The one musician Bruce Springsteen said would live forever: “Too f*cking big to die”
The kind of music Bruce Springsteen made is about more than a bunch of ringing chords and anthemic choruses.
‘The Boss’ did make the songs that sound great being sung by millions in a stadium, but if you look at the stories behind every one of those tunes, it’s easy for every single soul to see themselves in a track like ‘Born to Run’ or in the tragic comedy of ‘Glory Days’. The whole point was about trying to find the beauty in everyday life whenever he sang, but if it weren’t for the E Street Band, there’s a good chance that Springsteen would have never made it out of the Jersey clubs back in the day.
That’s not to say that he wasn’t already a fantastic songwriter, either. The material that turned up on his first few albums were great, but when you look at what he was doing through a wider lens, it was clear that he was dangerously close to becoming a knockoff version of Bob Dylan if he went down that road. And there was never a moment where Springsteen took any of his shows with his band for granted.
Because when you think about it, the E Street Band is the extra jolt that all of his songs needed half the time. Neil Young would have never been the same without Crazy Horse, nor would Tom Petty have reached the heights he did without the Heartbreakers, and it took every single member to transform him into a legend. You had people like Stevie Van Zandt in the beginning, but the E Street Band also had to evolve if he wanted to keep it around for so long.
There are still a few albums that sound great when ‘The Boss’ is flying solo like Nebraska, but when he rebranded himself in the 1980s, getting Nils Lofgren in the group was a real shot in the arm. Never has a single guitar player been so overqualified for a position in rock history, and when locking in with Max Weinberg’s drums or when playing off of Patti Scialfa, it’s like the band are trying to create rock and roll heaven on Earth the minute they pick up their instruments.
But of all the members of the band, Clarence Clemons is one of the few that could never truly be replaced. While the idea of a saxophone player in the band may have been considered a bit old-school by the time Springsteen hit the scene, there’s so much drama in the way Clemons played that gave so much more emotion to every tune. The entire Born to Run felt like Springsteen’s baby when they were rehearsing it, but by the time that you hit ‘Jungleland’, that saxophone break in the middle of the tune is enough to make anyone teary-eyed.
So when that musical voice was silenced, Springsteen assured both himself and Clemons’s family that he would never be forgotten, saying, “Clarence was big, and he made me feel, and think, and love, and dream big. How big was the Big Man? Too fucking big to die. And that’s just the facts. You can put it on his grave stone, you can tattoo it over your heart. Accept it… it’s the New World.”
Which is why it’s such a shame that Clemons never got his due in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while he was still alive. It was never meant to be a personal slight by Springsteen when he was brought in as a solo artist in the late 1990s, but the idea of anyone getting inducted without someone that integral to their music is like giving the Oscar for ‘Best Picture’ to only one actor in the film.
It’s a group effort that makes all those magical moments whenever Springsteen plays, and while he has bravely stepped out on that stage without Clemons more than a few times, the band are in good hands with Clemons’s son, Jake, leading the charge on saxophone. The family blood runs deep with ‘The Big Man’, and while he isn’t there to play those massive high notes anymore, there’s no doubt Springsteen is thinking of him every single time he plays his classics today.
