The 1956 song Bruce Springsteen couldn’t live without: “Hit me like a thunderbolt”
Bruce Springsteen built out a whole new archetype for himself as a singer-songwriter, but even then, his influences were still able to trace through his work.
While Springsteen was a much-welcomed distinct voice, it was difficult for any male singer-songwriter not to get labelled as Bob Dylan 2.0, even though they were not remotely similar. As the years went on, Springsteen carved out a unique space for himself, and these comparisons died down as he became the voice of his generation.
Springsteen may have arrived on the scene as a scruffy New Jersey upstart with rock ‘n’ roll intentions. As time passed, his aspirations grew, and his rebellion rose with it. Subsequently, soon enough, he was pitched as the all-American heir to Elvis Presley’s throne.
While ‘The Boss’ and ‘The King’ were not particularly musically aligned, they both defined their respective eras, while also coming alive in live environments, with the stage being where they were born to be. Nevertheless, Elvis was the first artist Springsteen fell in love with, and made him dream that he could one day be a performer himself.
Even when he became a superstar in his own right, that obsession still burned brightly. In fact, the plucky Springsteen even tried to track him down and sneak into Graceland on one balmy evening, but, unfortunately, his own clumsiness and on-site security prevented him from meeting his hero.
As the story goes, While on his Born To Run tour, Springsteen and the E-Street Band’s Stevie Van Zandt decided to hail a taxi to the residence after playing a show in Memphis. They got as far as security before they were stopped, and despite his growing status in the music industry, they weren’t getting past the scary bouncers on the door.
Springsteen’s fascination with Elvis dates back to childhood, when he was a seven-year-old child glued to the television set who was blown away by the medley of hits performed by the singer on The Ed Sullivan Show, whose set included ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, ‘Love Me Tender’, and ‘Hound Dog’. It was a performance which saw Presley gyrate his hips to millions, exciting and disgusting the nation in equal measure.
The latter track particularly stuck with Springsteen, and when he appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs, he waxed lyrical about the song, naming ‘Hound Dog’ as one of the eight pieces of music he couldn’t life without.
When he spoke about ‘Hound Dog’, Springsteen was suddenly that seven-year-old kid again, who had his mind blown thanks to Elvis, recalling, “When I heard it, it just shot straight through to my brain.”
Even though he was only a child, ‘Hound Dog’ made Springsteen feel like there was a whole other world out there that he’d been deprived of exploring, adding, “I realised, suddenly, that there was more to life than what I’d been living. I was then in pursuit of something and there’d been a vision laid out before me. You were dealing with the pure thrust, the pure energy of the music itself”.
“I was so very young but it still hit me like a thunderbolt.”
Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen wasn’t alone in thinking this after hearing ‘Hound Dog’, even if he may have been the youngest person in America to do so. Presley may not have written ‘Hound Dog’, but once he recorded his iconic vocals, it was rightfully his possession. Millions could have tried, but nobody else would have made ‘Hound Dog’ have that same visceral impact.
Although it was only the first domino to fall, watching Presley perform ‘Hound Dog’ on The Ed Sullivan Show was crucial for Springsteen. It unlocked something within him that he didn’t know had been locked, making him one day want to emulate his hero. While there never has been and never will be another Elvis, Springsteen has got closer than anybody else.
