The Door's Open, But The Ride, It Ain't Free

More than 20 years ago, Bruce Springsteen released the double LP "The River." I was 17 years old. I had only recently become a Springsteen fan, but I was completely in love with The Boss. I had all the previous albums. The end of Jungleland gave me chills. Thunder Road was an introduction to poetry.

Screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances
Across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me
And I want you only

Badlands and Prove it All Night just blew everything away and left me washed clean, sipping a beer held between my legs on the car seat, and feeling alive.

My car radio was constantly tuned to 96 Rock in those days. Great stuff was on that radio — Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Bob Seger, John Cougar, Elvis Costello, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers. And, in the Fall of 1980, Bruce Springsteen singing The River. What was this? I was 17, Bruce was about 30. This was music for a 30-year-old.

Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride iiiyiiyiii

This was mournful, haunting, real adult stuff. It spoke to me anyway. I'd already crashed and burned, in a way. That's why I NEEDED rock and roll. I already knew that society strips away your dreams, or at least I knew instinctively that my road wouldn't be the easy, blithely unaware path. I just didn't fit. No doubt I was romantically in love with that notion.

I had found some friends who felt the same way.

I first became acquainted with Noel when we shared a homeroom in junior high. We weren't great friends at that time, but in high school we realized we had similar taste in rock and roll. I remember a discussion in the mall arcade, the Gold Mine, on the relative merits of ELO vs. ARS. We both tended to like the poppier side of rock. Even the harder stuff that we liked — Bad Company, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, the first Van Halen album — was hard rock with a pop sensibility.

Then Noel and I discovered Springsteen, independently. And so did Billy (aka Ray Sweatman), a friend of Noel's who he'd met through their mutual involvement in the high school drama program.

Noel decided I had to meet Billy. Billy was a trip. So he set up a bowling date. We met at the bowling alley, we bowled, and we talked about Springsteen. I don't remember too much, really, except being the only one who knew all the lyrics to a particular song off of "Darkness." I was proud of that.

Article Author: George Partington

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