Bruce Springsteen and the Beautiful Ambition

I love Bruce Springsteen. I can't help it; I do. He was the pounding backdrop of my freshman year at Penn. He was the songs I danced to when my son was young. He is the voice in my ear in the car when I'm alone. And after 9/11 Springsteen was everywhere. His anthems. His unprettied-up love for the big things that life takes and life yields, because what do we want from the people in our lives? We want them real. We want them honest. We want them color dripped and story wide and gracious with silence, and Springsteen is that kind of person in our lives.

About "Working on a Dream," his newest album, Springsteen says this to the New York Times today : "I wanted hooks, hooks, hooks—things for people to sing, and sound that was going to lift you up. I wanted to capture the intensity and immediacy of passionate love, and then its resonance in and beyond your life. And I wanted it to sound, like, classic: verse, huge chorus, sky-opening-up strings."

My idea of a beautiful ambition.

So he's singing at the Super Bowl, and I'll be watching. He's got a new album on the way, and I'm going to get me one, stow it away, in the glove compartment of the car, set it spinning when I need thrum.