Interview Quotes

Songwriting and Authenticity

"I don't think I felt really comfortable with the idea that I was writing good songs until I was about 22 or 3 when I came coming up with the songs for my first record, a record called Greetings from Asbury Park."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:00:16

"I was acting like I thought it was going to happen, you know, because I didn't have a plan B. I only had plan a which is I'm gonna be a musician"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:00:46

"That's what I've been really curious about is how I didn't have Another life. I had no other real experiences as a musician since I was 14 years old and playing performing live since i was 15 you know so i was kind of like i was in in invested in writing the best music i could and okay with whatever that outcome that's how i still feel yeah"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:01:04

"I was like hey, I'm gonna do this and whatever the outcome is is what the outcome is going to be but i knew i had to play i had to write and and whether it was like you know we were doing three nights a week in a club in asbury park and uh you know bringing home 150 bucks a week or $250 a week and living on that you know quite a bit"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:02:19

"I know with Nebraska, I was interested in making myself as invisible as possible. I just wanted to be another ghost. On that record, it spoke to some need in me. As a result of the success that I had, I needed to know if I could go back and be nobody."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:04:16

"My idea was, I'm going to slow this down a little bit."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:04:43

"And so I ended up with these, my demos, you know, and then I kept trying to make them better. And every time I tried to make them better, they got worse."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:07:21

"I have this, the cut born in the USA. I know this thing is lightning in a bottle because I can tell."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:07:42

"So you wanted to put out a record that you knew wouldn't be a hit to the masses, right?"

— ZB. • 00:08:03

"But it also gave me a sense of control over where I was going."

— ZB. • 00:08:31

"Well, it did a little bit of what you're both of what you're talking about. It did kind of slow things down in the sense we just put the record out. And I let the record. I said, no, I just want this to be what it is. Had its own voice."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:10:14

"Yeah, like that like manliness attached to all your music You probably didn't feel like you were you could be comfortable on your own like mental to"

— ZB. • 00:11:00

"I was feeling that Conflict myself of being two different people, you know, and so but that makes you good at it. It's what's hilarious Well, it it gives you a it gives your work of breath that is unusual you know I mean"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:11:22

The Journey and the Band

"So we have the same story essentially like the hometown thing my music wasn't really that big yet I hadn't played one live show so I was like I was in such a transient moment of my life and I'm like this blows my mind looking back"

— ZB. • 00:12:25

"I get home and I call all my best friends from high school who had put all their instruments down their drums their guitars their and I'm like hey guys I need a band and I don't trust anybody I don't trust anybody it's good I trust you guys you guys can barely play a few instruments"

— ZB. • 00:12:48

"The interesting thing that you said is that you needed people you could trust more than you needed somebody who was a professional this talented professional that that was the same thing hey my guys they were people who I felt comfortable around there were people who I knew I could be myself around and there were people who I knew would keep me being myself"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:14:03

"And that's been going on for the entire 50 years we've been together because those are the those are the things you have in common"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:15:22

The Creative Process and Influences

"My buddy Alba we were on a plane one day and he goes hey you have to record these songs and i'm like says who why me and like six guys were like what are we even doing and uh we get into this airbnb we obviously were like seven beers in all of us think we're geniuses we're like we're gonna be we're gonna be the next springsteen let's do this at the time it was a joke"

— ZB. • 00:16:36

"I put all this music on the internet not knowing what was about to happen and the next week of my life was like just absolute chaos"

— ZB. • 00:18:32

"And so in a way I always think your records are premonitions they're premonitions of what's going to be coming up in your consciousness and you're coming up out of your subconsciousness in the immediate aftermath of of what you created"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:10:48

"Oklahoma's son I love that song and what you can't hide where you're from with nightcrawler blood on your cast and thumb that's good I appreciate you can fight and fiend and sell your guns but you'll always be in oklahoma but that kind of detail that night crawl where'd that come from where that where those lines do"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:22:02

"Do you ever think asbury park is a small town yeah I do do you ever feel like no matter where you go like you were saying earlier you're always going to have that in your heart and your period period"

— ZB. • 00:22:36

"It's fascinating why I don't want to be a country musician everyone calls me it I want to be a songwriter"

— ZB. • 00:25:29

"All the time. I mean, you use everything. Everything you know and everything you've seen and have seen."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:27:23

"The body of my work really comes out of a feeling I had for my father's life and my mother's life."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:28:40

"That's why I released Deanne. That's for my mom."

— ZB. • 00:28:54

"She heard things that we couldn't talk about but I could write about in a song."

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:31:26

"He was an enormous influence, you know. But all these guys were. and really darkness on the age of town the river the song wreck on the highway from that record and then nebraska were really a result of me finally processing my country influences in a way that i felt comfortable with"

— Bruce Springsteen • 00:33:06