SEVEN OR EIGHT LIVES AGO
The Boss reflects on life and writing
“And what are songs but dreams, at the end of the day? “ — Bruce Springsteen
I stumbled across an interview with Bruce this week, and that was one of his reflections. He talked about his process of collecting ideas from life, and his process of writing songs. There was so much meaningful insight worth sharing.
“…you take something out the air that isn’t there. There is no existence of it whatsoever, and you make it physical — literally…You have your antenna out…you’re just walking through the world and you’re picking up these signals of emotions and spirit and history and events, today’s events and past remembrances.”
In many ways very similar to how we write, for we are all writers, we are all poets. We just have a different stage and a different audience. But we all write about life, for that is all we really know. It’s moments, its flavor, its brevity.
“Whether it’s the train whooshing by you in an instant or the end of summer… it’s a carnival that comes through town for a week and then it’s gone. Whether it’s the sound of your feet on a gravel road and you look up and the stars are there, then they’ve disappeared. About the swiftness of death, I suppose, but also the richness of living.”
