A Rambling Raconteur

Bruce Springsteen released his new album this Tuesday, entitled "Wrecking Ball." It's amazing. Like so many of Springsteen's other albums, it is full of the cries of the downtrodden, everyday-folk. These are songs for the people, presented in a near gospel-like fashion.

I watched Bruce give an interview on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Friday and it got me thinking--as Springsteen so often does-about my dad. He was the biggest fan of The Boss that I've ever met. And he made sure his kids shared his enthusiasm. I always tell people that I've been listening to Springsteen since before I was born--and that isn't an exaggeration. Both my brother and I were introduced to this rock icon in the same way that so many babies hear Beethoven: through headphones laid against their mother's stomach.

My dad was nothing special to those who did not know him. He was from a blue-collar family and worked a factory job. He went to church and played catch with his kids. Knowing what I know about the man he was, I'm intrigued by what he chose as my first taste of music.



Not Yet Born to Run

Wrapped securely
in my mother's womb,
I wasn't aware
of the eye-rolling and
the gentle, indulgent smiling
breezing across her face.
I can close my eyes
--now, decades after the fact--
and almost see my father's surely goofy-
looking expression of delight.
He was pressing his headphones
up against Mom's stomach,
in which I was nestled.
He had heard that classical music would ensure
that the baby was smart.

Smart.
It would make a baby more adept
at science, math, and reading.
The experts never said anything about ensuring the child would be
passionate
or poetic.
There were no statistics that proved
Mozart in utero helped strengthen
your unborn child's sense of
justice
or compassion.
Bach emphasized algebra,
not empathy.
In those exuberant eyes of my father,
that wasn't good enough.

It was late 1987,
when I was still fetal, still becoming
whomever it is I was born to be,
when my father set his headphones
across my mother's stomach,
when the first music I would ever hear
came echoing around me.
It was late '87 so
it might have been "Tunnel of Love"
or "Nebraska." I can't remember
and he isn't around to remind me.
But it is good
--to me, at least--
to think of my father,
eschewing expert opinion
about how to develop a baby's brain
and instead concerning himself
with how to develop it's heart.