‘Real Man’: The song that embarrassed Bruce Springsteen
No one values the art of songwriting more than Bruce Springsteen. When you see him perform live, it’s less someone who has written some songs and wants to perform them and more someone engaging with the art form, which has moved them more than anything else. He treats the songs he writes like pieces of magic, and his fans do the same.
When he initially started listening to music, he always felt a connection with it, but being exposed to exceptional songwriting really revealed to Springsteen what power music could hold. Bob Dylan had a big impact on this front.
“I was very influenced by Dylan. I always say he’s the father of my country. He initially provided me with a picture of a country that I recognised. One that feels real, feels like the truth,” said Springsteen, “I want people to get the same experience from listening to one of my records as I had when I listened to Highway 61 Revisited. The idea that something was revealed to them that was fundamentally true and essential…”
As a musician who was influenced by truth within music, Bruce Springsteen’s material reflected the real world, both its good and bad parts. That might mean writing about memories of the past, people he grew up with, politics, grief, and a range of other different emotions that he could connect with.
While he was busy revealing something to the world, though, the idea of the love song seemed to pass Springsteen by. There are tracks where he wrote about feelings of euphoria and joy, which could indeed be interpreted as love songs, but he isn’t the artist that a lot of people went to when looking for tracks to walk down the aisle to.
Like everyone, though, Springsteen fell in love. And like all creatives, he wanted to express that feeling of love in his art. Initially, he was never a big fan of writing love songs, but once he experienced that indefinable feeling, he better understood their importance. Paul McCartney remembers when Springsteen spoke to him about love songs and how it took him a while to connect with many of The Beatle’s wide-eyed and hopelessly rose-tinted nattering.
“He said, ‘I didn’t get it, but I really get it now, man’,” recalled Paul McCartney, “And it’s something that happens. He’s fallen in love, he’s had kids, and he’s more able to accept that thought, which bothered a lot of people at the time.”
Unfortunately, because Bruce Springsteen wasn’t the most well-versed when expressing feelings of love, the love songs he did try to write often fell a little flat. One track he wrote that was dedicated to being a love song was ‘Real Man’, and while his intentions with the track might have been sweet, the music itself doesn’t do much for the listener.
The lyrics were too cheesy and on the nose, to the point that Springsteen became embarrassed to play the song live. “This next song is very corny,” he said before playing it one night, “So corny I almost threw it off the damn record… but uh, but I guess I’m gonna do it here tonight.”
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