The greatest hits record Bruce Springsteen called “invaluable music history”
Music is not only a source of nourishment for the soul, or a tool to use to escape from the mundanity of a task at hand, for Bruce Springsteen, it can also offer a more fulfilling and entertaining history lesson than anything taught in schools.
A record has many devices, ranging from providing motivation while in the gym to delivering a cultural snapshot of a nation that allows a listener to jump into a time capsule to a period before they were born. Music has the ability to transport people everywhere, whether this be the sticky floors of The Haçienda to soaking up the free-spirited air of the swinging ’60s.
As an artist, it’s also vital to know and appreciate music history. For Springsteen, this particular album accidentally wormed its way into his life in 1978, shortly after he’d emerged as a global superstar and felt like a master of his craft. Then, thanks to Hank Williams, Springsteen understood songwriting in a whole new light.
At this point, Springsteen viewed The Beatles as the pinnacle of musical prowess, but he didn’t have to dig very deep to find them, as they were impossible to avoid. Almost every person of his age was captivated by hearing the Fab Four on the airwaves and subsequently inspired to form bands of their own, each person transfixed by the same set of songs. For Springsteen, his love affair with The Beatles made him grow an appetite to play music, but it wasn’t the end of his journey of discovery.
Years later, Springsteen made an equally important musical finding in Hank Williams. The New Jersey native still doesn’t know why he found himself attracted to Williams’ greatest hits album in the record store, but something inside him gravitated towards the LP, and he felt compelled to put it in his basket. While Williams is an undisputed legend, he died in 1953, which is only four years after Springsteen was born; his work was unfamiliar to ‘The Boss’ and a blind spot.
Admittedly, due to the content of the record being from an era that was outside the musical language that Springsteen spoke fluently, it didn’t immediately hook him in. However, as time went on, Springsteen persevered, which eventually paid off as he became obsessed and suddenly had another artist to place on his Mount Rushmore of all-time greats.
Speaking to Rolling Stone about buying Williams’ greatest hits, which opened his eyes to a whole new world, Springsteen said: “It would have been 1978. I went out and bought a Hank Williams greatest hits, played it on my little stereo in Asbury Park over and over again. I don’t remember what made me go out to buy Hank Williams’ greatest hits because it took me quite a while before I recognised it as being an invaluable piece of music history”.
Meanwhile, in his autobiography Born To Run, Springsteen cited Williams as one of the most important musical influences of his life. He wrote: “I began to find some inspiration in the working-class blues of the Animals, pop hits like the Easybeats’ ‘Friday On My Mind,’ and the country music I’d so long ignored. Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie: here was music that emotionally described a life I recognised, my life, the life of my family and neighbours.”
‘The Boss’ continued: “Here was where I wanted to make my stand musically and search for my own questions and answers. I didn’t want out. I wanted in. I didn’t want to erase, escape, forget, or reject. I wanted to understand.”
Even an artist of Springsteen’s stature is a product of their influences. The acute way that Williams spoke on an emotional level was a skill he wanted to replicate in his own songwriting despite their vastly different modes of musical delivery.
