The singer Bruce Springsteen needed to hear every night: “That keeps me honest”
Bruce Springsteen didn’t need to really hide any of his influences whenever he played.
He was a student of rock and roll, and even if the biggest names in the genre had already been set in stone, he was going to do everything he could to put a little extra bit of shine on their names whenever he performed versions of Chuck Berry and Little Richard tunes, but even in his prime, he needed the right kind of band to help bring him back down to Earth before he entered those massive arenas.
Because when anyone gets up on that stage, they can sometimes forget why they’re up there. Even some of the biggest names in pop music know how to put on a show, but when you look at a lot of the biggest names in arena rock, even some of the more seasoned veterans spend a lot more time going through the motions and looking at their shoes more often than they’re giving the crowd an actual show.
Which is why Springsteen’s concerts have always felt so communal. He genuinely believed those lines about rock and roll saving your soul like Don McLean talked about in ‘American Pie’, and even when looking through his own body of work, songs like ‘Born to Run’ and ‘The Rising’ are those rare moments in rock music when the stage becomes an official church where everyone can feel united by something greater than themselves.
But back when rock and roll was first getting born, Springsteen learned everything he needed by listening to Buddy Holly. What he was doing wasn’t necessarily that unorthodox compared to Berry’s more energetic cuts, but going through every single one of Holly’s records is what gave Springsteen the same kind of drive that stuck with him all the way up to his days playing to packed houses.
Playing the Stone Pony was one thing back in Jersey, but if he was going to create that same kind of feeling whenever he performed live, he was going to need Holly’s greatest hits blasting before every show, saying in 1978, “[Rock and roll] was the only thing that was every true, it was the only thing that never let me down. And no matter who was out there, ten people or 10,000 people, there’s a lot to live up to… What happens is, there’s a lotta trappings, there’s a lotta things that are there to tempt you, sort of. It’s just meaningless. And I just try to… I play Buddy Holly every night before I go on, that keeps me honest.”
Holly isn’t necessarily everyone’s first choice for a rock and roll star, but the reason why he works so well is because of his approach to music. He was trying his best to write songs all by himself, and while Elvis Presley could make a profit playing the most celebrated rock and roll songs of all time that he didn’t write, Holly was proving to everyone that all they needed was a couple of chords and a dream to become one of the biggest stars in the world.
And while his career was short-lived, he did pack a bit more tricks in his songs than most people would have guessed. Hearing him go immediately to F in ‘Peggy Sue’ after playing the entire song in A was already a darker jump, but that kind of adventurousness is what sparked people like Paul McCartney to start venturing outside the usual chords that he heard in all of those early Berry tunes.
Springsteen was a lot more rough around the edges when compared to what Holly was doing, but if you listen through a song like ‘That’ll Be the Day’ or ‘Not Fade Away’, you’re hearing core pieces of what ‘The Boss’ built himself upon. A kid like him was never destined to be a rock and roll star, but if someone with wire-rimmed glasses and a song in his heart could become the biggest name in the world, why not him, too?
