To Taste Your Tender Charms

It’s all Bruce all the time here these days so if you’re one of those people that thinks Born In the USA equals Joisey Fat assholes and Ronald Reagan – GET THE FUCK OUT! 😉

Tonight Bruce and I will be in the same room. Yes. I’m well aware that the “room” I’m talking about has the capacity to hold 20,000 people, but whatever. WE WILL BE IN THE SAME ROOM. Look, I know that you think I’m bit over the edge about this and you’re not the only ones – my family and friends make fun of me on a daily basis (well not just about the Bruce thing, but you know. Ann? Ann is that you?)

I thought, given the anniversary and all and the fact that WE WILL BE IN THE SAME ROOM tonight I’d tell you the story of me and Bruce. It’s a love story to be sure. Ah hem. Here it goes.

Me & Bruce, Milan, November, 1995.
2gether 4ever!

I’ve said before that my taste in music has generally been governed by the man in my life. It’s not that I don’t like music, it’s just that it’s never been a driving force – not the way books have been. I mean, you want a book to read, you come to me. Want some music, well, I don’t know. So anyway, I started dating George. And guess what? He had a car! This may not seem like a big deal, but I came from a car based society (pseudo-Suburban Philly) and moved to New York City where no one drove anything. At all. G lived in NJ and had a car and he’d take me out to the malls in Jersey which was like a sort of homecoming for me. And we’d drive to Atlantic City and just anywhere. And he’d have music in the tape player. One of the tapes he had in A LOT of the time was Tunnel of Love. My first Bruce experience. (Which is kind of odd, I know, being that Bruce is HUGE in Philly – but I was into the Dead then. You know. It was a guy thing.)

Anyway, we’d drive around and he’d sing me the sad love songs on TOL and I was falling and falling and falling very, very hard. For both of them.

Georgie used to love to pull out a song (and it wasn’t just Bruce – this guy likes ALL music and isn’t afraid to show it) and say listen to this…and listen I did. He always knew right how to get me – with the words of course, since I’m a word girl, and the music and he’d sing and I was a goner. Gone, gone, gone! I’ll never forget the night I first heard Drive All Night. We were driving home – we may have been living together already – and we were going through the toll booths on the Jersey Tpke and G said listen to this song like he always did and we were listening to The River and I heard this:

When I lost you honey sometimes I think I lost my guts too
And I wish God would send me a word
send me something I’m afraid to lose
Lying in the heat of the night like prisoners all our lives
I get shivers down my spine and all I wanna do is hold you tight

There’s machines and there’s fire waiting on the edge of town
They’re out there for hire but baby they can’t hurt us now
Cause you’ve got, you’ve got, you’ve got,
you’ve got my love, you’ve got my love
Through the wind, through the rain, the snow, the wind, the rain
You’ve got, you’ve got my, my love
heart and soul

For those of you who’ve never heard this song, when he sings heart and soul, it’s a wailing howling gut wrenching pull out your heart and see it beating bloody and battered in your hand kind of sound. Sigh. How could you not fall in love with these men?! I ask you – HOW COULD YOU NOT FALL IN LOVE?!

When I saw Bruce for the first time, it was in the Summer of ’92. Georgie and I were already living together in the Swamps of Jersey and Bruce was with the “other” band and I didn’t give a shit because all I wanted to hear was Because the Night and G said he’d never play it and then he did and I almost died. I shit you not, when I got home from that concert, my left hand was completely swollen and black and blue through the middle because I had it clenched in a fist all night long which I proceeded pump without stopping from the time the lights went down until the lights went back up again. I was completely hoarse from screaming. We were laughing about it the other day and G shook his head and said he had never seen anything like my hand after that concert. And this guy was at Bond’s when The Clash played and the riot broke out.

Over the years, it’s gotten really, really bad. I’m usually in tears through the first few songs. I have to take a Xanax. There’s a short list of songs that when I hear them I cry no matter where they are in the setlist. Literally. And then there’s the list of songs (really, just two) that if I ever got a chance to hear in concert I’d probably faint dead away. I think I might get that chance tonight. The first is The Fever, and while he’s played it in concert more recently than not (maybe even on this tour), it’s few and far between and usually reserved for Philly. The second is Drive All Night. He played it the other night in Philly for the first time in 24 years and G told me about it and I managed to get the mp3 bootleg from that night (if you want to hear it email me) and it’s Bruce all alone at the piano and I cried real tears when I heard it. Bruce has played it every show since. Tonight’s the last night on the tour. I may have to take two Xanax. To be standing with G when Bruce starts playing this song might be too much to bear.

Some of you asked how Georgie feels about my feelings for Bruce and while he thinks I’m a bit nuts, he does feel the same way – or at least as much as he can feel about another man, a man with whom his wife happens to be obsessed. Trust me. If Bruce plays Drive All Night tonight, G’ll be a little choked up himself.

Our seats won’t be so good – we’re actually in a suite with Corporate types and G’s warned me a milion times that these people won’t care and they will talk and be obnoxious and ruin the evening for me. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be the same room with my one true love and the man that helped seal the deal.

I broke the comments on my other Bruce post because somehow I triggered the SPAM filter with my craziness. Hopefully that won’t happen here.