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Greetings from Nutmeg’s Teen Angst

Last night I asked Madigan to put some music on while I was cooking dinner. She perused the Music Professor’s collection of more than four thousand CDs and chose Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park. I haven’t listened to this entire album straight through in years, maybe decades. As the music washed over me I could feel my hair getting bigger and wires on my teeth poking the insides of my lips. I could feel the green shag carpet scratching the backs of my legs as I lay sprawled on the floor of my room in my Catholic school uniform complete with knee socks. I could feel the ever-growing angst, the unnamed longing, the despair and the hope of my own youth swelling within my solar plexus as each brilliant song flowed into the next. And I knew every word.

Bruce Springsteen was my first concert. Bruce Springsteen was my first real crush. Bruce Springsteen made me proud that I was born and raised in New Jersey. (I heard that.) Nearly thirty years later, with far broader and more sophisticated musical taste ~~beaten into me~~ under my belt, I’m still in complete awe of this album. If you aren’t already very familiar with it, treat yourself. My favorite song, for the lyrics alone, is Mary Queen of Arkansas.

Last night I played that album straight through three times and sang every song at the top of my lungs. My children were afraid, but I felt young, and wild, and happy, and strangely in need of alcohol or illegal drugs.

Maybe everybody has one album that has their childhood dripping from its every note. What’s yours?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 1:46 pm and is filed under The Junk Drawer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

19 Comments so far

Heidi April 16th, 2008 1:59 pm

“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, Elton John
Aimee Greeblemonkey April 16th, 2008 2:57 pm

You’re gonna kill me. But other than his politics, I can’t stand The Boss.
Clayjack April 16th, 2008 3:22 pm

So that’s what the kids in NJ called it then? Solar plexus?

I don’t think I had any angst, despair or longing (well, maybe the longing) during those years, but I did like to have fun. Which is why, on this first warm, sunny, perfect day of 2008 I want to shed the sweatshirts and coats and almost everything else covering my pasty butt, get the convertible out of the garage (if I had a convertible), put on some mirrored sunglasses and cruise the roadways with the stereo turned to 11, listening to Van Halen’s 5150.
RuthWells April 16th, 2008 3:32 pm

Probably Prince’s “Purple Rain”. How embarrasing is that?!
The Domestic Goddess April 16th, 2008 4:14 pm

I’m with Ruth. Purple Rain. I received it when I turned thirteen because I told my aunt purple was my favorite color. And then I got The Hooters and Duran Duran for Christmas…
The husband would say Def Leppard.
Clayjack April 16th, 2008 6:05 pm

Purple Rain?! Totally cool. I saw the first date in Detroit for that tour! As the house lights went out at the start of the show so did most of the women’s clothing. Teddys everywhere. In fact, I think that’s where I recognize you from, Ruth.
Nutmeg April 16th, 2008 6:45 pm

Aimee, I don’t believe we can be friends anymore.
melanie April 16th, 2008 9:34 pm

i know we all have our own times but for me nothing spoke to my teenage melancholia more than - the cure & violent femmes. oh, i can feel those waves of angst just singing it in my head. “i take 1, 1, 1 cause you left me and 2, 2, 2 for my family…”

but embarrassingly enough my first real concert (with my girlfriend AND MY MOM, how mortifying!) was Duran, Duran. the 2nd concert was sugarcubes (bjork’s first band), hopefully that cancels it out.

clayjack, feeling randy these days?
Clayjack April 16th, 2008 10:54 pm

@Melanie - Only if Randy has nice legs (and shaves them). Maybe this first beautiful day of the year here has me going a little bonkers.

And all these music references bring back such excellent memories - I was leaving a concert one summer night in high school (can’t remember the band), traffic was backed up, so we got out of our cars and I met a cute girl in the car behind us. We danced on the trunk of their car to the Violent Femmes (first time I’d heard ‘em), then climbed into the back seat to make out. I almost ended up somewhere else in the state instead of warm in my own bed at the end of the night.

Crazy. Good times.

Now knock it off or I’ll end up gleefully streaking through our neighborhood to commemorate/relive my wilder years. Nobody wins if that happens.
mad April 17th, 2008 12:11 am

That would be In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly. I cry every time I hear the drum solo.
hanlie April 17th, 2008 2:52 am

Oh yes, Bruce Springsteen was my teen idol too! I still like is earlier stuff more than his later stuff - my two favourite albums are Nebraska and Dancing in the Dark!
Brianne April 17th, 2008 10:20 am

Childhood? Ah yes… I hear the Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat, and I go back to age (mumble) sitting in my room with my best friend playing DJ’s. It was my first introduction to “trendy” music, my brother was a hippy and into verrrry odd things, even for the late 70’s.
magpie April 17th, 2008 2:20 pm

Born To Run. But Asbury Park? Pretty damned divine.

I love Bruce.
maggie, dammit April 17th, 2008 4:39 pm

Bruce Springsteen may be all those things to you, but to me? He’s simply… Husband.
gretchen from lifenut April 17th, 2008 5:45 pm

“Japanese Whispers” by the Cure.

OR “Louder than Bombs” by the Smiths.

Those cassettes were in constant rotation.

I was a cheery teenager.
Adorable Girlfriend April 17th, 2008 7:11 pm

AG is a young one and was wayyyy toooo young for it:

Madonna’s Like a Virgin.
nathan April 19th, 2008 10:30 am

whew. japanese whispers?

for me? it probably started with elvis costello’s imperial bedroom and continues to this days bon iver.

how old do i have to be to lose my teen angst?
The End of Motherhood? April 20th, 2008 7:49 am

I’m a Jersey girl too - your little one has very good taste!
Cassandra November 26th, 2008 4:57 am

Great post! I wasn’t aware of so many open source shopping solutions.anyways thanks ..Cassandra

Greetings from Nutmeg’s Teen Angst

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