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starladyMy dad and I went to the National Constitution Center to see the exhibit From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen. I have mixed feelings about the NCC; I have none about Bruce Springsteen, or about the exhibit, which was pretty damn awesome, and for Springsteen fans, well worth the trip.
The National Constitution Center is part of the post-2001 reshaping of the heart of the "Historic Philadelphia" area in Old City, and as someone who has very fond memories of the old mall and the old Liberty Bell pavilion, I really just am not a fan of the NCC. It is big, it is ugly, the new parking garage put a hump in the mall that obscures the sightlines to Independence Hall from a block away, and it is fundamentally weird to have an entire museum dedicated to a document that is…in Washington, D.C. That said, I have gone through the NCC's permanent exhibit, "Freedom Rising," which despite the idiotic name is an interesting take on the history of the United States in that it is framed through the prism of the Constitution and the idea that the history of the United States is the history of the extension of that document's privileges to successive groups of formerly disenfranchised people. Which, yes, is a task that is not yet done and is also a particular romantically progressive delusion, but on the other hand narratives make history and our sense of the future and I don't think it's a bad story to tell people, although the exhibit does not, I think, completely hit its mark. Well, as Benny F would have agreed, the great work is still unfinished.
It occurred to me as my dad and I were leaving that the NCC should have the Bad Romance: Women's Suffrage video in its collections. It doesn't, of course, and it won't. (More about this video later, but everyone should watch it, so I'm embedding it below.)
The Bruce Springsteen exhibit is on one level an odd choice for the NCC, and on the other, if you've ever half paid attention to any Bruce lyrics, a perfect fit. The exhibit collects a lot of archival memorabilia (I have seen the guitar and the leather jacket from the Born to Run cover, the guitar that Bruce has played in hundreds of shows, in person!) and in particular dozens of pages from Bruce's notebooks, showing his obsessive rewritings of some of his most famous and most obscure songs. For me, the insight into his creative process alone was worth the price of admission, and it also sharpened my appreciation for his genius: just where does he get these words? Who the hell talks like this, let alone writes songs like this? Where did Springsteen come from? From New Jersey, from the US of A, from the spirit of the times that summoned him up and has animated him and his career ever since, from the heart of rock and roll. You would never think, listening to a masterpiece like "Born to Run," that the lyrics--which seem so natural, so inevitable--had been rewritten nearly fifty times before he ever cut the demo track. But they were.
The exhibit is weighted much more on the end of the first half of Bruce's career, which on one level is too bad, since I tend to think that the 1990s were something of a fallow period before 2002 inaugurated the decade that brought us The Rising, The Seeger Sessions, and Live in Dublin, as well as took away key members of the E Street Band and Springsteen's crew including, most notably and most missed, Clarence Clemons. The exhibit has some bootlegged video of a live show in 1978 with Springsteen and Clemons sharing the stage, and suddenly the weird "they only loved each other platonically!" homophobia (?) of Clemons' obituary in the Times starts to make sense. The energy between the two of them crackles even now, on videotape in a museum gallery, thirty plus years later. The exhibit also includes audio stations where you can hear bootlegs of various key concerts as well as Springsteen's Columbia audition tapes and a recording of the only record his very first band ever cut, as well as them playing covers when he was about 15, and even then, his talent is palpable. In fact, the large number of early articles about Bruce were one of the most interesting things in the whole exhibit. I grew up a second-generation fan, and it was fascinating to read about his initial impact and to begin to understand part of how he has come to have the career he did.
I liked too that, though it was fairly lightly handled, the exhibit didn't mince words about Springsteen's politics or about the politics in many of his most famous songs--the pamphlet we were handed at the beginning even made those connections explicit, and the lyrics corner includes video of the live premiere of "41 Shots" among other songs. My dad and I couldn't each think of just one song to pick as our favorite to add to the wall, though in retrospect I probably should have said "Atlantic City," but really, how can you pick just one? On our way out we were asked to pick our top five studio album songs; I completely forgot about "Atlantic City" at that point, as one will, so have my revamped top five, subject to change of course:
1. Dancing in the Dark
2. Atlantic City
3. Youngstown
4. Living in the Future
5. Worlds Apart
Even this is too few to have to choose: I look at the list and I immediately think of all the songs that aren't on it. So it goes, I guess.
The National Constitution Center is part of the post-2001 reshaping of the heart of the "Historic Philadelphia" area in Old City, and as someone who has very fond memories of the old mall and the old Liberty Bell pavilion, I really just am not a fan of the NCC. It is big, it is ugly, the new parking garage put a hump in the mall that obscures the sightlines to Independence Hall from a block away, and it is fundamentally weird to have an entire museum dedicated to a document that is…in Washington, D.C. That said, I have gone through the NCC's permanent exhibit, "Freedom Rising," which despite the idiotic name is an interesting take on the history of the United States in that it is framed through the prism of the Constitution and the idea that the history of the United States is the history of the extension of that document's privileges to successive groups of formerly disenfranchised people. Which, yes, is a task that is not yet done and is also a particular romantically progressive delusion, but on the other hand narratives make history and our sense of the future and I don't think it's a bad story to tell people, although the exhibit does not, I think, completely hit its mark. Well, as Benny F would have agreed, the great work is still unfinished.
It occurred to me as my dad and I were leaving that the NCC should have the Bad Romance: Women's Suffrage video in its collections. It doesn't, of course, and it won't. (More about this video later, but everyone should watch it, so I'm embedding it below.)
The Bruce Springsteen exhibit is on one level an odd choice for the NCC, and on the other, if you've ever half paid attention to any Bruce lyrics, a perfect fit. The exhibit collects a lot of archival memorabilia (I have seen the guitar and the leather jacket from the Born to Run cover, the guitar that Bruce has played in hundreds of shows, in person!) and in particular dozens of pages from Bruce's notebooks, showing his obsessive rewritings of some of his most famous and most obscure songs. For me, the insight into his creative process alone was worth the price of admission, and it also sharpened my appreciation for his genius: just where does he get these words? Who the hell talks like this, let alone writes songs like this? Where did Springsteen come from? From New Jersey, from the US of A, from the spirit of the times that summoned him up and has animated him and his career ever since, from the heart of rock and roll. You would never think, listening to a masterpiece like "Born to Run," that the lyrics--which seem so natural, so inevitable--had been rewritten nearly fifty times before he ever cut the demo track. But they were.
The exhibit is weighted much more on the end of the first half of Bruce's career, which on one level is too bad, since I tend to think that the 1990s were something of a fallow period before 2002 inaugurated the decade that brought us The Rising, The Seeger Sessions, and Live in Dublin, as well as took away key members of the E Street Band and Springsteen's crew including, most notably and most missed, Clarence Clemons. The exhibit has some bootlegged video of a live show in 1978 with Springsteen and Clemons sharing the stage, and suddenly the weird "they only loved each other platonically!" homophobia (?) of Clemons' obituary in the Times starts to make sense. The energy between the two of them crackles even now, on videotape in a museum gallery, thirty plus years later. The exhibit also includes audio stations where you can hear bootlegs of various key concerts as well as Springsteen's Columbia audition tapes and a recording of the only record his very first band ever cut, as well as them playing covers when he was about 15, and even then, his talent is palpable. In fact, the large number of early articles about Bruce were one of the most interesting things in the whole exhibit. I grew up a second-generation fan, and it was fascinating to read about his initial impact and to begin to understand part of how he has come to have the career he did.
I liked too that, though it was fairly lightly handled, the exhibit didn't mince words about Springsteen's politics or about the politics in many of his most famous songs--the pamphlet we were handed at the beginning even made those connections explicit, and the lyrics corner includes video of the live premiere of "41 Shots" among other songs. My dad and I couldn't each think of just one song to pick as our favorite to add to the wall, though in retrospect I probably should have said "Atlantic City," but really, how can you pick just one? On our way out we were asked to pick our top five studio album songs; I completely forgot about "Atlantic City" at that point, as one will, so have my revamped top five, subject to change of course:
1. Dancing in the Dark
2. Atlantic City
3. Youngstown
4. Living in the Future
5. Worlds Apart
Even this is too few to have to choose: I look at the list and I immediately think of all the songs that aren't on it. So it goes, I guess.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-24 06:07 (UTC)