Wednesday, April 18, 2012

You ain't a beauty but hey you're all right

Rumble young [and old artists], rumble: Open your ears and open your hearts, don't take yourselves too seriously and take yourselves as seriously as death itself, don't worry [and] worry your ass off, have ironclad confidence but doubt (it keeps you awake and alert), believe you're the baddest ass in town and [also] 'you suck!'

Sometimes things that come from the outside, they make their way in....
Bruce Springsteen, SXSW keynote speech 2012

In his address The Boss steps out of his role as evangelist of song and into one of the word. See how he brings the Gospel down from the mountain in that trademark Jersey etched voice and craggy, barfly eloquence. He describes an early attraction to The Animals and then illustrates with a few bars from "We Got to Get Out of this Place." The guitar drops out and we're left with just that voice, a sound redolent of restrained fury and emotional scars. On Broadway, with better lighting, this may've been a showstopper. Here, he just tosses it off as an afterthought. He can do that.




Entire transcript of speech here.