"It Ain't No Sin to Be Glad You're Alive!"

I'm reading Bruce Springsteen's memoir, nearly finished. So good. Sends me off in so many directions. No one has written more vividly about the experience of performing & recording music. Redemptive. Soul-enriching. Bruce is a man who totally sacrificed himself on the Altar of R&R. He really did offer himself up to the r&r dream. Had no alternative, no back up plan.

A young kid from the "swamps of Jersey." Catholic. Irish & Italian. Risked everything he had. And he pretty much just had himself. He had no advantages. A hard childhood, no real-world skills. A sheltered "Mama's Boy." All he had was glimmer of a dream, and his own ambition, drive, commitment.

It's all in his music. It's all written in the records. I am driven back to the music, especially: Born to Run, The Wild, the Innocent, the E-Street Shuffle, The Rising...

And what I suppose is my all-time favorite Springsteen album: Darkness on the Edge of Town. It's so elemental. Deep. Powerful. Haunting. The E-Street band live in the studio. Each song a short story. Little vignettes. Holds together as one cohesive narrative. I have been doing some concentrated listening. Always energized when I spin it. 

This line, (and many others too), keeps popping into my head, over and over:

"It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."