BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND GAY MARRIAGE

I shamefully admit that I used to be a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. That is, until 2004, when he broke his long-standing rule not to engage in political partisanship and threw his support behind John Kerry. In hindsight, I should have known that Springsteen is the typical liberal. One who feigns indifference while espousing values all can relate to. However, when controversy erupted over his Born in the U.S.A. album over whether or not it was anti-American, such musings were dismissed and Springsteen played the middle of the road, refusing to tip his hand to what the true meaning of the song was.

Those not blinded by admiration for a man who could put on a great show knew exactly what he was saying with his words while those who ignored the message and instead chose to revel in his ability to perform and entertain scoffed at the notion that he meant anything other than what they wanted him to mean.

Springsteen's true colors began to show brighter in 2000 when the song, "41 Shots" was released. Law enforcement officers nationwide had a problem with his glorifying of a victim on the wrong end of a shootout with police. Again, fans of Springsteen interpreted the song in a way that didn't do that because that would be wrong. Those fans rationalized the obvious and just sang along as if the officers who objected didn't "get it".

In reality, those officers "got it" just fine and Springsteen continued to come out from under the rock he wanted to use to protect himself from being viewed as the ideological whack job he truly was. Somewhere along the way, he stopped caring about public perception and decided to cast that rock aside.

On December 9th, the NY DAILY NEWS wrote about Springsteen's support of gay marriage. I was struck personally by the photo of Springsteen shaking Barack Obama's hand while looking completely ridiculous wearing rainbow-colored suspenders. He was either embarrassingly showing his support of gay marriage or imitating Mork.

Obviously, Springsteen was doing the former. However, the question I have is to what extent does he support gay marriage and to what extent does he support homosexuality.

In 1998, when I was still a big fan, Springsteen released an album called, "Tracks". It featured a bunch of songs Bruce had recorded but never released - B sides if you will. I remember at the time questioning my own assumptions about Springsteen whenever I heard one of the songs. It was called, "My Lover Man". I tried on many occasions to rationalize it, thinking that maybe it was one of the outtakes from the movie, "Philadelphia" starring Tom Hanks, who portrayed a homosexual with Aids. Maybe it was him trying to understand a view he didn't understand. Believe me, rationalizing this song to mean something other than a writer that espoused homosexuality is a stretch by any measure.

Listen for yourself.



It's a shame such a talented man is such a mess.

GOSH DOG!!!