windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor closets are for hangers, winners use the door

Via Joe Posnanski
http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-man.html

I only saw Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band perform Rosalita one time in all the years. I love Rosalita, love the song because it sounds like 17 years old, you know? It is bold and messy and irresponsible and full of life. The words, let’s not kid anybody, are ridiculous. We’re going to play some pool, skip some school, act real cool, stay out all night, it’s gonna feel all right. The instruments seem to me to be attacking each other in a playful way — like a musical water-balloon fight. Rock and roll can mean so many things. One of those things it can mean is youth. But youth fades. Layla grows old. Amanda grows old, Beth grows old, Melissa, Michelle, my bell, Miss Molly, Good Golly, Billie Jean, not my lover, Judy Blue Eyes, Brown Eyed Girl, sha la la la, Lola, L-O-L-A, Lola, Roxanne, heck, even Mary and Wendy grow old.

But, to my ears anyway, Rosalita stays young forever.

I’m like this with music, ask too much of it, maybe. I do not expect real magic when going to a magic show. But I do when seeing Springsteen and the E-Street Band. I expect something to ignite, something that doesn’t quite add up, something that leaps beyond the songs, beyond the instruments, beyond Bruce’s voice, beyond … I expect it because they delivered it every time I saw them play. Sometimes it happened only for a minute. Sometimes, it lasted for 20. Sometimes that something beyond overpowered the whole night.