With all the buzz over “The Ties That Bind,” it seemed appropriate to feature a Springsteen quote from an interview he gave about “The River” — specifically with Dave DiMartino for Creem in 1980, reproduced in Chris Phillips and Louis Masur’s excellent “Talk About a Dream.”
Image via Shorefire.com.
From the interview:
Sometimes when I’m playing …. like life just ain’t this good, you know? And it just ain’t. And it may never be. But that doesn’t make those emotions not real. Because they are real and they happen. And that stuff happens onstage a lot, when people sing some of the songs it’s like a community thing that happens that don’t happen in the street. You go out on the street and it’s just a dream. Hey, that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. And a lot of songs we do now, they’re just dreams, but they’re based on an emotion that’s very real, and they’re always being possibilities. To say no to that stuff is wrong, to say no to it is wrong and to give yourself to it is a lie. To give yourself over is an illusion. On the album I was interested in, I saw it as romantic. It’s a romantic record and to me, romantic is when you see the realities and when you understand the realities, but you also see the possibilities. And sometimes you write about things as they are, and sometimes you write about them as they should be, as they could be, maybe, you know? And that’s basically what I wanted to do. And you can’t say no to either thing. If you say no, you’re cheating yourself out of feelings that are important and should be a part of you.