# How did Springsteen write such mature and experienced songs at such a young age? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 29, 2008, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481 "2008-01-29T18:42:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/21 "2008-01-30T00:51:25Z")
[QUOTE=Eonwe] **Wee Bairn** (and others), his popularity is not strictly because of his long concerts, but because when he sings **Used Cars** , **Born to Run** , **No Surrender** , **Racing in the Streets** , **Badlands** , etc etc, he is singing about _me_ [/QUOTE] Exactly. _You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks Out on to an open road you ride until the day You learn to sleep at night with the price you pay._ ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/22 "2008-01-30T01:05:54Z")
As to the OP, I’m not sure there’s a simple answer. Many great artists were expressing their talent early (Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, Townshend, etc.) Most got even better with experience. There’s a definite evolution in Bruce’s music. I’m a huge fan, but I think he peaked with _Born to Run \* and_ Darkness\*. That’s not to say he was done making great music (_Nebraska_ is my favorite album of all time, by anyone,) but I think those two albums were his apex, creatively. ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/23 "2008-01-30T02:16:41Z")
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan] [sub]I’ll be going to about my next Boss concert in less than 50 days now![/sub] [/QUOTE] March 31st for me, baby! Bruuuuuuuuuuuce! ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/24 "2008-01-30T02:45:07Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] Janis Ian wrote Society’s Child at 15 or 16, which while not that deep, is deeper than anything by Bruce. [/QUOTE] Not to mention the things Kate Bush was doing in her late teens/early 20’s… ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/25 "2008-01-30T03:00:14Z")
I actually like Greetings and think it has some solid songs it, but to me Bruce at that time maybe didn’t know the best way to do them- hence (to me) the definitive versions of Blinded, Spirits and For You are done by Manfed Mann, although the For You lyrics are still too bizarre and call attention to themselves, even in the Manfred version. MM I think flat out nailed the eerie imagery of Spirits- there’s no way that song should be done at tempo it is on Greetings. And while Bruce’s Blinded is a bit rosuing and raucous, MM cranking it up to eleven is what it needed- I think the fact that these two failed to chart in Bruce’s versions but went to #1 & #40 when MM redid them is telling. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/26 "2008-01-30T03:18:32Z")
[QUOTE=mamboman] I will counter that Springsteen’s work is generally one dimensional and juvenile. [/QUOTE] I disagree, as does [post=8889735]Oxford[/post]. 🙂 He was 30 or 31 when **The River** came out. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/27 "2008-01-30T03:35:35Z")
_Well I stood stone-like at midnight Suspended in my masquerade. And I combed my hair 'til it was just right And commanded the night brigade._ Bruce Springsteen, Growing Up (1973) That my friends, captures every young man’s teenage years in two sentences. Shallow, my ass. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/28 "2008-01-30T05:34:42Z")
[QUOTE=Eonwe] _Some guys they just give up livin’ and start dying little by little, piece by piece. Some guys come home from work and wash up, and go racing in the streets._ [/QUOTE] Those lyrics are as deep as anything in rock. I wish I’d written them. And Springsteen doesn’t have anything as deep as “Society’s Child”? That’s just … I’ll use the word … _silly_. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/29 "2008-01-30T06:02:05Z")
> [@](#): > > How did Springsteen write such mature and experienced songs at such a young age? All his stuff was ghost-written by Don Kirshner? ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/30 "2008-01-30T13:07:21Z")
In his early 20’s he started writing some solid songs in the Like a Rolling Stone style about his own personal experiences- growing up in New Jersey, fast cars and girls- many many artists have done the same at that age. The OP implied that his songs are filled with some trenchant insight into the human condition unusual for someone that age, which I don’t think is true. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/31 "2008-01-30T13:19:21Z")
You mean, like, uh, I dunno…“Jersey Girl”? Christ man, how hard is it to write songs about getting laid! If Bruce ever had a mature album, it would have to be Born in the USA, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/32 "2008-01-30T13:27:04Z")
Tom Waits wrote “Jersey Girl”. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/33 "2008-01-30T14:02:25Z")
Been reading this. Lotta energy spent on deciding whether Springsteen is worthy of the OP’s assignment of “mature and experienced.” Meh. He writes songs that have touched millions and endured decades. Good enough for me. I’d rather comment more directly on the OP: How did a young man present himself the way Bruce did? A few factors come to mind: - \*\*Songwriting is first and foremost _a craft_. \*\* In other words, assuming you have talent and the ability to recognize and learn from mistakes, the more you do it the better you get. What’s the line about write your first 100 poems and then throw them away - at that point maybe you can write a keeper? Bruce worked \*hard \* at songwriting and was amazingly prolific. That matters. - \*\*Steal from the best \*\* - do his tangled word pictures evoke Dylan? Jeez, they’d better or else Bruce would worry that you didn’t recognize how hard he was trying to ape Zimmy. Bruce clearly had the vision of taking Dylan’s approach and translating that to his geography and life experience. Is that okay? Who cares! Pretty much any great artist gets his start standing on the shoulders of giants - that’s how it works. - \*\*Fake it till you make it \*\* - even as a young man, you can aspire to a having a wise, insightful perspective and voice. So - how do you achieve that? By trying to do it, regardless of how young you are. And, if you do have some empathy for the world around you, maybe people will begin to believe in your voice. My 10-year-old is already trying on adult phrases so he can come across as the authority when he is trying to get his little sister to do something. FTR, I respect Bruce a lot more than I like him - I mean that seriously. I don’t find myself reaching to put on his music - I get exposed to it regularly enough through the echoes of the radio and friends’ music when we hang out - but anyone who doubts his abilities as a songwriter, frontman/performer or carrier of the Voice of America torch of Walt Whitman, John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie (along with folks like Dylan, Neil Young, etc.) really hasn’t looked very hard, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/34 "2008-01-30T14:35:59Z")
**Re: The Travelling Wilburys’ “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”** [QUOTE=RTFirefly] I can’t say I’ve ever seen it as a Springsteen parody, and still don’t. It’s just another Dylan song where he spins out a complex (for a rock n’ roll song) tale involving four or five characters over the course of a rather long song. (E.g. “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts.”) Sure, he has Tweeter driving on Thunder Road, and that reference is surely a nod to Springsteen, but that’s about as much connection as I see. [/QUOTE] [Tweeter and the Monkey Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweeter_and_the_Monkey_Man) Parody or “playful homage”, take your pick. “Stolen Car” “Mansion On The Hill” “Thunder Road” “State Trooper” “Lion’s Den” “Factory” “The River” “Jersey Girl” . . . or it could just be a coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/35 "2008-01-30T17:25:06Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] You could play the “who wrote this- a respected musician or a crazy ranting homeless dude” game with these lyrics. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > cap-a-pipe with watch and topper, coat, crest and supporters, the cause of all our grievances, the whirl, the flash and the trouble, who, having partially recovered from a recent impeachment due to egg everlasting, but throughandthoroughly proconverted, propounded for cyclological, is, studding sail once more, jibsheets and royals, in thesemblance of the substance for the membrance of the umbrance with the remnance of the emblence reveiling a quemdam supercargo, of The Rockery Joyce. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/36 "2008-01-30T18:33:40Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] Tennyson was 24 years old when he wrote that. I guess genius transcends age and experience. [/QUOTE] Tennyson is touring with BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCE?! ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/37 "2008-01-30T19:07:01Z")
Bruce isnt one of my favorite artists by any stretch, to be honest I wish he would go away. I have always thought he was one of those guys who has been writing about high school since he started and never really gone beyond that. but after reading this thread I would have to concede hes much more than some old fart still singing the same crap. still dont like him though. but I do have a bit more respect. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/38 "2008-01-30T22:21:40Z")
[QUOTE=Critical1] I have always thought he was one of those guys who has been writing about high school since he started and never really gone beyond that. but after reading this thread I would have to concede hes much more than some old fart still singing the same crap. [/QUOTE] One of my favorite things about Springsteen is that his narrative voice has aged as he has. Look at **Born to Run** , **Born in the USA** , and **Tunnel of Love** , for example. They are each incredibly distinct. _One Step Up_ or _Cautious Man_ could never have been on either of the earlier albums, nor could _Thunder Road_ have been on either of the two later albums, for example. Springsteen is betrayed by the radio, as prior to **The Rising** and now **Magic** , generally you hear the same maybe six singles or so from his two most commercially successful albums as well as one or two from two other albums. Many of his albums never get air play, and as so many of them are very different, it’s hard to get a good picture of his music from the radio. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/39 "2008-01-30T22:25:02Z")
For deep songs at a very young age, see Apple, Fiona. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481/40 "2008-01-31T00:32:06Z")
[QUOTE=Southern Yankee] Tom Waits wrote “Jersey Girl”. [/QUOTE] For a guy who lived through the 50s as a little kid, I always thought Waits did an amazing job of bringing that era (and earlier ones) to life. He was in his 20s all through the 70s, and sounds like he’s 20 or 30 years older on those records, both lyrically and vocally. As for Springsteen – who surprisingly (to me) is a few months older than Waits – according to Wikipedia he was in working bands from age 16, essentially a full-time musician from high school until he got a deal at 22 or 23. So rather than kicking around college and ruminating and delaying, he was more or less running a business (hence the nickname) from a very early age. It’s not surprising that a successful young rock musician can have advanced maturity and perpetual adolescence at the same time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-springsteen-write-such-mature-and-experienced-songs-at-such-a-young-age/435481.md?page=3)