Bruce Springsteen: 'They're keepers of some of the most beautiful sonic architecture in rock and roll', Induction U2 into Rock Hall of Fame - 2005

14 March 2005, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, USA

Uno, dos, tres, catorce. That translates as one, two, three, fourteen. That is the correct math for a rock and roll band. For in art and love and rock and roll, the whole had better equal much more than the sum of its parts, or else you're just rubbing two sticks together searching for fire. A great rock band searches for the same kind of combustible force that fueled the expansion of the universe after the big bang. You want the earth to shake and spit fire. You want the sky to split apart and for God to pour out.

It's embarrassing to want so much, and to expect so much from music, except sometimes it happens -- the Sun Sessions, Highway 61, Sgt. Peppers, the Band, Robert Johnson, Exile on Main Street, Born to Run -- whoops, I meant to leave that one out (laughter) -- the Sex Pistols, Aretha Franklin, the Clash, James Brown, the power of Public Enemy's "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back". This is music meant to take on not only the powers that be, but on a good day, the universe and God himself -- if he was listening. It's man's accountability, and U2 belongs on this list.

It was the early '80s. I went with Pete Townsend, who always wanted to catch the first whiff of those about to unseat us, to a club in London. There they were: A young Bono -- single-handedly pioneering the Irish mullet; (laughter) the Edge -- what kind of name was that?; Adam and Larry. I was listening to the last band of whom I would be able to name all of its members. They had an exciting show and a big, beautiful sound. They lifted the roof.

We met afterwards and they were nice young men. They were Irish. Irish! Now, this would play an enormous part in their success in the States. For what the English occasionally have the refined sensibilities to overcome, we Irish and Italians have no such problem. We come through the door fists and hearts first. U2, with the dark, chiming sound of heaven at their command -- which, of course, is the sound of unrequited love and longing, their greatest theme -- their search for God intact. This was a band that wanted to lay claim to not only this world but had their eyes on the next one, too.

Now, they're a real band; each member plays a vital part. I believe they actually practice some form of democracy -- toxic poison in a band's head. In Iraq, maybe. In rock, no! Yet they survive. They have harnessed the time bomb that exists in the heart of every great rock and roll band that usually explodes, as we see regularly from this stage. But they seemed to have innately understood the primary rule of rock band job security: "Hey, asshole, the other guy is more important than you think he is!" They are both a step forward and direct descendants of the great bands who believed rock music could shake things up in the world, who dared to have faith in their audience, who believed if they played their best it would bring out the best in you. They believed in pop stardom and the big time. Now this requires foolishness and a calculating mind. It also requires a deeply held faith in the work you're doing and in its powers to transform. U2 hungered for it all, and built a sound, and they wrote the songs that demanded it. They're keepers of some of the most beautiful sonic architecture in rock and roll.

The Edge. The Edge. The Edge. The Edge. (applause) He is a rare and true guitar original and one of the subtlest guitar heroes of all time. He's dedicated to ensemble playing and he subsumes his guitar ego in the group. But do not be fooled. Take Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Neil Young, Pete Townshend -- guitarists who defined the sound of their band and their times. If you play like them, you sound like them. If you are playing those rhythmic two-note sustained fourths, drenched in echo, you are going to sound like the Edge, my son. Go back to the drawing board and chances are you won't have much luck. There are only a handful of guitar stylists who can create a world with their instruments, and he's one of them. The Edge's guitar playing creates enormous space and vast landscapes. It is a thrilling and a heartbreaking sound that hangs over you like the unsettled sky. In the turf it stakes out, it is inherently spiritual. It is grace and it is a gift.

Now, all of this has to be held down by something. The deep sureness of Adam Clayton's bass and the rhythms of Larry Mullen's elegant drumming hold the band down while propelling it forward. It's in U2's great rhythm section that the band finds its sexuality and its dangerousness. Listen to "Desire," "She Moves in Mysterious Ways," [sic] the pulse of "With or Without You." Together Larry and Adam create the element that suggests the ecstatic possibilities of that other kingdom -- the one below the earth and below the belt -- that no great rock band can lay claim to the title without.

Now Adam always strikes me as the professorial one, the sophisticated member. He creates not only the musical but physical stability on his side of the stage. The tone and depth of his bass playing has allowed the band to move from rock to dance music and beyond. One of the first things I noticed about U2 was that underneath the guitar and the bass, they have these very modern rhythms going on. Rather than a straight 2 and 4, Larry often plays with a lot of syncopation, and that connects the band to modern dance textures. The drums often sounded high and tight and he was swinging down there, and this gave the band a unique profile and allowed their rock textures to soar above on a bed of his rhythm.

Now Larry, of course, besides being an incredible drummer, bears the burden of being the band's requisite "good-looking member," (laughter) something we somehow overlooked in the E Street Band. (laughter) We have to settle for "charismatic." Girls love on Larry Mullen! I have a female assistant that would like to sit on Larry's drum stool. A male one, too. We all have our crosses to bear.

Bono...where do I begin? Jeans designer, soon-to-be World Bank operator, just plain operator, seller of the Brooklyn Bridge -- oh hold up, he played under the Brooklyn Bridge, that's right. Soon-to-be mastermind operator of the Bono burger franchise, where more than one million stories will be told by a crazy Irishman. Now I realize that it's a dirty job and somebody has to do it, but don't quit your day job yet, my friend. You're pretty good at it, and a sound this big needs somebody to ride herd over it.

And ride herd over it he does. His voice, big-hearted and open, thoroughly decent no matter how hard he tries. Now he's a great frontman. Against the odds, he is not your mom's standard skinny, ex-junkie archetype. He has the physique of a rugby player...well, an ex-rugby player. Shaman, shyster, one of the greatest and most endearingly naked messianic complexes in rock and roll. (laughter) God bless you, man! It takes one to know one, of course.

You see, every good Irish and Italian-Irish front man knows that before James Brown there was Jesus. So hold the McDonald arches on the stage set, boys, we are not ironists. We are creations of the heart and of the earth and of the stations of the cross -- there's no getting out of it. He is gifted with an operatic voice and a beautiful falsetto rare among strong rock singers. But most important, his is a voice shot through with self-doubt. That's what makes that big sound work. It is this element of Bono's talent -- along with his beautiful lyric writing -- that gives the often-celestial music of U2 its fragility and its realness. It is the questioning, the constant questioning in Bono's voice, where the band stakes its claim to its humanity and declares its commonality with us.

Now Bono's voice often sounds like it's shouting not over top of the band but from deep within it. "Here we are, Lord, this mess, in your image." He delivers all of this with great drama and an occasional smirk that says, "Kiss me, I'm Irish." He's one of the great front men of the past twenty years. He is also one of the only musicians to devote his personal faith and the ideals of his band into the real world in a way that remains true to rock's earliest implications of freedom and connection and the possibility of something better.

Now the band's beautiful songwriting -- "Pride (In The Name of Love)," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," "One," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "Beautiful Day" -- reminds us of the stakes that the band always plays for. It's an incredible songbook. In their music you hear the spirituality as home and as quest. How do you find God unless he's in your heart? In your desire? In your feet? I believe this is a big part of what's kept their band together all of these years.

See, bands get formed by accident, but they don't survive by accident. It takes will, intent, a sense of shared purpose, and a tolerance for your friends' fallibilities...and they of yours. And that only evens the odds. U2 has not only evened the odds but they've beaten them by continuing to do their finest work and remaining at the top of their game and the charts for 25 years. I feel a great affinity for these guys as people as well as musicians.

Well...there I was sitting down on the couch in my pajamas with my eldest son. He was watching TV. I was doing one of my favorite things -- I was tallying up all the money I passed up in endorsements over the years (laughter) and thinking of all the fun I could have had with it. Suddenly I hear "Uno, dos, tres, catorce!" I look up. But instead of the silhouettes of the hippie wannabes bouncing around in the iPod commercial, I see my boys!

Oh, my God! They sold out!

Now...what I know about the iPod is this: It is a device that plays music. Of course their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old tape operator Jimmy Iovine somewhere. Wily. Smart. Now, personally, I live an insanely expensive lifestyle that my wife barely tolerates. I burn money, and that calls for huge amounts of cash flow. But I also have a ludicrous image of myself that keeps me from truly cashing in. (laughter) You can see my problem. Woe is me.

So the next morning, I call up Jon Landau -- or as I refer to him, "the American Paul McGuinness" -- and I say, "Did you see that iPod thing?" And he says, "Yes." And he says, "And I hear they didn't take any money." And I said, "They didn't take any money?!" And he says, "No." I said, "Smart, wily Irish guys." (laughter) Anybody...anybody...can do an ad and take the money. But to do the ad and not take the money...that's smart. That's wily. I say, "Jon, I want you to call up Bill Gates or whoever is behind this thing and float this: A red, white, and blue iPod signed by Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen. Now remember, no matter how much money he offers, don't take it!" (laughter)

At any rate...at any rate, after that evening, for the next month or so, I hear emanating from my lovely 14-year-old son's room, day after day, down the hall calling out in a voice that has recently dropped very low: Uno, dos, tres, catorce. The correct math for rock and roll. Thank you, boys.

(applause)

This band...this band has carried their faith in the great inspirational and resurrective power of rock and roll. It never faltered, only a little bit. They believed in themselves, but more importantly, they believed in "you, too." Thank you Bono, the Edge, Adam, and Larry. Please welcome U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Bruce Springsteen: 'Here we lived in the shadow of the steeple', Tony Awards performance - 2018

11 June 2018, Radio City Music Hall, New York City, USA

I grew up on Randolph Street with my sister Virginia, she was a year younger than me, my parents Adele and Douglas, my grandparents Fred and Alice, and my dog Saddle. We lived spitting distance from the catholic church, the priest's rectory, the nuns' convent, the Saint Rose Of Lima Grammar School, all of it just a football's toss away across the field of wild grass. I literally grew up surrounded by God. Surrounded by God and, and all my relatives. We had cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, great grandmas, great grandpas, all of us were jammed in five little houses on two adjoining streets. And when the church bells rang, the whole clan would hustle up the street to stand witness to very wedding and every funeral that arrived like a stale occasion in our neighborhood. We also had front row seats to watch the towns when in their Sunday suits carry out an endless array of dark wooden boxes to be slipped in the rear of the Friedman's Funeral Home long black Cadillac for the short ride to Saint Rose cemetery hill on the edge of town. And there all our catholic neighbors, all Zirillis, and the McNicholases, and all the Springsteens who came before, they patiently waited for us. Now when it rains in Freehold, when it rains, the moisture in the humid air blankets the whole town with the smell of moist coffee grounds wafting in from the Nescafe plant on the town's eastern edge. You know, I never cared for coffee, but I loved that smell. It was comforting, it united our town just like our clanging road mill in a common sensory experience. It was a place here, you could hear it, you could smell it. A place where people made lives, where they danced, enjoyed small pleasures, where they played baseball, and where they suffered pain and had their hearts broken. Where they made love, had their kids, where they died, and where they drank themselves drunk on spring nights. And did their very best, the best that they could to hold off the demons outside and inside that sought to destroy them, their homes, their families, their town. Here we lived in the shadow of the steeple, crookedly blessed in God's good mercy one and all, in the heart stopping, pants dropping, race rioting, fricating, soul shaking, redneck, love and fear making, heartbreaking town of Freehold, New Jersey.

I was eight years old running with a dime in my hand
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick, steer as we drove through town
He'd tousle my hair and say son take a good look around
This is your hometown
It's your hometown
Your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown

Bruce Springsteen: 'You can't triumph without music', Musicares Person of the Year - 2013

8 February 2013, Los Angeles, California, USA

Thank you, thanks a lot. It’s kind of a freaky experience, the whole thing, it’s – it is
a bit like, this is the Italian wedding Patti and I never had. It’s a huge Bar Mitzvah.
Your life does – did kind of pass and John legend made me sound like Gershwin, I
love that. Neil Young made me sound like the Sex Pistols, I love that.

You know, what a night, quite a night, uh makes me proud to be a musician. Here
tonight with my mom, she is 87, she is here with me, yeah. My sister, it’s her
birthday, happy birthday sis. My lovely daughter is with me tonight, her boyfriend,
and Ricky and Marian are my cousins who raised our children with us, thank you
Ricky and Marian for being here with me.

Got to walk through red carpet, that was – it was fun. And Patty, what can I say,
you know, 20, 25, years we’ve been together, love you, love you. I’m glad you
could all share this night with me. I’m glad to be here for MusiCares, it’s a great
organization, it takes care of musicians. They take care of the people who is taking
care of us with their voices and with their songs, with their blood, with their sweat
and tears and with their lovely and great artistry.

The people whose music have inspired us and soothe their broken hearts, angered
us, whose music we’ve got married to, divorced to, music that’s been with us on
our blackest days, stood by us in war and in peace, made us laugh, made us be
strong, helped us not be stupid and formed us and loved us.

Music, do you believe in magic? There is no faith required, none whatsoever,
because it’s all like this evening, right? Here in front of you. I’ve seen it, I’ve been
a part of the miracle of music. I’ve seen people tired and depressed and weary and
worn out, soul off. And I’ve seen them revived, rise from their seats and dance.

The Taliban will never win, not now or not ever, not here, not in Timbuktu by
banning the music and dancing, don’t tell them. The minute you do that, you label
yourself a tyrant and your cruel days are numbered. The minute Timbuktu was
liberated, what did people do? They played music, and they danced. I was so happy
to read that in the paper. I was happy for them, and happy for us.

“Vive la France!”

You can’t triumph without music because music is life; music is the birds singing,
the wheat rustling in the fields, strumming of the wind through the leaves of that
tree that was in the backyard of your childhood home. The earth and the stars
rolling through the heavens at night, before man or a woman heard their name,
they heard music. They heard the wind rushing past their eardrums, the grasses
humming with insects, the birds knocking and rocking in the trees.

Thank you MusiCares for taking care of musicians, because we are bad with our
money, we spend it too freely, and on too many stupid things. We drink it away, we
do drugs, we love too many and the wrong people, we are the wrong people. You
know, we fuck up many people’s lives, many people’s lives, while setting fire to
our own dancing down the street. We are a brother and sisterhood of magical fuckups,
and we need you.

Because once in a while we get it right, and then we sing about it, and we sing
about it and we are musicians. Take me for instance, I am here tonight under totally
false pretenses, because whatever philanthropy I’ve ever done, it usually just
involves me playing the guitar, making a few bucks and bringing some attention to
the folks that are really doing the work, shouldn’t count really much. I mean, I was
going to be playing the guitar anyway.

You know, and I am actually, I’m here tonight because last year, Mr. Landau, my
manager called me up and said, “Boss, what do you think about opening the
Grammys this year with your new song, and we had a new record, and I thought it
was one of the berst records that I ever made, and so I wanted to promote it, right?
And I said, “It sounds great.” Because I am going to call Ken Ehrlich right now, all
right, he is the Grammy producer, I met him, I don’t know maybe back in ‘96 when
I sang The Ghost of Tom Joad, and he had me under like 10,000 lights, it looked
like I was going to be abducted by aliens.

We sort of – but anyway, I said go ahead call Ken; John calls back the next day
says, “Ken loves the song, and he would love to have a 63-year-old man open the
Grammys, and – and would you like to be MusiCares Person of the Year?” Now,
I’m pretty sure he said, “And” though he might have said “If.” He might have actually said, if you will be MusiCares Person of the Year or he might have said,
“And”, and then he left a really long pause so that the “And” became “if” while it
was hanging out there. And he said, we’re going to be out there anyway for you to
pick up your best album award, because we are optimists. So even though I have
gathered all of these people, some of my great heroes, all these new youngsters
here tonight is fabulous musicians. The evening actually had its origins in a
mercenary promotional opportunity.

Um, but, it’s a great night anyway, because people played music. So I’m having
one of the loveliest nights of my life tonight, I was just, I got the auction, you
know; just some I’ve really – the circle is a strange thing.

You know Ben Harper had Charlie Musselwhite playing with him on the
harmonica, you know, I opened for Charlie Musselwhite in a little club in San
Francisco, he will not remember me, right? When I was my daughter’s age, you
know, and I have Patty Smith here in my life again. We always called that song our
song, but really it’s her song, right? I would have never finished it, I couldn’tdidn’t
have a story and the beautiful story of Fred’s Telephone Call, and if I’d had
finished it, I would have never had a hit with you, I would have never had. And see
you gave me one of my greatest, and I play this song almost every night, so it’s
your song and thank you for being here along with all of the other musicians, that’s
the humbling thing.

I mean, it’s wonderful to see people come up and sing your music, the young
musicians. Musicians like the great musicians that are gathered here tonight, there
is a group of people who are always in search, born searchers, born to get lost, born
to get lost. Because that’s 98% of it and then suddenly, suddenly you’re home. All
people who are always in search of the power to sustain, the best of ourselves and
to seek out the best in you, our fans and our audience. We want to be great.

Like Neil says in his book, “Be great or be gone,” we want to be great, we want to
be important in your life, that was all that mattered to me. I didn’t care if I was
going to be a, I don’t know if it’s going to make it rich or be famous or but I
wanted to be great more than anything else, and I wanted to be important in your
life.

Because you keep us in search of the force that reignites our gifts, our ability to
make you want to move, to dance, to love, to make love, to be angry, to act. When
we play, we want the hair to stand up on your arms; we want you to feel the glory.
And we want you to be glad of being alive. And really at the end of the day, that’s
all there is to it. My fellow musicians, young and old tonight, thanks for taking
care of me and taking care of my songs this evening. I’ll never forget it and I owe
each and every one of you; one. You made me feel like: Person of the Year. Now
give me that damn guitar.
—————-

Springsteen Set List
with Jake Clemons, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Cindy Mizelle, Curtis King

1. We Take Care of Our Own
2. Death to My Hometown (with Tom Morello)
3. Thunder Road (with Roy Bittan, Morello, Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg)
4. Born to Run (with Bittan, Morello, Tallent, Weinberg)
5. Glory Days (with Tribute Artists)

Tribute Set List

1. Adam Raised a Cain - ALABAMA SHAKES
2. Because the Night - PATTI SMITH
3. Atlantic City - NATALIE MAINES, BEN HARPER & CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE
4. American Land - KEN CASEY
5. My City of Ruins - ZAC BROWN & MAVIS STAPLES
6. I’m on Fire - MUMFORD & SONS
7. American Skin - JACKSON BROWNE featuring TOM MORELLO
8. My Hometown - EMMLOU HARRIS
9. One Step Up - KENNY CHESNEY
10. Streets of Philadelphia - ELTON JOHN
11. Hungry Heart - JUANES
12. Tougher Than the Rest - TIM MCGRAW & FAITH HILL
13. The Ghost of Tom Joad - TOM MORELLO & JIM JAMES
14. Dancing in the Sark - JOHN LEGEND
15. Lonesome Day - STING
16. Born in the U.S.A. - NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE

Bruce Springsteen: 'We struggled together, and sometimes, we struggled with one another', E-Street Band Hall of Fame - 2014

4 October 2014, Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Good evening. In the beginning, there was Mad Dog Vini Lopez, standing in front of me, fresh out of jail, his head shaved, in the Mermaid Room of the Upstage Club in Asbury Park. He told me he had a money-making outfit called Speed Limit 25, they were looking for a guitarist and was I interested? I was broke, so I was. So the genesis point of the E Street Band was actually a group that Vini Lopez asked me to join to make a few extra dollars on the weekend.

Shortly thereafter, I met Dan Federici. He was draped in three quarter-length leather, had his red hair slicked back with his wife Flo — she was decked out in the blonde, bouffant wig — and they were straight out of Flemington, NJ.

So Vini, Danny, myself, along with bass player Vinnie Roslin, were shortly woodshedding out of a cottage on the main street of a lobster-fishing town: Highlands, NJ. We first saw Garry Tallent along with Southside Johnny when they dragged two chairs onto an empty dance floor as I plugged my guitar into the upstage wall of sound. I was the new kid in a new town, and these were the guys who owned the place. They sat back and looked at me like, "Come on, come on, punk. Bring it. Let’s see what you got." And I reached back and I burnt their house down.

Garry Tallent’s great bass-playing and Southern gentleman’s presence has anchored my band for 40 years. Thank you, Garry! Thank you, sir.

Then one night, I wandered in the Upstage, and I was dumbstruck by a baby-faced, 16-year-old David Sancious. Davey was very, very unusual: He was a young, black man who — in 1968, Asbury Park, which was not a peaceful place — crossed the tracks in search of musical adventure, and he blessed us with his talent and his love. He was my roomie in the early, two-guys-to-one-six-dollar-motel-room years of the E Street Band. He was good, he kept his socks clean; it was lovely. And he was carrying around a snake around his neck at that time, so I lucked out with Davey as my roommate. [laughs] AND, Davey’s the only member of the group who ever actually lived on E Street!

So I walked in and he was on the club’s organ. And Davey’s reserved now, but at the time, he danced like Sly Stone and he played like Booker T, and he poured out blues and soul and jazz and gospel and rock & roll and he had things in his keyboard that we just never heard before. It was just so full of soul and so beautiful. Davey, we love you, and we still miss you so, you know?

But predating all of this was Steve Van Zandt. Steven: frontman, hitman. I walk into the Middletown Hullabaloo Club; he was the frontman for a band called the Shadows. He had on a tie that went from here down to his feet. All I remember is that he was singing the Turtles’ "Happy Together." During a break at the Hullabaloo Club in New Jersey, he played 55 minutes on and five minutes off, and if there was a fight, he had to rush onstage and start playing again.

So I met Stevie there and he soon became my bass player first, then lead guitarist. My consigliere, my dependable devil’s advocate whenever I need one. The invaluable ears for everything that I create, I always get ahold of him, and fan number one. So he’s my comic foil onstage, my fellow producer/arranger and my blood, blood, blood, blood, blood brother. Let’s keep rolling for as many lives as they’ll give us, alright?

Years and bands went by: Child, Steel Mill, the Bruce Springsteen Band — they were all some combo of the above-mentioned gang. Then I scored a solo recording contract with Columbia Records, and I argued to get to choose my recording "sidemen," which was a misnomer, in this case, if there ever was one.

So, I chose my band and my great friends, and we finally landed on E Street — the rare, rock & roll hybrid of solo artistry and a true rock & roll band.

But one big thing was missing ... It was a dark and stormy night, a Nor’easter rattled the street lamps on Kingsley Blvd. and in walked Clarence Clemons. I’d been enthralled by the sax sounds of King Curtis and I searched for years for a great rock & roll saxophonist. And that night Clarence walked in, walked towards the stage and he rose, towering to my right on the Prince’s tiny stage, about the size of this podium, and then he unleashed the force of nature that was the sound and the soul of the Big Man. In that moment, I knew that my life had changed. Miss you, love you Big Man. Wish that he was with us tonight. This would mean a great, great deal to Clarence.

An honorable mention and shout-out to Ernie "Boom" Carter. The drummer who played on one song only: "Born to Run." He picked a good one. So here’s to you, Ernie. Thank you, thank you.

Thanks, of course, Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan, who answered an ad in the Village Voice. And they beat out 60 other drummers and keyboardists for the job. It was the indefatigable, almost dangerously dedicated Mighty Max Weinberg and the fabulous five finger of Professor Roy Bittan. They refined and they defined the sounds of the E Street Band that remains our calling card around the world to this day. Thank you, Roy. Thank you, Max. They are my professional hitmen. I love them both.

Then, 10 years later, Nils Lofgren and Patti Scialfa joined just in time to assist us in the rebirth of Born in the U.S.A. Nils, one of the world’s great, great rock guitarists, with a choir boy’s voice, has given me everything he’s had for the past 30 years. Thank you, Nils. So much love.

And Patti Scialfa — a Jersey Girl — who came down one weekend from New York City and sat in with a local band, Cats on a Smooth Surface and Bobby Bandiera at the Stone Pony, where she sang a killer version of the Exciters’ "Tell 'Em." She had a voice that was full of a little Ronnie Spector, a little Dusty Springfield and a lot of something that was her very, very own. After she was done, I walked up, I introduced myself at the back bar, we grabbed a couple of stools and we sat there for the next hour or thirty years or so — talking about music and everything else. So we added my lovely red-headed woman and she broke the boy’s club!

Now, I wanted our band to mirror our audience, and by 1984, that band had grown men and grown women. But, her entrance freaked us out so much that opening night of the Born in the U.S.A. tour, I asked her to come into my dressing room and see what she was gonna wear! So she had on kind of a slightly feminine T-shirt and I stood there, sort of sweating. At my feet, I had a little Samsonite luggage bag that I carried with me, and I kicked it over. It was full of all my smelly, sweaty T-shirts and I said, "Just pick one of these, it’ll be fine." She’s not wearing one tonight. But Patti, I love you, thank you for your beautiful voice, you changed my band and my life. Thank you for our beautiful children.

So, real bands — real bands are made primarily from the neighborhood. From a real time and real place that exists for a little while, then changes and is gone forever. They’re made from the same circumstances, the same needs, the same hungers, culture. They’re forged in the search of something more promising than what you were born into. These are the elements, the tools, and these are the people who built the place called E Street.

Now, E Street was a dance; was an idea; was a wish; was a refuge; was a home; was a destination; was a gutter dream; and finally, it was a band. We struggled together, and sometimes, we struggled with one another. We bathed in the glory, and often, the heartbreaking confusion of our rewards together. We’ve enjoyed health, and we’ve suffered illness and aging and death together. We took care of one another when trouble knocked, and we hurt one another in big and small ways.

But in the end, we kept faith in each other. And one thing is for certain: As I said before in reference to Clarence Clemons — I told a story with the E Street Band that was, and is, bigger than I ever could have told on my own. And I believe that settles that question.

But that is the hallmark of a rock and roll band — the narrative you tell together is bigger than anyone could have told on your own. That’s the Rolling Stones; the Sex Pistols; that’s Bob Marley and the Wailers. That’s James Brown and His Famous Flames. That’s Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

So, I thank you my beautiful men and women of E Street. You made me dream and love bigger than I could have ever without you. And tonight I stand here with just one regret: that Danny and Clarence couldn’t be with us here tonight.

Sixteen years ago, a few days before my own induction, I stood in my darkened kitchen along with Steve Van Zandt. Steve was just returning to the band after a 15-year hiatus and he was petitioning me to push the Hall of Fame to induct all of us together. I listened, and the Hall of Fame had its rules, and I was proud of my independence. We hadn’t played together in 10 years, we were somewhat estranged, we were just taking the first small steps over reforming. We didn’t know what the future would bring. And perhaps the shadows of some of the old grudges held some sway.

It was a conundrum, as we’ve never quite been fish nor fowl. And Steve was quiet, but persistent. And at the end of our conversation, he just said, "Yeah, I understand. But Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band — that’s the legend."

So I’m proud to induct, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, justifying, death-defying, legendary E Street Band.

Bruce Springsteen: 'We live in a post–authentic world', keynote SXSW - 2012

15 March 2012, South by Southwest festival, Austin, Texas. USA

Good morning! Why are we up so fucking early? How important can this speech be if we're giving it at noon? It can't be that important. Every decent musician in town is asleep, or they will be before I'm done with this thing, I guarantee you. I've got a bit of a mess up here.

When I was invited to do the keynote speech of this year's conference I was a little hesitant because the word keynote made me uncomfortable. It seemed to suggest that there was a key note to be struck that sums up whatever is going on out there in the streets.

Five days of bands, hundreds of venues from morning till night, and no one really hardly agrees on anything in pop anymore. There is no key note, I don't think. There is no unified theory of everything. You can ask Einstein. But you can pick any band, say KISS, and you can go, "Early Theatre Rock proponents, expressing the true raging hormones of youth" or "They suck!"

You can go, Phish, "Inheritors of the Grateful Dead's mantle, brilliant center of the true Alternative community," or "They suck." You go, "Bruce Springsteen, natural–born poetic genius off the streets of Monmouth County, hardest – hardest working – hardest working New Jerseyian in show business, voice of the common man, future of Rock and Roll!", or "He sucks. Get the fuck out of here!"

You could pick any band, and create your own equation. It's fun. There was even a recent book that focused on the Beatles and decided, you got it, they sucked. So really, instead of a keynote speech, I thought that perhaps this should be a key notes speech, or perhaps many keynote speakers. I exaggerate for effect, but only a little bit. So with that as my disclaimer, I move cautiously on.

Still, it's great to be in a town with ten thousand bands, or whatever . . . anybody know the actual number? Come on, a lot of them, right? Back in late '64 when I picked a guitar that would have seemed like some insane, teenage pipe dream,  because first of all, it would have been numerically impossible.  There just weren't that many guitars to go around in those days. They simply hadn't made that many yet. We would have all have to have been sharing.

Guitar players were rare. Mostly, music schooled bands were rare, and, until the Beatles hit, played primarily instrumental music. And there wasn't that much music to play. When I picked up the guitar, there was only ten years of Rock history to draw on. That would be, like, all of known Pop being only the music that you know that's occurred between 2002 and now.

The most groups in one place I had ever seen as a teenager was twenty bands at the Keyport Matawan Roller Dome in a battle to the death. So many styles were overlapping at that point in time that you would have a doo wop singing group with full pompadours and matching suits set up next to our band playing a garage version of Them's "Mystic Eyes," set up next to a full thirteen–piece soul show band. And still that's nothing minutely compared to what's going on, on the streets of Austin right now.

So, it's incredible to be back. I've had a lot of fun here in Austin since the '70s, and Jim Franklin and the Armadillo World Headquarters. It's fascinating to see what's become of the music that I've loved my whole life. Pop's become a new language, cultural force, social movement. Actually, a series of new languages, cultural forces, and social movements that have inspired and enlivened the second half of the twentieth century, and the dawning years of this one. I mean, who would have thought that there would have been a sax–playing president, or a soul–singing president, you know?

When we started, thirty years old for a rock musician was unthinkable. Bill Haley kept his age a relative secret. So when Danny and the Juniors sang "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay," they didn't have a clue as to how terrifyingly, fucking right they were going to be. When I look out from my stage these days, I look into the eyes of three generations of people, and still popular music continues to provide its primary function as youth music, as a joyous argument–starter, and as a subject for long booze–filled nights of debate with Steve Van Zandt, over who reigns ultimately supreme.

There are so many sub–genres and fashions, two–tone, acid rock, alternative dance, alternative metal, alternative rock, art punk, art rock, avant garde metal, black metal, black and death metal, Christian metal, heavy metal, funk metal, bland metal, medieval metal, indie metal, melodic death metal, melodic black metal, metal core, hard core, electronic hard core, folk punk, folk rock, pop punk, Brit pop, grunge, sad core, surf music,  psychedelic rock,  punk rock, hip hop, rap rock, rap metal, Nintendo core, huh?

I just want to know what a Nintendo core is, myself. But rock noir, shock rock, skate punk, noise core, noise pop, noise rock, pagan rock, paisley underground, indy pop, indy rock, heartland rock, roots rock, samba rock, screamo–emo, shoegazing stoner rock, swamp pop, synth pop, rock against communism, garage rock, blues rock, death and roll, lo–fi, jangle pop, folk music. Just add neo– and post– to everything I said, and mention them all again. Yeah, and rock & roll.

So, holy shit, this is all going on in this town right now. For a guy who realizes U2 is probably the last band he is going to know the names of all four members of, it's overwhelming. Perhaps the most prophetic comment I've heard over the past quarter century about rock music was made by Lester Bangs upon Elvis' death. In 1977, Lester Bangs said Elvis was probably the last thing we were all going to agree on – Public Enemy not counting.

From here on in, you would have your heroes and I would have mine. The center of your world may be Iggy Pop, or Joni Mitchell, or maybe Dylan. Mine might be KISS, or Pearl Jam, but we would never see eye–to–eye again, and be brought together by one music again. And his final quote in the article was, "So, instead of saying goodbye to Elvis, I'm gonna say goodbye to you." 

While that's been proven a thousand times over, still here we are in a town with thousands of bands, each with a style, and a philosophy, and a song of their own. And I think the best of them believe that they have the power to turn Lester's prophecy inside out, and to beat his odds.

So as the records that my music was initially released on give way to a cloud of ones and zeroes, and as I carry my entire record collection since I was thirteen in my breast pocket, I'd like to talk about the one thing that's been consistent over the years, the genesis and power of creativity, the power of the songwriter, or let's say, composer, or just creator. So whether you're making dance music, Americana, rap music, electronica, it's all about how you are putting what you do together. The elements you're using don't matter. Purity of human expression and experience is not confined to guitars, to tubes, to turntables, to microchips. There is no right way, no pure way, of doing it. There's just doing it.

We live in a post–authentic world. And today authenticity is a house of mirrors. It's all just what you're bringing when the lights go down. It's your teachers, your influences, your personal history; and at the end of the day, it's the power and purpose of your music that still matters.

So I'm gonna talk, a little bit today, about how I've put what I've done together, in the hopes that someone slugging away in one of the clubs tonight may find some small piece of it valuable. And this being Woody Guthrie's hundredth birthday, and the centerpiece of this year's South–by–Southwest Conference, I'm also gonna talk a little about my musical development, and where it intersected with Woody's, and why.

In the beginning, every musician has their genesis moment. For you, it might have been the Sex Pistols, or Madonna, or Public Enemy. It's whatever initially inspires you to action. Mine was 1956, Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was the evening I realized a white man could make magic, that you did not have to be constrained by your upbringing, by the way you looked, or by the social context that oppressed you. You could call upon your own powers of imagination, and you could create a transformative self.

A certain type of transformative self, that perhaps at any other moment in American History, might have seemed difficult, if not impossible. And I always tell my kids that they were lucky to be born in the age of reproducible technology, otherwise they'd be traveling in the back of a wagon and I'd be wearing a jester's hat. It's all about timing. The advent of television and its dissemination of visual information changed the world in the fifties the way the internet has over the past twenty years.

Remember, it wasn't just the way Elvis looked, it was the way he moved that made people crazy, pissed off, driven to screaming ecstasy, and profane revulsion. That was television. When they made an attempt to censor him from the waist down, it was because of what you could see happening in his pants. Elvis was the first modern Twentieth Century man, the precursor of the Sexual Revolution, of the Civil Rights Revolution, drawn from the same Memphis as Martin Luther King, creating fundamental, outsider art that would be embraced by a mainstream popular culture.

Television and Elvis gave us full access to a new language, a new form of communication, a new way of being, a new way of looking, a new way of thinking; about sex, about race, about identity, about life; a new way of being an American, a human being; and a new way of hearing music. Once Elvis came across the airwaves, once he was heard and seen in action, you could not put the genie back in the bottle. After that moment, there was yesterday, and there was today, and there was a red hot, rockabilly forging of a new tomorrow, before your very eyes.

So, one week later, inspired by the passion in Elvis' pants, my little six–year–old fingers wrapped themselves around a guitar neck for the first time, rented from Mike Deal's Music in Freehold, New Jersey. They just wouldn't fit. Failure with a capital F. So I just beat on it, and beat on it, and beat on it – in front of the mirror, of course. I still do that. Don't you? Come on, you gotta check your moves. All right?

But even before there was Elvis, my world had begun to be shaped by the little radio with the six–inch mono speaker that sat on top of our refrigerator. My mother loved music, and she rahised us on pop music radio. So between 8:00 and 8:30 every morning, as I snowed sugar onto my Sugar Pops, the sounds of early pop and doo wop whispered into my young and impressionable ears. Doo wop, the most sensual music ever made, the sound of raw sex, of silk stockings rustling on backseat upholstery, the sound of the snaps of bras popping across the USA, of wonderful lies being whispered into Tabu–perfumed ears, the sound of smeared lipstick, untucked shirts, running mascara, tears on your pillow, secrets whispered in the still of the night, the high school bleachers, and the dark at the YMCA canteen. The soundtrack for your incredibly, wonderful limp–your–ass, blue–balled walk back home after the dance. Oh! And it hurt so good.

In the late fifties and early sixties doo wop dripped from radios in the gas stations, factories, streets, and pool halls – the temples of life and mystery in my little hometown. And I would always be enraptured by its basic chord progression. Isn't there supposed to be a guitar around here somewhere? Anybody got one?

(strumming guitar and singing opening lines of song, "Backstreets") One soft infested summer, me and Terry became friends...

It all comes from the same place. Well anyway, then into my thirteen–year–old ears came 60's pop. Roy Orbison, besides Johnny Cash, he was the other Man in Black. He was the true master of the romantic apocalypse you dreaded, and knew was coming after the first night you whispered, I love you, to your new girlfriend. You were going down. Roy was the coolest, uncool loser you'd ever seen. With his Coke bottle black glasses, his three–octave range, he seemed to take joy sticking his knife deep into the hot belly of your teenage insecurities.

Simply the titles, "Crying," "It's Over," "Running Scared."  That's right, the paranoia, oh, the paranoia. He sang about the tragic unknowability of women. He was tortured by soft skin, angora sweaters, beauty, and death – just like you. But he also sang that he'd been risen to the heights of near unexpressable bliss by these same very things that tortured him. Oh, cruel irony.

And for those few moments, he told you that the wreckage, and the ruin, and the heartbreak was all worth it. I got it, my young songwriters, wisdom said to me: Life is tragedy, broken by moments of unworldly bliss that make that tragedy bearable.  I was half right. That wasn't life, that was pop music.

But at twenty–four, who knew the difference? So I was on my way. Then Spector and the Wall of Sound. Phil's entire body of work could be described by the title of one of his lesser–known productions, "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)."  Phil's records felt like near chaos, violence covered in sugar and candy, sung by the girls who were sending Roy–o running straight for the anti–depressants. If Roy was opera, Phil was symphonies, little three–minute orgasms, followed by oblivion.

And Phil's greatest lesson was sound. Sound is its own language. I mean, the first thing you would think of with Phil Spector is (soundbite of mimicking a drum beat). That was all you needed. And then, the British Invasion. My first real guitar, I actually began to learn how to play, and this was different, shifted the lay of the land. Four guys, playing and singing, writing their own material. There was no longer gonna be a music producer apart from the singer, a singer who didn't write, a writer who didn't sing. It changed the way things were done. The Beatles were cool. They were classical, formal, and created the idea of an independent unit where everything could come out of your garage. The "Meet the Beatles" album cover, those four head shots. I remember, I seen 'em at J. J. Newberry's. It was the first thing I saw when you ran down to the five–and–ten cent store. There were no record stores. There weren't enough records, I don't think, in those days. There was a little set by the toys where they sold a few albums.

And I remember running in and seeing that album cover with those four headshots. It was like the silent gods of Olympus. Your future was just sort of staring you in the face. I remember thinking, "That's too cool. I'm never gonna get there, man, never."  And then in some fanzine I came across a picture of the Beatles in Hamburg. And they had on the leather jackets and the slick–backed pompadours, they had acned faces. I said, hey, "Wait a minute, those are the guys I grew up with, only they were Liverpool wharf rats."

So minus their Nehru jackets and the haircuts – so these guys, they're kids. They're a lot cooler than me, but they're still kids. There must be a way to get there from here. Then for me, it was The Animals. For some, they were just another one the really good beat groups that came of the 60s. But to me, The Animals were a revelation. The first records with full blown class consciousness that I had ever heard.  "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" had that great bass riff, that (playing bass line of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place) and that was just marking time.

(Singing and strumming "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place"):

In this dirty old part of the city, where the sun refused to shine.

People tell me there ain't no sense in trying.

My little girl, you're so young and pretty.

One thing I know is true, 

You'll be dead before your time is due, this I know.

See my Daddy in bed and dying.

See his hair turning grey.

He's been working and slaving his life away, yes, I know.

It's been work – every day

Just work – every day

It's been work, work, work, work.

We gotta get out of this place

If it's the last thing we ever do

We gotta get out of this place

Girl, there's a better life for me and you.

Yes, I know it's true.

That's every song I've ever written. Yeah. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's "Born to Run," "Born in the USA," everything I've done for the past 40 years, including all the new ones. But that struck me so deep. It was the first time I felt I heard something come across the radio that mirrored my home life, my childhood. And the other thing that was great about The Animals was there were no good–looking members. There were none. They were considered to be one of the ugliest groups in all of rock and roll.

And that was good. That was good for me, because I considered myself hideous at the time. And they weren't nice, you know. They didn't curry favor, you know. They were like aggression personified. It's my life, I'll do what I want. They were cruel. They were cruel, which was so freeing. It was so freeing. When you saw Eric Burdon, he was like your shrunken daddy with a wig on. He never, he never had a kid's face. He always had a little man's face, you know.

And he couldn't dance. And they put him in suit, but it was like putting a gorilla in a suit. You could tell he was like, "Fuck that shit, man." He didn't want it. And then he had that voice that was, like, I don't know, the Howlin' Wolf, or something – coming out of some seventeen or eighteen–year–old kid. I don't know how it happened. I found their cruelty so freeing. What was that great verse in "It's My Life?" It's a hard world to get a break in, all the good things have been taken. And then, "Though dressed in these rags I'll wear sable someday, hear what I say. I'm gonna ride the serpent. No more time spent sweating rent." Then that beautiful, "It's my life. Show me I'm wrong, hurt me sometime. Hurt me sometime. But someday I'll treat you real fine.  I love that.

And then they had the name. The name was very different from the Beatles, or Herman's Hermits, or Freddie and the Dreamers. The name was unforgiving, and final, and irrevocable. I mean, it was in your face. It was the most unapologetic group name until the Sex Pistols came along.

"Badlands," "Prove It All Night," Darkness On The Edge of Town was filled with, with The Animals. Youngsters, watch this one. I'm gonna tell you how it's done, right now. I took "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood,"

(Singing and strumming beginning of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood":

Danta, danta, danta, dah.

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Danta, danta, danta, dah

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

(Singing melody of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" while strumming chords of "Badlands":

Dah, dah, danta, tadah.

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Danta, danta, danta, dah.

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

It's the same fucking riff, man.Listen up, listen up, youngsters, this is how successful theft is accomplished. "Darkness" was also informed by the punk explosion at the time. I went out and I got all the records, all the early punk records, and I brought "Anarchy in the UK," and "God Save the Queen," and the Sex Pistols were so frightening. They literally shook the earth. And a lot of groups managed shocking. But frightening, frightening was something else. There were, very, very few rock groups that managed frightening. And that was a great quality, and it was, part of their great beauty.

They were brave, and they challenged you, and they made you brave and lot of that energy seeped its way into subtext of "Darkness." "Darkness" was written in 1977, and all of that music was out there, and if you had ears you could not ignore it. And I had peers that did. And they were mistaken, you could not ignore that challenge.

Of course, for me, there was movies, films. That's another discussion. But it was, then about soul music. It's incredibly important. The blue collar grit of soul music.

(Singing "Soul Man"):

I was brought up on a backstreet

I learned how to love before I could eat.

Now even though I personally learned how to eat long before I knew how to love, I knew what he was talking about. It was the music of gritty determination – of the blues, of the church, of the Earth, and of the sex–soaked heavens. It was music of sweaty perspiration, and drenched demands for pleasure and respect. It was adult music, it was sung by soul men and women, not teen idols.

And then it was the silk and sequined aspirational sounds of Motown. And that was something smoother, but that was no less powerful than, than Stax. There's a beautifully socially–conscious soul of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, "We're a Winner," keep on pushin'. Just great, great records that just filled the airwaves at a time when you couldn't have needed them more. You just couldn't have needed them more.

"A Woman's Got Soul," what a beautiful, beautiful record to women. "It's All Right." It was the sound track of the Civil Rights Movement. And it was here, amongst these great African–American artists, that I learned my craft. You learned how to write. You learned how to arrange. You learned what mattered and what didn't. You learned what a great production sounds like. You learned how to lead a band. You learned how to front a band.

These men and women, they were and they remain my masters. By the time I reached my twenties, I'd spent a thousand nights employing their lessons in local clubs and bars, honing my own skills. I was signed as an acoustic singer/songwriter, but I was wolf in sheep's clothing – signed by John Hammond at Columbia Records, along with Elliott Murphy, John Prine, Loudin Wainwright III.  We were all new Dylans.

And the old Dylan was only 30. So I don't even know why they needed a fucking new Dylan, all right? But those were the times. 30 was, you know…But I had nights and nights of bar playing behind me to bring my songs home. Young musicians, learn how to bring it live, and then bring it night, after night, after night, after night. Your audience will remember you.

Your ticket is your handshake. These skills gave me a huge ace up my sleeve. And when we finally went on the road, and we played that ace, we scorched the Earth, because that's what I was taught to do by Sam Moore, and by James Brown. There's no greater performance than James Brown burning ass on the Rolling Stones at The T.A.M.I. show. Sorry, sorry, my friends. I fucking loved the Stones. But James Brown – boys and men, you were screwed. Yeah, I think I'll go on after James Brown.

Oh, yeah, can you put me in the schedule somewhere after James Brown? Fuck, no. Get out. Go home. Save it. Don't waste it, man. I had a great thing with James Brown. I went to see James Brown one night, and he kind of knew me. I was sitting in the audience, and, suddenly I heard: Ladies and gentlemen, Magic Johnson, and Magic Johnson was onstage. And: Ladies and gentlemen, Woody Harrelson, and he was on stage. And then I'm sitting in my seat, watching, I hear: Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Mr., Mr. "Born in the USA." And I realized he didn't know my name, so I ran my ass up there as fast as I could.

I can't tell you, man, standing on stage alongside of James Brown…it was like, "Fuck, what am I doing here? He's such a, his influence. James Brown, underrated, still, today, underrated. He's, He's Elvis. He's Dylan. Dylan from whom I first heard a version of the place that I lived that felt unvarnished and real to me.

If you were young in the sixties and fifties, everything felt false everywhere you turned. But you didn't know how to say it. There was no language for it at the time. It just felt fucked up, but you didn't have the words. Bob came along and gave us those words. He gave us those songs. And the first time he asked you was: How does it feel?  Man, how does it feel to be on your own? And if you were a kid in 1965, you were on your own, because your parents, God bless them, they could not understand the incredible changes that were taking place. You were on your own, without a home. He gave us the words to understand our hearts.

He didn't treat you like a child. He treated you like an adult. He stood back and he took in the stakes that we were playing for, he laid them out in front of you. I never forgot it. Bob is the father of my musical country, now and forever. And I thank him.

The great, the great trick I learned from Bob is that he still does one thing that nobody, nobody can do. He sings verse, after verse, after verse and it doesn't get boring. It's almost impossible. But he didn't write about something, he wrote about everything that mattered at once in every song, it seemed like.

He pulled it off. I said, "Yeah, I like that. I'm gonna try that." So now I'm in my late twenties, and I'm concerned, of course – getting older. I want to write music that I can imagine myself singing on stage at the advanced old age, perhaps, of 40? I wanted to grow up. I wanted to twist the form I loved into something that could address my adult concerns. And so I found my way to country music.

I remember sitting in my little apartment, playing "Hank Williams Greatest Hits" over and over. And I was trying to crack its code, because at first it just didn't sound good to me. It just sounded cranky and old–fashioned. But it was that hard country voice and I'm playing it, and it was an austere instrumentation. But slowly, slowly, my ears became accustomed to it, it's beautiful simplicity, and it's darkness and depth. And Hank Williams went from archival, to alive for me, before my very eyes.

And I lived on that for a while in the late seventies. In country music, I found the adult blues, the working men's and women's stories I'd been searching for, the grim recognition of the chips that were laid down against you. "My Bucket's Got A Hole In It."  "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive," "Lost Highway," the great Charlie Rich song,

(Singing "Life Has it's Little Ups and Downs"):

Like ponies on a merry–go–round

No one grabs a brass ring every time

But she don't mind

(Speaking) Oh fuck, man, that was like…

(Singing "Life Has it's Little Ups and Downs"):

She wears a gold ring on her finger

And it's mine

Oh my God, you know, that can reduce me to tears now. It was so much. It was "Working Man's Blues" – stoic recognition of everyday reality, and the small and big things that allow you to put a foot in front of the other and get you through. I found that Country's fatalism attracted me. It was reflective.  It was funny. It was soulful. But it was quite fatalistic. Tomorrow looked pretty dark.

And the one thing it rarely was, it was rarely politically angry, and it was rarely politically critical. And I realized that that fatalism had a toxic element. If rock and roll was a seven–day weekend, country was Saturday night hell–raising, followed by heavy "Sunday Morning Coming Down." Guilt, guilt, guilt, I fucked up. Oh, my God.  But, as the song says: Would you take another chance on me?  That was Country.

Country seemed, not to question why. It seemed like it was about doing, then dying, screwing, then crying, boozing, then trying, Then as Jerry Lee Lewis, the living, breathing personification of both rock and country said, "I've fallen to the bottom and I'm working my way down."

So that was hard core working man's blues, hard core – loved it. And in answer to Hank Williams question: Why does my bucket have a hole in it? Why?  So along with our fun, and the bar band raucousness, the E Street Band carried a search for identity, and that became a central part of my music. Now country, by its nature, appealed to me. Country was provincial, and so was I. I was not downtown. I wasn't particularly Bohemian or hipster. I was kind of hippy–by–circumstance, when it happened. But, I felt I was an average guy, with a slightly above average gift. And if I worked my ass off on it…And country was about the truth emanating out of your sweat, out of your local bar, your corner store. It held its gaze on yesterday's blues, tonight's pleasures' and maybe on Sunday, the hereafter. And I covered a lot of ground, but there was still something missing. So, somewhere in my late twenties I picked up Joe Klein's "Woody Guthrie, A Life."

And as I read that book, a world of possibilities that predated Dylan's, that had inspired him, and lead to some of his greatest work, opened up for me. Woody's gaze was – it was set on today's hard times. But also, somewhere over the horizon, there was something. Woody's world was a world where fatalism was tempered by a practical idealism. It was a world where speaking truth to power wasn't futile, whatever its outcome.

Why do we continue to talk about Woody so many years on, never had a hit, never went platinum, never played in an arena, never got his picture on the cover of Rolling Stone. But he's a ghost in the machine – big, big ghost in the machine. And I believe it's because Woody's songs, his body of work, tried to answer Hank Williams' question: why your bucket has a whole in it.  And that's a question that's eaten at me for a long time.

So, in my early 30s, his voice spoke to me very, very deeply. And we began to cover "This Land is Your Land" in concert. And I knew I was never gonna be Woody Guthrie. I liked Elvis, and I liked the Pink Cadillac too much. I like the simplicity, and the tossed–off temporary feeling of pop hits. I liked big, fucking noise. And in my own way, I like the luxuries and the comforts of being a star. I had already gone a long way down a pretty different road.

So four years ago, I found myself in an unusual situation. It was a cold winter day, and I was standing alongside of Pete Seeger, and it was 25 degrees. Pete had come to Washington. Pete carries a banjo everywhere he goes – the subway, the bus – and comes out in his shirt. I said, "Man, Pete, put on a jacket, man, it's freezing out here."  He's ninety years old, a living embodiment of Woody's legacy. And there were several hundred thousand of our fellow citizens in front of us. We had the Lincoln Memorial behind us and a newly–elected president to our right. And we were going to sing, "This Land is Your Land" in front of all these Americans. And Pete insisted, "We have to sing all the verses. We have to sing all the verses, man. You can't leave any of them out." I said, I don't know, Pete, there's only – we had, like, a crowd of six year old school kids behind us. He says, "No, we're all gonna sing all the verses – all the verses. And, so we got to it."

(Playing guitar and singing "This Land Is Your Land"):

As I was walking

I saw a sign there

And on that sign said

We're trespassing

And on the other side

It didn't said nothing

That side was made

For you and me.

This land is your land

This land is my land

(Speaking) This song is meant to be sung by everybody.

(Playing guitar and singing "This Land Is Your Land" – crowd singing along):

From California

To the New York island

From the Redwood Forest

To the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me

So, on that day, Pete and myself, and generations of young and old Americans – all colors, religious beliefs – I realized that sometimes things that come from the outside, they make their way in, to become a part of the beating heart of the nation. And on that day, when we sung that song, Americans – young and old, black and white, of all religious and political beliefs – were united, for a brief moment, by Woody's poetry.

So, perhaps Lester Bangs wasn't completely right, for here we all are tonight in this town together, musicians, young and old, celebrating, each, perhaps in our own way, a sense of freedom that was Woody's legacy. So, rumble, young musicians, rumble. Open your ears and open your hearts. Don't take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don't worry. Worry your ass off. Have ironclad confidence, but doubt – it keeps you awake and alert. Believe you are the baddest ass in town, and, you suck!

It keeps you honest. It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn't drive you crazy, it will make you strong. And stay hard, stay hungry, and stay alive. And when you walk onstage on tonight to bring the noise, treat it like it's all we have. And then remember, it's only rock and roll. I think I may go out and catch a little black death metal. Thank you.