I am not able to discuss music in any depth. I like Springsteen because from the moment I heard The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle I felt a connection between the experiences of a guy from NJ and the experiences of a girl from small town central CA. Both of them exaggerated for effect and deeply wishful. He may have been coached into a deeper reflection of mid-America but as I moved around the country and adopted new lifestyles and different perceptions, so did his music.

If identification with the most common of persons makes Springsteens music "pop" or as Rosenbaum would say, bad, then so is my life. Common. Collectors pay lots of money for representations of past common lives and our common lives will be examined someday.

At any rate, I think there are two songs on The Rising that are overlooked. You're Missing and Paradise. They may be over-emotional but they show a real ability to empathize with a life Springsteen doesn't live. You're Missing is deceptively simple and devastatingly personal.

Adrasteia: Like you, I've always pretty much liked Springsteen. In my case, that liking has been pretty unfocused. There are some songs I like, and the rest I can leave be -- it probably says something that although I suppose I'd call myself a fan, I don't own a single Springsteen CD.

But where Rosenbaum and I somewhat agree is that much of Springsteens "working class hero" image is fake. I think, at least from my own perspective, that feeling comes from having grown up in a blue-collar household, where some of the rather sticky sentimentality of Springsteen at his sappiest would have been seen as, well, unmasculine. Springsteen as a New Jersey smartass makes a little sense. The created Springsteen as a model for blue collar Americana comes off a little like the Harley jacket I bought (at a Harley dealership) last year -- it looks authentic until you see the "Made in China" logo.

But as I said, I consider myself something of a fan, and I expect I'd enjoy hearing the songs you recommend.

I don't know what an authentic working class hero is, except for Lech Walensa. It seems to me all creative types "create" a world and an image. Actors aren't really murderers or heroes, writers made up complete worlds, painters make up lighting and put buildings where they really aren't, and sculptures create people that may never have existed except in their minds.

I don't own all of Springsteen's albums, one would go broke. I don't read about him and don't care about his politics or how he got it or where he came from. When I listen to music I listen to see if it tells me something about the world I inhabit. If I just can't quite grasp it, I move on (which, sadly, is often). When I heard Rosalita I figured he never lived that life but it just didn't matter. I wanted to live that life and in my own small, unrebelious middle class way I rebelled and Rosalita was my anthem, for that I thank Springsteen and his ability to create a world.

I think all the Harley jackets come from Korea or China nowadays. Maybe all the working class heroes are as manufactured Springsteen.

My maternal grandfather was born on a farm in North Dakota and died at age 95 in the year 2000. He worked as an "all-comers" boxer for the 101 West Show, a diesel mechanic, a construction crew member, an assembly line worker for general motors in the 1930s, and a heavy-equipment operate for the Army Corps of Engineers until his retirement in 1969. In the early 1950s he bought a 1.5 acre plot in a small town in central Missouri, rented a bulldozer and leveled a site for his planned house. Using a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow he dug the basement foundation, poured the basement and built a two bedroom home on top of it, of his own design. He started putting away money while working at general motors and at the time of his death was probably worth more than a million dollars (I don't know the value of his estate -- my grandmother is still alive). HE was a real working-class hero.

Springsteen is a smartass from New Jersey who can play the guitar and sing.

Did I say something offensive?

I agree with you. My grandfather walked across Poland and rode steerage to America. He became an iron miner in Upper Michigan, raised six children, built his home with his own hands,and sent all his son to WWII and all his children to college although he could neither read nor write. He was a true working class hero. Every person who upholds their vows to their families and country are working class heroes.

I meant among artists. Your grandfather and my grandfather aren't the ones who put pen to paper and make us understand what others feel. It's guys like Springsteen who give us a glimpse of another person's life. Ever read "Giants in the Earth"? Rolvaag may have written about your grandfather. It takes an artist to transport us to another reality.

I don't expect Springsteen to be authentic. I just like his music.

Adrasteia: Whether you know it or not, you just won my heart. "Giants in the Earth" is probably one of the best books ever written -- certainly the best describing the Norwegian/Danish settlement experience in late-19th century America, and I've always identified the main character (who dies while skiing through a blizzard) as being very much like my grandfather. There's still a copy of that book somewhere at Grandma's house (along with her lefse recipe, which I need to pry out of her before she dies -- she's healthy, but she is also 93 years old).

When it comes to working class artists, I'll take Woody Guthrie and maybe Johnny Cash.

I was stationed for three years in Grand Forks, ND. I lived halfway between the town and the base, south of Highway 2 and my nearest neighbor was about a mile away. I was totally blown away being so isolated. I would stand at the window and watch the sun set over the icy prarie or the sunflowers stretch into the distance. Or, of course, the Northern Lights, something a CA girl had never even imagined. Along with the -40 temps (I thought my shop mates were lying when they told me it got that cold in the lower 48!)

It really brought Giants home to me. I absolutely love that book. It allowed me to take my experience, complete with electricty and phones and a car, and translate it to the experience of immigrants to the northern plains.

However, both Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash left their working class roots when they became successful artists. Working with their hands may have been where they started (ame with Rolvaag) but that is not what they were meant to do. I really don't know for sure what Springsteen's roots are or what Guthrie's or Cash's were. All I know is they showed me a part of America I had not and would not have been able to experience.

I think my thing is that I know that being a musician was the only work Springsteen ever really did -- oh, he may have done some other work in his teens, but he toured college campuses in his 20s and has been pretty much a working musician his whole life. Music just doesn't strike me as a "working class" vocation.

Woody Guthrie was a sign painter, among other things. Johnny Cash worked hard on a farm before joining the Air Force and having military experience. I just feel like they paid their dues in the real world first more than Springsteen. When I hear Johnny Cash sing a song about working, I know he's worked, and the same for Guthrie. When I hear Springsteen do something similar, it makes me wonder what focus group decided it would appeal to the modern working man. I guess I'm being to harsh -- I DO like some of the man's music. I don't really like his "I'm just like you" veneer.

I'm from Missouri, but Mom's family is originally from the very southeastern corner of North Dakota. The endless plains can only be described as desolate, and I've heard both my grandparents talk aobut having to build tunnels through the snow to reach essential structures (the barn, the outhouse). Rolvaag wrote to that experience like no one else.

I can't disagree with your comparison of Springsteen and the others.

Grand Forks is East central so not much different than from where your mother's family came from. We considered ourselves luckier than those stationed at Minot because Minneapolis/St. Paul was at least within reach. Recently National Geographic ran an article about dying towns in ND. I remembered a few of them. There's something about an abandoned home sitting in the middle of the plains that really expresses the loneliness and hopes of those who pioneered.

This country could use a few more people with that kind of toughness.

I read that article in National Geographic -- the saddest photos to me were the house with the bed that looked freshly made -- the dress neatly hung on the back of a door. It was like looking at the aftermath of a plague.

The little town of Forman, N.D., my grandfather's home town, and Savannah, N.D., my grandmothers aren't yet ghost towns, but they are shrinking communities, held together by basically farmers and very old people -- the economic reasons they sprang into existence 100 years ago simply don't exist anymore. There''s no doubt it was and remains a hard country, and anyone whose forebears lived there can honestly say they come from tough stock.

Thanks to all for a civil discussion.

Enjoyed reading the article & the comments.

One thing I'd add -- being a "working musician" really is a grueling hand-to-mouth existence for most of its practitioners. Springsteen (like other famous acts) being one exception, since he seems to have been in good shape financially since the 1980s.

For instance, I just read a new interview with the influential LA punk band X who describe their life in the 1980s as being in a "working band" -- some if not all of them weren't college graduates, they just fell into a situation where by touring, they could make just enough money to justify not taking up a different line of work. Tour, earn enough money to take some months "off" to write new songs, record, tour, repeat. When they finally stopped, Excene Cervenka said in the interview, it was partly because they were pushing 40 and at least she (and maybe some of the other members) felt their life was just too financially insecure. Add to that the fact that most working musicians don't have good health insurance or any kind of retirement provision.

Yeah, it's a life that's totally different from manual labor -- but it's by no means a comfortable middle-class life for most musicians.

JM: I hear what you're saying, but I have a good friend who makes his full-time living as a country musician, and has for at least 15 years. His status would be alot like the bands you describe except for the fact that his wife makes a relatively large income and helps support him.

But he was working as a full-time musician when he met his wife, and was by no means rich. At the same time, he described it as "going to a party 250 nights a year." Not exactly laying bricks or truck driving if you see what I mean.