How a Springsteen Song Brought My Summer to a Beautifully Cathartic End

Music can change your life, and for most of mine, it was the music of Bruce Springsteen that would color my days and change how I felt about something. I come from a family with wildly different music tastes. My dad gave me a love of musicians like the Beatles and Bob Dylan, while my mom was a fan of David Bowie, Prince, and Maxwell. My oldest brother almost exclusively listens to KISS or rap music, leaving my middle brother and I to figure out where we fit in. We are, after all, the actual musicians in my family. Both of us were classically trained in piano throughout most of our childhoods and also took guitar lessons.

A staple of our music lessons, though, was my brother’s piano sheet music of Bruce Springsteen classics. Of all the music my father and mother listened to, it was my brother who brought a love for Springsteen into my family. He discovered his songs on his own, connected with the Irish/Italian from New Jersey, and shared that love with our family. Most importantly, he shared it with me (and now my young niece). My mother liked two songs more than most, and to this day will ask us to send her clips of them when we go to concerts. My dad went with us often, but it was my brother’s thing and I just got caught in the crossfire of his love for the Boss.

To make myself “stand out” in my own way, I tried to find a song from Springsteen that was unique to me. Not because liking something my brother does wasn’t interesting to me (most of the things I love are because of my brother). Rather, I wanted to find something that I connected with. That ended up being Springsteen’s song “Atlantic City” off the album Nebraska.

The joy in “Atlantic City”

Call me depressing, say that it is weird that my favorite song is as sad as this one is, but I just really love the beauty in Springsteen’s lyrics. “Everything dies baby that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back,” gives me hope. When my father was dying, I listened to “Atlantic City” a lot more than I already had before. My niece, who is about to be three, even knows that this is my favorite song. When I called my brother from the concert this week, he told me that when we hung up he listened to “Atlantic City” hoping that the Boss would play it for me.

There’s something about this song in particular (and Nebraska as a whole) that just hits differently than his bigger songs. Don’t get me wrong, my other favorite song is “Badlands” and he plays it at every concert. But there’s something about “Atlantic City” that felt like it was mine.

All I wanted out of this pilgrimage to New Jersey to see Bruce was to hear him sing the song that I’d claimed as my own. Luckily, it happened and I sobbed in a way that made me grateful to see the Boss and the E Street Band one more time.

Hearing it live for the first time

To set the scene, this was (I think) my seventh time seeing Bruce Springsteen live. He was my first concert as a kid, and he always puts on an incredible show. This year was the first time I went out of my way to see him on my own. I saw him at his show in Brooklyn back in April, assuming that would be the only show I saw on his current tour.

Every time I see him, I hope he plays “Atlantic City.” I’ve never actually heard it live (other than on live recordings) but I knew the song was in his rotation. I warned my friend if I heard, “Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night” that I’d start sobbing. My seats were so high up, that it was almost too soft to hear, but I heard “And they blew up his house too” and instantly stood up, tears filling my eyes.

My poor friend didn’t know what was happening as I just kept muttering “It’s Atlantic City, oh my god it’s Atlantic City.” I cried through the entire thing. Luckily, there are videos of the song online so I can relive this moment whenever I’m feeling down.

Springsteen is one of the artists I don’t have a tattoo of yet because I never could land on a design. After hearing “Atlantic City” live, I know it has to be lyrics from my favorite song.

Thank you, Bruce

I don’t pretend to think that Springsteen knows what this meant to me or that he sang this song thinking “Someone somewhere is going to feel this and remember this night because of it.” I think it just happened to be a song he added to his setlist recently because it’s not as high energy and he was recovering from an illness. For me, it meant the world. I don’t need to know Bruce Springsteen’s reason for adding it to the setlist. He’s the Boss, he can do whatever he wants.

But going to New Jersey, home of the Boss, and hearing my favorite song to a sea full of fans singing “Put your makeup on, make yourself up pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City,” is now a core memory for me. So thank you, Bruce. This is something I never thought I’d have and now I’ll always remember being at Metlife and hearing my favorite song live for the first time.

(featured image: Manny Carabel/Getty Images)