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Sunday, November 20, 2005

Fatherly advice.

Imagine, if you will ..

○ ○ ○

A father and his 13 year old son, sitting at the kitchen table in their New Jersey home, on a random afternoon back in 1962. The son is fidgeting with his very first guitar, when his father decides to give him some advice.

Father: Son, I want to give you some advice. Be an artist all you want, but hear this: don't write love songs. Ever. You hear me?

Son: Don't write love songs? Why not, dad?

F: Because they're nothing less than propaganda for the government, son.

At this point mom shuffles in, in her robe, and rolls her eyes at the sound of the word 'propaganda'. She gives her little boy a smile as she moves over to the counter and pours herself a cup of steaming coffee. As she shuffles back out of the kitchen, she stops, gives dad a glare, and briefly participates in the conversation.

Mother: Douglas, not the 'propaganda'-story, the boy's 13. Let him play whatever he wants.

S: No, mom, I want to know. Love songs are propaganda for the government?

At the sound of this, mom darts her son a quick look, sighs, shrugs, and walks off.

S: Go on, dad.

F: Just imagine, son, that you are playing a gig, at some random venue, and that somewhere in the back, there's a couple, madly in love, but, for some obscure reason, unable to profess that love for eachother. They're in love, but not together. Ok?

S: Ok.

F: And now imagine that you play the best love song you have ever written, and that song somehow breaks down that wall between them and lets them finally be together, be properly in love. Ok?

S: Ok.

F: Well, they'll date for a few months, move in together, and eventually even get married. Which is when they'll have to start paying all kinds of extra taxes. Propaganda! I'm telling you!

S: ...

F: ...

S: Can I have a rootbeer?

○ ○ ○

And thus ends a conversation between Douglas Springsteen and his son, Bruce, at the kitchen table in their New Jersey home, on a random afternoon back in 1962.

Cheers

3 Comments:

Blogger GoGo said...

i like the part where he said WOMEN are the bottleneck of something or another.

9:29 am  
Blogger Becky said...

It'd be a lot funnier if it wasn't so dadgum true.

6:32 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That punk kid had NO respect for his father! Phonk!

10:52 am  

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