Glory Days: Dispatches From an Academic Conference on Bruce Springsteen (Part 3)

The thing about attending conferences when such a diversity of smart people are speaking is choosing which sessions to go to. It works like this: First, you have your general sessions which everyone attends and are usually led by a high-profile participant or guest. Then, you disperse into these breakout sessions based on predetermined rubrics (which is really just a fancypants college word for "themes"). Which means there is a great cross-section of people saying interesting things from a variety of experiences, but you miss 90 percent of it. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

For example, Friday morning I heard three great speakers at a session called Springsteen in the 21st Century.

Melanie Henwood, who flew from London to be here this weekend, recalled a lifetime of being a Springsteen fan in England and what it means to grow older as a fan of someone who seems to stay so young.

Steven Ronick, CEO of a mental health center in Florida analyzed Bruce’s relationship to his generation, and detailed the ways in which how he addresses his growing older is not dissimilar to other baby boomers. At the same time, Springsteen seems to be finding peace with his mortality in his songs, in some ways he is denying his mortality by his increased creative output over the past decade, he reasoned.

David Bernstein, a statistical researcher from Rockville, Maryland was critical of the discord many see in the way Bruce deals with getting older. E Street Band members Clarence Clemmons and Nils Lofgren have both publicly discussed their recent knee and hip replacements. But nowhere in a recently cover story in AARP magazine was their anything whatsoever about Bruce getting older, other than the mere mention of his recently turning 60, Bernstein argued.

Friday afternoon featured an acoustic performance and Q&A with Joe Grushecky, a Pittsburg-based musician and special education teacher who has also collaborated with Springsteen on several songs over the years.

While at times Grushecky may come off as a second-rate clone of Springsteen in his songs with their carefully borrowed imagery and calculated delivery, there is no denying the sincerity in what he sings.

Hearing him recount the story about telling Bruce to be quiet during one of their songwriting sessions because he had to answer the phone and convince his boss he had called off sick (when he was really in New Jersey) was priceless.

And the struggle goes on. Who to see? Saturday afternoon it’s a choice between sessions that feature talks like “Springsteen and the Struggle with Distributed Narrative,” “Sex, Stereotypes and Social Psychology: Connecting Springsteen to Social Science and Education,” or “the Synergy of Relevance.” If you are a serious Springsteen fan or someone who takes rock and roll seriously as an avenue for scholarly study, the Glory Days symposium is Mecca.

A session on Bruce’s political activism moderated by Pete Seeger’s label head Jim Musselman sparked a heated (but of course, friendly) debate on the singer’s future role as a political voice. One side wanted to see Bruce take a more active role in leading the leftist/progressive groundswell opened by Obama’s election. Pragmatists in the room argued that Springsteen is an artist whose role is to observe and comment, not lead.

So for the rest of the weekend, I’ve decided I’m going to be that annoying guy who stays for half the talks in one session then uses the applause to duck out into another one. It’s the only way to get the whole experience.