Dear Mr. Springsteen,
Tonight I watched you being honored at the Kennedy Center. I listened to Jon Stewart recount his experience to your music. I laughed at his love child theory. I watched you watch John Mellencamp perform your music. Then I heard “I’m On Fire”. And I thought about my story.
When I was 7 years old, I received a boom box for my birthday. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, and when they bought the stereo they didn’t have money for any new albums. Luckily, my friends’ parents were wise to my parents’ gift and purchased a couple tapes for me. I was so excited to receive Billy Joel’s Innocent Man and Michael Jackson’s Thriller. But my dad, trying his hardest to keep me up to date with the music the kids were listening to, borrowed Born in the USA from one of his friend’s sons.
He dubbed a copy on a high quality, blank cassette, popped out the tabs, photocopied the liner notes, and cut them down so they would fit into the cassette case. He was so proud of that. My dad couldn’t afford to get me a new cassette, but made the best copy he could possibly make.
Mr. Springsteen, I’m sure this was a fine album. In fact, I know it was and is a fine album. I listened to the entire album, sides 1 and 2 during my slumber party. And then I listened to it again, alone, and got to “I’m on Fire” and never listened to it again.
You scared the crap out of me. The movie that played in my head as I listened to this song showed a man, literally on fire, showing up to a house of a little girl, perhaps a girl the age of 7, and asking her, “Hey little girl is your daddy home? Did he go and leave you all alone? I got a bad desire. Oooooo, I’m on fire.” I didn’t understand the desire line, but I did think that some girl who was clearly not old enough to be left home alone encountered a man who had been set ablaze. Imagine opening your front door, which you shouldn't be doing in the first place as you were prematurely left home alone, and there's a man on fire! I mean, holy crap!
I never got rid of this cassette. Even as a little girl I recognized my father’s efforts to enhance my birthday gift. So, Mr. Springsteen, even though you provided night after night of nightmare fodder, I have to smile when I think of your work. Thank you for creating an album that would encourage a father to recreate something he was unable to purchase for his daughter, and then for unknowingly frightening her tender, little mind. I salute you.
