Read the handwritten letter Joe Strummer wrote in honour of Bruce Springsteen
To say that the ultimate punk, Joe Strummer, was a fan of Bruce Springsteen would be putting it lightly, to say the least.
While their styles might differ sonically, there is no shortage of societal wherewithal displayed in either camp. With this in mind, The Boss was a (un)surprising influence on the seminal punk outfit The Clash and Strummer’s later work. The singer even wrote a letter of appreciation about his fellow telecaster shredding troubadour, back in 1995, which was somewhat appropriately titled ‘Bruce is great’.
According to Pat Gilbert’s book Passion Is A Fashion: The Real Story Of The Clash, Springsteen greatly impacted a young, impressionable Strummer who was playing with his pub rock band The 101ers at the time. As the New Jersey native’s earliest tunes came crackling across the radio, he recognised a similar sense of solidarity in his pulsing rock songs.
His fandom would only escalate from there. After seeing The Boss at the Hammersmith Odeon in November 1975, things went up a notch or two. Just a few months later, The Clash would be formed, and with a burning passion for sticking up for the working man, continuing to grow, Strummer’s mission became clear.
He figured that the artist must respond to society, much in the same way Springsteen is responding to the ICE issue at present. In Strummer’s spikey view, the “climate of the times dictates the way people write.” Or at least some people – and The Boss was certainly one of them.
The respect was mutual, Springsteen later paying tribute to Strummer following the iconic frontman’s death in 2002, took to the stage at the next Grammys to blitz through a ferocious rendition of ‘London Calling’ where he was joined by Steven Van Zandt from The E Street Band, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Strummer’s old friend Elvis Costello. Now, that’s one hell of a tribute band.
Springsteen would yet again pay tribute to the late Clash frontman in 2009 when he opened his headline set on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage – a festival that holds Strummer close to its heart – with a cover of Joe Strummer’s ‘Coma Girl’, which featured on Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros’ third album Streetcore that was released shortly after his death.
It’s a left-field choice to start a headline set at Glastonbury with, but Springsteen is never one to follow the handbook step-by-step, just like Strummer. In many ways, he was punk before punk. The connection between the two is straightforward to see, and Springsteen has always reciprocally cited Strummer as a huge influence on his own career, in turn.
In 1995, Mark Hagen from Mojo asked Strummer if he could contribute a few words to a piece they were conducting about Bruce Springsteen because they knew how much of a fan he was of his contemporary.
Unsurprisingly, Strummer happily obliged, sending in way more than just a few mere words of support, and declared all the reasons why The Boss is great, which you can read in full below. The zenith of his praise is perhaps that he saw Springsteen as a symbol of hope – that’s what he saw as the primary purpose of art itself, after all.
“ATTN: MARK HAGEN
“Dear Mark – here’s my contribution
“BRUCE IS GREAT… IF YOU DONT AGREE WITH THAT YOU’RE A PRETENTIOUS MARTIAN FROM VENUS. BRUCE LOOKS GREAT… LIKE HE’S ABOUT TO CRAWL UNDERNEATH THE CHORDS WITH A SPANNER & SOCK THE STARTER MOTOR ONE TIME SO THAT A ENGINE STARTS UP – HUMMING & READY TO TAKE US ON A GOLDEN RIDE WAY OUT SOMEWHERE IN THE YONDER… BRUCE IS GREAT… BECAUSE HE’LL NEVER LAY DOWN & BE CONQUERED BY HIS PROBLEMS HE’S ALLWAYS READY TO BUST OUT the SHACK & HIT THE TRACK… HIS MUSIC IS GREAT ON A DARK & RAINY MORNING IN ENGLAND, JUST WHEN YOU NEED SOME SPIRIT & SOME PROOF THAT THE BIG WIDE WORLD EXISTS, THE D.J. PUTS ON “RACING IN THE STREETS” & LIFE SEEMS WORTH LIVING AGAIN… LIFE SEEMS TO BE IN CINEMASCOPE AGAIN. BRUCE IS NOT ON AN EGO TRIP… BRUCE IS ACTUALLY INTO THE MUSIC… WE NEED PEOPLE LIKE THIS… A LOT OF RECORDS TODAY ARE MADE BY PEOPLE JUST TO FEED THEIR FAME. BRUCE IS GREAT… THERE AINT NO WHINGING WHINING OR COMPLAINING.. THERE’S ONLY GREAT MUSIC, LYRICS & AN OCEAN OF TALENT. ME? I LOVE SPRINGSTEEN!!!
“(Signed, ‘Joe Strummer’):
