Heart Of Darkness

Springsteen never leaves that Jersey guy far behind. He grew up--it's a famous story --in Freehold, a small town near the shore, on a street with a church, a convent and a Sinclair gas station. "Me and my parents lived in my grandparents' house," he says. "Then there was my cousin's house, my aunt's house, my great-grandmother's house, my aunt's house on my mother's side with my other grandmother in it. We were all on one street, with the church in the middle." By his teens, Springsteen was an outsider, watching things happen, remembering them. "The drummer I had then, Bart Haynes, and this fellow Walter, they both died in Vietnam when we were in our teens," he says. "I can still see them in their uniforms. Those are very powerful images. The factories. It still finds its way into my work."

People think Springsteen is an upper-crusty L.A. guy now, but he and his family still spend most of the year in New Jersey. He has a "big, beautiful farm" that he bought a couple of years ago, plus his house in tony Rumson. He takes the kids back to Freehold sometimes: "There's hot-rod rallies, and a firehouse. The kids go up and sit on the fire truck." And every summer, they visit the boardwalk. Jersey is "a place I've never left," he says. "I've tried many times, and never done it. A part of me did leave, but a part of me always stayed. I still enjoy the way it smells and feels in the summertime."

Springsteen is still reconciling the guy he was with the guy he is. But there are signs that he's getting better at it. Lately he's been performing a new song called "The Wish" that he wrote for his mom. It's more jaunty and upbeat than anything on "Tom Joad," yet it's sweet, even a little sentimental, and it says a lot about the difficulty of growing older and growing up. "So tonight I'm takin' requests here in the kitchen/This one's for you, I'm gonna come out and say it," he sings. "But if you're looking for a sad song, well I ain't gonna play it." It's not very deep. But some things don't have to be.

© 1996