I’m trying out something a little different this time. I was planning on just writing this essay, but as I was telling my therapist this story earlier - I thought, why not podcast it as well? I don’t see any valid reason not to. Honestly, it was while I was going back through it all out loud in my car on the way to pick up my kids. I thought this story is so much funnier when told out loud. I think anyway.
My poor therapist. I will say, sometimes I view my appointments as places to try out comedy material. Not necessarily new in this case, as it’s a story I’ve told many people. It has some new nuances, though.
What reminded me of it is that I was telling my therapist that my boys’ Christmas lists consist of game cards. And that’s it. Steam cards, Robux, VR games… All they want is games and game money, all with cards. My thoughts were that it’s so lame to have one type of gift. Sure, I can get different amounts on cards and wrap each one separately in boxes and whatnot, but all of one type of gift? It just seems so lame! I want to get them a variety of things to open.
When I was their ages…pretty much from about the age of ten or eleven on, my entire Christmas list would be albums. That was all I wanted. I would have been in heaven to open only albums on Christmas! There were so many I wanted. I always kept a running list. Music was my best friend, my love, and my biggest interest.
I’m sure, my mom thought just like I am thinking right now. I can’t get her all of one type of gift…how lame?!?!
A couple of weeks ago, I was driving to the library with two of my kids. Their dad texted, so I had the car read it.
“Did you see that Rick Springfield is coming to the Quad Cities? Maybe you can take your mom and tell her it’s Bruce Springsteen tickets.”
So, I told them the story. THE story. The one that defines my childhood Christmases. The one that defines my mother. (It’s not a negative on my mom, just a funny, and if you know her, you know).
So, this particular year, 1984, and the new Rick Springfield album “Hard to Hold” was somewhere on my list. It was his fourth album, and I was still a huge fan. Jesse’s Girl was the bomb. I had a super crush on Rick Springfield. I even watched General Hospital just to prove my devotion. I had little taste in music, but damn I wanted the new Rick Springfield album! Or maybe even “Working Class Dog” was still on my list from 1981?? (Because as I’m looking now, I don’t see any songs I recognize on anything but “Working Class Dog” and Jesse’s Girl).
Christmas morning, I scour the gifts and select the album-shaped present to open first!
It was “Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen. Not an album that would have ever made it to my list. I was so sick of the video on MTV…but, I swallowed my dismay, thanked my mother properly, and pretended to like it. I’m sure she noticed my disappointment because, at some point, she confessed that she had forgotten to take my list to the record shop and the salespeople there helped her out.
Since that moment in time, I have HATED the Boss. Purely out of spite. I have never intentionally listened to another song of his.
In 2002, when I moved in with my second husband, on a cleaning Sunday, he put on the Bruce Springsteen Greatest Hits CD. I told him the story, and how much I despised the Boss.
Someday, I will write some stuff about my second marriage. But, today, and for this story’s purposes, I will say that my distaste for Springsteen never caused him not to play it when he felt the need. Nor did he ever spend a moment tolerating an artist that I liked and he didn’t.
Many years later, our daughter (born in 2007), as an infant and toddler, would reach a point in her car seat where she was just DONE. It could be a 20-minute drive or a 6-hour one. When she was done, she would scream inconsolably until the trip was over. We would stop, and I would feed her, stop, and I would change her diaper, stop and feed her again, stop and change her diaper again to no avail. She would not stop screaming. On one of these trips, a 3-hour one, my ex got tired of her screaming and tired of the fact that there was nothing we could do to console her. He put in his Bruce Springsteen CD and blasted it.
My daughter stopped screaming and immediately went to sleep.
My daughter. The Boss. Bruce Springsteen, my most despised musician, was the only thing that could calm my daughter.
I’m still pissed.
Rick Springfield vs Bruce Springsteen