Tramps Like Us, Baby We Were Born to Write
by Kevin Kilgarriff
Music is a part of our lives. We’ve all got a soundtrack that’s taken us from moment to moment as we trudge through our long days. Songs that remind us of both good times and bad times when they come on the radio. Some songs hold more meaning than others, and sometimes that meaning comes from the actual artist. For my Mom it was Neil Diamond. For me, it’s Bruce Springsteen. His songs helped me through life and continue to do so. The ease with which I can identify with his lyrics is uncanny. It wasn’t even my choice. I have my brothers to thank.
When I was eleven years old, I did not yet have my own musical identity. I was the youngest of three brothers and, due to their amazing ability to pick me up and move me away from the radio, I was forced to adopt theirs. If they listened to a song, so did I. I can remember covering every channel on my radio dial with white-out, except Power 98, because that was the station my brothers listened to. In retrospect, I say that they made me listen to their music. But I think that their music was slowly becoming my own.
Case in point – As Christmas rolled around in 1986, my brothers had asked for Bruce Springsteen Live 1975-1985. One of the most influential artists of all time. Three albums in one box set. Ten years of live music. Forty songs. I knew about three of them. I had to have it! My brothers would have it. I needed it too!
As it turned out, my inability to think for myself was one of the most important traits I’d ever possessed. I was immediately captivated by Bruce’s music. How could I not have been? He makes quality, rockin’ music that you can’t, and wouldn’t want to, get out of your head. But, like most people, I had a hard time understanding what the heck Bruce was actually saying!
Luckily, included in this box set was a full set of lyrics. With a newfound understanding of what he was saying, I sat and read along with Bruce as he belted out the words with a passion that captured attention. Twenty years have now passed and, mentally, I’m still that ten year boy sitting on my bed, getting sucked into a world that seems more familiar than my own.
He effortlessly puts me inside his stories using a storytelling ability that is second to none. He uses words to their fullest extent, calling on only the strongest, and most desperate sounding phrases. Bruce paints a picture that could hang in any of the world’s museums. If only one could find a way to materialize it.
There’s no one song that best illustrates this. I could sit and write for hours about his lyrics. But a few of my favorite immediately come to mind.
In “Born to Run” Bruce sings of his youth and a deep seeded desire to move on to a better place in his life.
“In the day we sweat it, out in the street of a runaway American dream.
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines.”
“Baby this town rips the bones from your back.
It’s a death trap. It’s a suicide wrap.”
“Highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.”
The opening lines to “Thunder Road” paint a picture as well as any novel I’ve read.
“The screen door slams. Mary’s dress sways.
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely.
Hey that’s me and I want you only.”
Did you see the scene take shape in your mind as you read along? I still see the same picture that I saw when I was ten.
Then the interlude from “Backstreets” offers us a passionate look at a long lost friendship.
“Endless juke joints at Valentino Drag.
Where dancers scrape their tears up off the streets dressed down in rags.
Running in through the darkness, some hurt bad, some really dying.
At night sometimes it seems you can hear that whole damn city crying.
Blame it on the lies that killed us. Blame it on the streets that ran us down.
You can blame it all on me. Terry it don’t matter to me now.
When the breakdown hit at midnight, there was nothing left to say.
Except I hated him, and I hated you when you went away.”
To this day it exudes a feeling deep inside me, so deep that I prefer to listen to it alone.
What all of these examples have in common is that Springsteen regularly utilizes only the most severe words to express his thoughts, giving those thoughts the power to truly impact his audience. Rips the bones from your back? Suicide machines? Mansions of Glory? These are big words! Not big physically. Big in stature. Words that are visual. Words that can’t be outdone. You feel his lyrics, more so than you hear them. He brings them to life!
Listening to these songs for as long as I have, I’ve learned to add this approach to my writing. I’ve read countless books that have taught me that less is more. If you can construct a coherent sentence without a word or group of words, then do so. Adjectives and adverbs are the enemy, some say. They’ve shown me multiple paragraphs that they’ve expertly condensed into one. And I admit that they’ve done so quite impressively. And I also admit that in certain instances, they are absolutely correct. Less is more. But for me, I have to I kindly say, “Thanks. But no thanks.”
What would Of Mice and Men have been if Steinbeck didn’t describe the Salinas River as running “deep and green” with water that “has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching a narrow pool.”? I’ll tell you what. It’d just be a river that sits a few miles south of Soledad.
Words give life to the stories that are dancing around inside our heads, as though they’re bouncing off the walls of our mind and testing them for a means of escape. We should use those words to communicate our stories in the best way possible, not the most efficient.
I take heart in knowing that Bruce and I, on some level, are kindred souls. Sure, I may not be writing hit songs (hey I could have said “He may not be writing hit articles!”). But, in essence, he and I are doing the same thing. We’re telling stories to anyone who will take the time to listen, and we want those stories to not only be heard, but also remembered. And it’s that touch of life that helps us achieve that end.
So next time you’re sitting down in front of your shiny new laptop computer, or your older than dirt Remington typewriter that’s missing an ‘q’, or maybe even putting your pen to paper, remember that a well placed descriptive clause is a valuable tool. It can mean the difference between something used to pass the time and a story that leaves the reader wishing that it isn’t over, wondering how soon is too soon to begin reading again from the beginning.
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Kevin Kilgarriff is a writer and Recruitment Advertising Account Executive. He’s been writing forever (Yes, since the beginning of time!), but didn’t choose to share his work until mid-2004. A virtual novice in terms of writing professionally, his goal at Writers Remember is to share his experiences with other writers, and to hopefully help them through the trying times that a writer can encounter.
Recently Kevin started his own freelance writing business, Londontown Writing Services.
He blogs at Aspiring Adult and enjoys reading and writing in a variety of genres. His childish jokes are unrivaled and his vast collection of useless information, which he swears will one day be fully utilized, continues to grow exponentially.
Kevin lives in Warrington, PA, just outside of Philadelphia, with his wife and their 2 year old daughter.
