How Sam Fender and Sharon Van Etten paid tribute to Bruce Springsteen
Has an age ever encapsulated the panic of blooming adulthood more than 17? A true coming-of-age year, you’re too old to be a teenager and too young to be an adult. It’s a moment of fearful limbo between the youth and innocence that’s gone and the strife that’s sure to come. No wonder it’s a moment so often referenced in music. Bruce Springsteen does it masterfully.
His songs always serve as a kind of vignette capturing a distinct story in small-town suburban life. In ‘The River’, he grasps the feeling of youthful hope and dreaming, singing, “Me and Mary we met in high school / When she was just seventeen / We’d ride out of this valley / Down to where the fields were green.”
It’s a tale of wanting more. ‘The River’ borrows the voice of a young man, reflecting on what’s expected of him and the path he’s told to follow. It’s a life where “They bring you up to do like your daddy done”. Viewing life as a river that you can’t escape, it opens up the question of whether your blood is your fate and whether anyone can ever truly change their course.
From the other side of the world, four decades later, a Geordie singer picked up where The Boss left off. “I’m seventeen going under,” Sam Fender sings in his magnum opus on a small-town, working-class youthful strife.
Springsteen paints a distinctly American picture of a conveyor belt taking you from school to construction work to babies to marriage, dreams being wasted with each next choiceless step. Fender’s ‘Seventeen Going Under’ takes it further, considering the poverty circle and how a teenager in a rundown town has no choice but feels destined for struggle. “Well, luck came and died ’round here / I see my mother / The DWP see a number,” Fender sings, turning Springsteen’s river into an endless stream of people trying their best to stay afloat.
But even if the lyrics never came in, ‘Seventeen Going Under’, much like most of Fender’s work, is undeniably inspired by Springsteen. The opening riff could be plucked straight from Born To Run. Launching into a simple but effective instrumental, it doesn’t try to be something overly impressive or overdone, just like Springsteen’s work. By the time the saxophone comes in, the Boss’ spirit is all over the song.
But Fender isn’t shy about that, crediting the musician as his “biggest hero”. When it came to ‘Seventeen Going Under’, Springsteen’s influence as a suburban songwriter was vital. “He never ever stopped singing about his home,” Fender told NME, “He never stopped writing about people.”
That summarises it perfectly. Springsteen’s appeal is in the complete ordinariness of his lyricism and the relatability of his stories. When it comes to his interaction with 17, he captures the age for exactly what it is: confusing, conflicting, fun, yet tough.
That draws another serendipitous line of connection. “I used to be free / I used to be seventeen,” Sharon Van Etten sings in her take on the age. Capturing the more joyous if rose-tinted side of the year, ‘Seventeen’ is another coming-of-age track that drips with Springsteen’s influence.
Considering “downtown hot spots”, street corners and places known like the back of her hand, Van Etten seems to send a note back to her older self, following her old shadow around her hometown, trying to pass on a message. “I wish I could show you how much you’ve grown,” she sings, suggesting that, unlike Springsteen and Fender’s take, Van Etten got out to reflect on where she started from a celebratory distance.
Similar to Fender’s take, Springsteen’s influence is wordlessly heard. In The catching drum line and chugging guitar, the verses march towards big euphoric choruses just like all the best Boss songs. It’s classic rock in that fresh style that the New Jersey legend pioneered. It’s simple, no-fuss, good music that lets the story lead and captures the feeling perfectly.
A beautiful web weaved between a legend and his loyal followers, the story of Springsteen and these two tracks are a testament to the Boss’ moving storytelling. Helping to give a voice to the underdogs or to the utterly and plainly normal suburban folk, the singer allowed anyone and everyone to make an anthem out of their life. Turning the messy age of 17 into an era worthy of reflection and celebration, it seems to be the number of the Boss.
