridged the generational divide and sparked a friendship that meant everything to Springsteen.
From a young age, Springsteen gravitated toward the magnetic pull of the lifestyle Sinatra was advertising in his music. He aspired to one day live similarly to the sharply dressed Sinatra, who was the very essence of sophistication.
In 1995, Springsteen was invited to appear at a tribute show for Sinatra to mark the singer’s 80th birthday. The opportunity was a pinch-yourself moment for Springsteen, and before performing ‘Angel Eyes’, he told the crowd about Sinatra’s impact on him.
Springsteen explained: “Well, I’m here tonight not just to salute Frank’s artistry because, well, he is the patron saint of New Jersey, and since his rise from the streets of Hoboken, Frank has basically owned the place, but he has been gracious enough to loan me a small piece of it by the beach.”
The singer-songwriter poignantly added: “We first met at a party about six months ago, and we talked about the Jersey Shore. I was glad to find that his conversation was still peppered with the kinds of words that have made our state great. My first recollection of Frank’s voice was coming out of a jukebox in a dark bar on a Sunday afternoon when my mother and I went searching for my father. She said, ‘Listen to that, that’s Frank Sinatra, he is from New Jersey’. It was a voice filled with bad attitude, life, beauty, excitement and nasty sense of freedom, sex and sad knowledge of the ways of the world.”
Since his mother introduced him to Sinatra as a child, he has had a sentimental attachment to his body of work. It’s been there in the background of his life, soundtracking memories across the emotional spectrum, but one song matters more than the rest. In a conversation with Stephen Colbert in 2021, Springsteen was asked to name the one song he’d listen to for the rest of his life. In response, he headed straight to Sinatra, stating, “One? Wow. ‘Summer Wind’ – Frank Sinatra.”
The track initially appeared on Sinatra’s album Strangers In The Night. It depicts the tale of a treasured summer romance that flies by like the wind. Although it’s not an original song and was originally a German-language track titled ‘Der Sommerwind,’ once Sinatra stepped into the recording studio, ‘Summer Wind’ became his forever.
Springsteen and Sinatra possess the same dogged New Jersey spirit, which shines through their respective work, but their differences are stark. They represent different eras of the area’s cultural fabric, capturing the zeitgeist in their own fashion. Although the same streets moulded the two iconic musicians, their formative years occurred decades apart, reflecting their respective output. Nevertheless, Springsteen and Sinatra’s work provides a musical history lesson on New Jersey when combined.
