This isn't the first time something's happened back home that's made me feel a million light years from everything I've ever known and loved. Facebook makes it possible to 'e-grieve' with dozens of 5J (a long-bulldozed Meadowlands parking lot) Springsteen zealots I've been blessed to know, some for over 30 years, but it does nothing to ease the pain of Clarence Clemons dying at the age of 69 from a massive stroke suffered a week ago.
Springsteen released this statement a little while ago:Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the oppurtunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.Dealing with this news at the St Kilda library, live bootleg from 1978 playing through my laptop's earphones as tears roll down my face. Cleveland Agora show, one of my first vinyl bootlegs from the days of smoky record stores and long drives in shit cars devouring the latest illicit live or studio recordings, usually through the efforts of Jeff Stefanick, who happened to have sent me this impeccable boot from the other side of Earth after I moved to Australia.
After a few beers at a show or a bar before or after a someone in our Springsteen cult would inevitably ask, 'Can you imagine a life without 'Born to Run' or 'Darkness' or 'Wild and the Innocent'? An easy question -- of course we couldn't -- but with Clarence's passing we're left with a world without the E Street Band. My friend Mary Beth wrote that her youth died today, and it's hard not to agree. But along with despair I'm feeling fortunate. The 'Spirit in the Night' clip below from the Capitol Theater in '78 still makes the hair on my neck stand straight up, sends my heel pounding into the floor and puts me in a sweating, surging crowd, singing along and high-fiving and feeling 100% committed to a joyful moment with some of the finest humans on the planet. Yeah ... lucky's the right emotion. Motherfuckin' LUCKY.
Can't put into words how much I miss my friends back home right now. The people who've rewarded my often selfish behaviour with kindness and loyalty and amazing generosity, often in the presence of the music of a skinny guy from Freehold and a mammoth African-American saxophone player who was loved -- make that worshiped -- by a white, suburban audience for not only blowing off the roofs of clubs and arenas with his playing but by standing up there beside Springsteen and giving us a heroic vision of BROTHERHOOD -- of loving the sometimes fucked-up friend beside you, the group you hang with and would kill to defend, the men and women who see you through the bullshit and the beautiful, the people you're lucky enough to grow old with ... and grieve for when they pass.
Just made the mistake of watching the 'Jungleland' clip below and am having a hard time keeping it together in a public place so it's time to leave the library. Godspeed, Big Man. You'll live forever in all of us.
UPDATE: A few of the better columns generated by the Big Man's passing:
Jon Pareles, NY Times
Randy Lewis, LA Times
Timothy Egan, NY Times
Backstreets magazine has a dedicated page for Clarence:
1 comment:
The last time I felt this way about someone I truly have never met was in 1995, the man's name was Mickey Mantle, a person I had never seen play in person, yet embodied the spirit of the Yankees.
Until last night, when this sudden emptiness and sadness filled me as I logged in and found out about the loss of Clarence.
I wanted to feel the sadness, because it made me remember all the joy that he and that wonderful group of musicians that we have all followed for 30 years, The E Street band have touched our lives.
People I dont know or have never met have had as much influence on my life as anyone. It was friendships formed on shared experience, the concerts, where some temporary certainty was known.
That certainty took at hit in 2008,when our wonderful Dan Federici left us.
Max gave us a scare in 2009, with talk of a heart issue. Nils has had hip problems. Bruce, for all we know, has maintained good health, but life regardless is a fragile journey.
Clarence's recent stroke gave me a big pause- this is NOT going to last forever, he may not come back at all, but at least we still would have him with us, to be treasured as a living legend.
Today, we mourn the loss of a band member, a father, a husband and a person that tried in his best way to bring a smile and positive energy to the world.
Thanks Clarence, you made me smile and helped me in my journey-you will be missed.
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