The Springsteen Ride

I just wanted to express my deep satisfaction with Robert Hilburn’s piece on Bruce Springsteen (“Hope Won Out,” July 14). I live in New York City--a transplanted Jerseyite--and have been an ardent Bruce fan since 1978.

Throughout Hilburn’s career, he has continually delivered the humanity of the man to readers. The current article just strengthens the fact that Springsteen honestly values the importance of taking his audience on something more than a sexually charged, profanity-spewed amusement ride. I can only hope this album finds a few souls in need of some comfort.

JOE GATTI

New York City

*

Great piece on the yet-to-be released Springsteen album. As a longtime fan of Springsteen’s, I find it an absolute torment to wait for a specific release date--your descriptions of some of the songs will have to do until the album is released here in New Zealand on Aug. 1. I’ve just been listening to “Into the Fire” from brucespringsteen.net. I hope the rest of the album lives up to my expectations. Although that won’t be hard sitting here in my Springsteen T-shirt, thinking of ways to afford a trip to at least Australia for a few shows next year.

JEREMY PARKINSON

Auckland, New Zealand

*

I thought Hilburn captured a lot of the essence of what Bruce Springsteen’s been saying in recent years, both on a practical and spiritual level. Leave it to him, the quintessential American artist, to make our first major statement about what we’ve been through.

DON HAMILTON

Portland, Ore.

*

As a longtime (former) Springsteen fan, I’m curious to know how Hilburn, as one of Springsteen’s biggest supporters in rock journalism, reconciles his “speaking for the people” image with his plan to charge $75 per ticket. Don’t you think gouging the fans works against the working-man ethic he likes to identify with? He’s often invoked Woody Guthrie; somehow I don’t think Woody, if he were alive today, would be charging those who wanted to hear his songs $75.

I know escalating ticket prices for major acts is the norm, but in Springsteen’s case it strikes a particularly sour note because he has always cultivated the image of maintaining his ties to the working-class ideals of his early days.

I had hoped that with his new album supposedly having a post-9/11 vibe, he wouldn’t raise prices again or that perhaps he would charge a little less this time around to make the shows more accessible to the working people he used to identify with (especially in these trying economic times). I was stunned and disappointed when I discovered that the standard ticket price this time was even more than last time, during the big-money reunion tour of a couple of years ago.

I can’t even listen to his music anymore; so much of it seems so false. It seems to me that where Springsteen used to look out into the crowd and see a community of like-minded fans, now he looks out from the stage and only sees dollar signs.

KYLE MIZE

Brownwood, Texas

*

I think that it’s time that someone stand up for Hilburn. Too many of your readers see fit to belittle this fine writer, seemingly for no other reason than they disagree with his opinions about music. Respectful disagreement with his opinions would be one thing, but these are personal attacks, calling into question his motivation for writing what he does. To my mind, that’s uncalled for.

Particularly offensive are the repeated assertions that Hilburn is only trying to be “hip” when he supports today’s new artists. I take this kind of personally, being that I too am an aging rock fan who finds new bands like the White Stripes and ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead to be fresh and exciting. I had always thought that keeping an open mind to new things was a good thing, but when Hilburn does this, he’s accused of being, in the words of one recent letter, a “wannabe rock guru.” Perhaps those of us over a certain age are just supposed to clasp our old records to our chests and moan about how things aren’t as good as they used to be.

Well, to me, the fact that Hilburn refuses to do this is exactly why he’s as relevant as he was when I read him more than 20 years ago. I still consider him to be everything a rock writer should be: open-minded and fair, possessed of a sense of historical context, and a skilled writer. I hope that he knows some of us out here appreciate how lucky The Times is to have one of the best rock writers out there on your staff.

STEVE OMLID

Upland

*

Hardly a week passes without someone writing and complaining or disagreeing with something Hilburn has published. For those people I have a modest proposal: Quit reading him. I find your rants tedious. You know what he is going to say, so why bother. I never read him. After all, it’s not as if Hilburn is writing about something really important. It’s only about rock, which is not serious music, in any case.

ANDRIUS V. VARNAS

Redondo Beach