Talk About a Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen (33 page)
So that’s how you’ve kept it balanced?
Yeah. I just felt that what I was doing was rooted in a community—either real or imagined—and that my connection to that community was what made my writing and singing matter. I didn’t feel that those connections were casual connections. I felt that they were essential connections. I was a serious young man, you know? I had serious ideas about rock music. Yeah, it was also a circus and fun and a dance party—all of those things—but still a serious thing. I believed that serious things could be done with it. It had a power; it had a voice. I still fucking believe that. I really do.
And I assume that your being here today means that you want gays and lesbians to feel they’re a part of this community—this big country?
Yeah, very much so. The ongoing clarification of the way I feel, of my ideas, where I stand on different issues: That’s my work now. That’s why
this interview is a great opportunity for me. Hey—you write, and you want your music understood.
When you fell in love with your wife, Patti, there was a lot of negativity in the press because your marriage to Julianne Phillips was breaking up. Did your experience with this kind of intrusion into your private life give you any idea what it’s like for gays and lesbians, who constantly get criticized for who they love?
It’s a strange society that assumes it has the right to tell people whom they should love and whom they shouldn’t. But the truth is, I basically ignored the entire thing as much as I could. I said, “Well, all I know is, this feels real, and maybe I have got a mess going on here in some fashion, but that’s life.”
But that’s everything: This feels real
.
That’s it. Trust yourself in the end. Those are the only lights that can go by, and the world will catch up. But I think it would be much more difficult to be gay, particularly in the town that I grew up in. Divorce may have been difficult for me, but I don’t know what it would be like to have your heart in one place and have somebody say, “Hey, you can’t do that.” So all anybody can do is their best. Like when President Clinton came into office, the first thing he tried to do was have gays in the military. I thought, Wow! A leader. I just felt that he was leading.
What did you feel when it all fell apart?
Initially I felt surprised at the reaction. I was surprised that it was such a big deal. But that’s what the federal government is supposed to do: It is supposed to encourage tolerance. If you can’t get acceptance, tolerance will have to do. Acceptance will come later. That’s what the laws are for. So I was saddened by the fate of the whole thing and the beating that he took.
Were you surprised when Melissa Etheridge was able to come out and still have success in rock and roll?
It was tremendously groundbreaking. The rock world is a funny world, a world where simultaneously there is a tremendous amount of macho posturing and homophobia—a lot of it, in my experience—and yet it has as its basic rule the idea that you are supposed to be who you are.
When I first heard about Melissa, I was very happy to see that that was where some of the seeds of what I had done had fallen. I said, “Wow, a lesbian rock singer who came up through the gay bars! I don’t believe it!” [
Laughing
] I felt really good about it.
I understand you and Patti and Melissa and her Julie have become friends
.
We have gotten to know each other since her VH1 special. Since then, we’ve got a nice relationship going.
She told me she’s talked with you about the fight gays and lesbians are in to have the right to be legally married. Some people, especially heterosexuals, think it isn’t that important. I’ve had well-meaning people say, “But you know that loving is all that’s important. Getting married isn’t.”
It does matter. It does matter. There was actually a long time when I was coming from the same place: “Hey, what’s the difference? You have got the person you care about.” I know that I went through a divorce, and it was really difficult and painful and I was very frightened about getting married again. So part of me said, Hey, what does it matter? But it does matter. It’s very different than just living together. First of all, stepping up publicly—which is what you do: You get your license, you do all the social rituals—is part of your place in society and in some way part of society’s acceptance of you.
You and Patti decided you needed that?
Yes, Patti and I both found that it did mean something. Coming out and saying whom you love, how you feel about them, in a public way was very, very important. Those are the threads of society; that’s how we all live together in some fashion. There is no reason I can see why gays and lesbians shouldn’t get married. It is important because those are the things that bring you in and make you feel a part of the social fabric. The idea that Melissa and Julie can’t be married—that seems ridiculous to me. Ridiculous!
So you, a rock star, a symbol of counterculture earlier in your life, have come to defend the importance of traditions?
Yeah, oh, yeah. It’s like, my kids are sort of little heathens at the moment [
laughs
]. They have no particular religious information. Ten years
ago I would have said, “Who cares? They’ll figure it out on their own.” But you are supposed to provide some direction for your children. So you look for institutions that can speak to you and that you can feel a part of and be a part of and that will allow you to feel included and be a part of the community.
What about gays and lesbians having children?
Being a good or bad parent is not something that hinges on your particular sexual preference. I think that people have some idea of what the ideal parent is. I don’t know any ideal parents. I have met single mothers who are doing an incredible job of raising their kids. I don’t feel sexual preference is a central issue.
You have three children. What would you do if one of them came to you and said, “I think I’m gay”?
Whatever their sexual preference might be when they grow up, I think accepting the idea that your child has his own life is the hardest thing to do. That life begins, and you can see it the minute they hit the boards. I think that when I was growing up, that was difficult for my dad to accept that I wasn’t like him, I was different. Or maybe I was like him, and he didn’t like that part of himself—more likely. I was gentle, and generally that was the kind of kid I was. I was a sensitive kid. I think most of the people who move into the arts are. But basically, for me, that lack of acceptance was devastating, really devastating.
Your father didn’t accept you?
Yeah, and it was certainly one of the most devastating experiences. I think your job as a parent is to try to nurture and guide. If one of my kids came and said that to me—hey, you want them to find happiness, you want them to find fulfillment. So they’re the ones who are going to have to decide what that is for them.
Does it get harder and harder for you, in terms of being a father, as your children define themselves more and more?
Yeah, because you are caught up with your children’s identities. You try not to be rigid, but you do find out the places where you are rigid. And you do get caught up in really some of the great clichés of parenting, whether it is wanting them to excel at some particular sport—I mean, really, just some of the dumbest things.
It’s hard to separate?
Yeah, it’s the separation.
And then to have your child’s sexuality be different from your own, that would be difficult, right?
I think that with a lot of these issues, you just don’t know until they truly enter your life in some really personal way. You have your lights that you are trying to steer by, everybody has those. But then you have all that stuff that’s been laid on you that you’re working your way through. Sure, I can sit back and say I know how I would want to react. I know what I would want to say and how I would want to feel. But unless those things enter my life in some personal fashion, I don’t know how I will act.
I think that is very honest. Do you have any family members who are gay?
No [
laughing
]. I have a very eccentric family, but, no, nobody gay in my immediate family.
In your whole career, have you ever had a man ask you out or make a pass at you?
Once or twice when I was younger. Yes [
laughs
]—I mean, no, not exactly directly—[
laughs again
] but you know how those things are.
Being gay or lesbian is a unique minority in the sense that we can pretend we’re straight if we don’t want to encounter homophobic feelings, including our own. Unfortunately, we’ll never change the world that way. To that end it’s important to identify ourselves so that people learn how many people really are gay. As always, there is a tremendous conflict going on in the gay community about pushing people to come out—especially celebrities, because of their wide visibility. Do you have any strong feelings about it?
I have to come at it from the idea of personal privacy. To me, that is a decision that each individual should be free to make. I don’t know if someone should make as profoundly a personal decision as that for you. I’m not comfortable with that.
But would you encourage them?
Sure, you can say, “Hey, come on, step up to the plate” or “We need you” or “It’ll make a big difference,” and that would be absolutely true and valid. But in the end—hey, it’s not your life.
Do you think they could get hurt professionally?
If you’re in the entertainment business, it’s a world of illusion, a world of symbols. So I think you’re talking about somebody who may feel their livelihood is threatened. I think you’ve got to move the world in the right direction so that there is acceptance and tolerance, so that the laws protect everybody’s civil rights, gay, straight, whatever. But then you also have got to give people the room to make their own decisions.
But on a very personal level, what would you tell somebody who asked you for advice about whether or not he or she should come out?
First of all, I can only imagine that not being able to be yourself is a painful thing. It’s awful to have to wear a mask or hide yourself. So at the end of my conversation, I’d just say, “Hey, this is how the world is; these are the consequences, and these are your fundamental feelings.” Because a person’s sexuality is such an essential part of who he is, to not be able to express it the way that you feel it [
sighs
] has just got to be so very painful.
Springsteen drew on many literary influences in his work, not least the writing of novelist and essayist Walker Percy—himself, it turned out, a Springsteen “admirer.” Both writers’ work are informed by struggles with Catholicism, and though they never met, their affinity provided occasion for one of Springsteen’s most thoughtful and wide-ranging interviews. Dr. Percy’s nephew, Will Percy, talked at length with Springsteen about his influences, literary and otherwise, about celebrity, alienation, and the cultural landscape of America. Bruce references Dr. Percy’s essays throughout, and in a way this interview is a conversation with a ghost. Not responding to a “fan letter—of sorts” or fully appreciating his work until after Percy’s death, Springsteen wrote to his widow: “It is now one of my great regrets that we didn’t get to correspond.”
In early 1989, Walker Percy penned a fan letter “of sorts” to Bruce Springsteen, praising the musician’s “spiritual journey” and hoping to begin a correspondence between them. At the time, Springsteen hesitated in responding, but he later picked up a copy of
The Moviegoer
and
began a new journey into Dr. Percy’s writing. Walker Percy died in May 1990, and the two never met, but Percy’s novels and essays, among other books and films, have had a most profound impact on Springsteen’s songwriting. In 1995, Springsteen recorded
The Ghost of Tom Joad
, a richly lyrical album that forged a new purpose for his music, linking him in some ways to the tradition of such artist-activists as John Steinbeck (Joad is the radical hero of
The Grapes of Wrath
) and folk music icon Woody Guthrie. Springsteen’s songs tell us, in their familiar narrative style, about ordinary people struggling through life’s twists and turns, presenting a cast of characters that includes immigrant families, border patrolmen, Midwestern steelworkers, and America’s poor and disenfranchised. The populist sensibility of Guthrie can be heard throughout: it is music competing for the public conscience.
Following an Atlanta concert promoting the album, Will Percy, Walker’s nephew, met Springsteen backstage, and the two talked for hours. When Springsteen mentioned his regret at never having written back to Will’s uncle, Will encouraged him to write to his aunt, Walker’s widow. A few months later, Springsteen, who likes to say that “it’s hard for me to write unless there’s music underneath,” sat down and wrote four pages—a letter years in the making.
Last fall, Will Percy and Springsteen had the chance to meet again, this time on the Springsteen farm in central New Jersey, not far from the small town where Springsteen grew up or from the Jersey Shore clubs where he first made his mark in the 1970s. With a tape running, the two explored the importance of books in Springsteen’s life, most recently his discovery of Dr. Percy’s essays in
The Message in the Bottle
. Like the long-in-coming letter to Mrs. Percy, perhaps this is part of the conversation that Bruce Springsteen might have had with Walker Percy.
When did books start influencing your songwriting and music? I remember as early as 1978, when I saw you in concert you mentioned Ron Kovic’s
Born on the Fourth of July
, and you dedicated a song to him
.
