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.
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.
March 31st for me, baby!
Bruuuuuuuuuuuce!
Not to mention the things Kate Bush was doing in her late teens/early 20’s…
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.
I disagree, as does [post=8889735]Oxford[/post]. 
He was 30 or 31 when The River came out.
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.
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.
All his stuff was ghost-written by Don Kirshner?
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.
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.
Tom Waits wrote “Jersey Girl”.
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.
Re: The Travelling Wilburys’ “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.
Joyce.
Tennyson is touring with BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCE?!
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.
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.
For deep songs at a very young age, see Apple, Fiona.
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.