{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Roddy!", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/720901791882018816/", "html": "

mother-entropy:

unreconstructedfangirl:

eregyrn-falls:

jbbartram-illu:

ramshacklefey:

executeness:

chokolattejedi:

irrelevantlyvalid:

nickyandmikey:

nickyandmikey:

when two musicians sing into the same microphone and lean in very close to each other\u2026 like omg are you guys gonna kiss now to relieve the homoerotic tension?\ud83d\ude33

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ONE DIRECTION I DON\u2019T KNOW WHO THIS \u201cHARRY\u201d PERSON IS GO WATCH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND CLARENCE CLEMONS KISS ON STAGE RIGHT NOW

op is the only valid person i\u2019ve ever met. everyone else needs to come to the light

Okay, but this is really important: Bruce Springsteen occupied this really weird place in music history. His songs were all from this pessimistic, nihilistic view of an America that had let him down:

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn\u2019t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their \u2018Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He\u2019s over here asking when we\u2019re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren\u2019t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson\u2019s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

Passages from American Popular Music by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman

I used to think that Bruce and Clarence kissing onstage was exuberance, showmanship, and telling racist homophobes to fuck off. Like, they picked up a certain kind of audience and went \u201cRacist homophobes? Not in our house!\u201d And started the kissing then but then I actually looked it up and

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where\u2026 we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn\u2019t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn\u2019t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he\u2019s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence\u2019s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. \u201cBruce and I looked at each other and didn\u2019t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other\u2019s lives. He was what I\u2019d been searching for.\u201d In another version of the story, Clemons says \u201cHe looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.\u201d

I\u2019m having some emotions about it!

\u201cHe was elemental in my life,\u201c Springsteen adds, \u201cand losing him was like losing the rain.\u201d

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

God I\u2019m not okay about it

Now I\u2019m mad that this is not among any of the things I was ever told about this artist.

I knew about this in general (& via all those fabulous photos), but this just adds even more beautiful context <3

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Just to add to the pile: this was the cover of Springsteen\u2019s break-through album Born to Run, in 1975:

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

There\u2019s a lot more online if you search. They\u2019re all pretty amazing. But the photographer is right, the one chosen for the album cover just pops.

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Love.

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@executeness i just need you to know that from the moment i first saw your addition a little over a year ago, \u201cNot just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world! [\u2026] In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!\u201d has rarely left my brain.

\u201cIn the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!\u201d fundamentally rewrote something in my brain.

thank you.

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The American Reagan 1980s represented a successful reactionary reconstruction and anything that originated before them but retained a presence in American culture through to the other side had been largely reinterpreted to fit; I remember in the 1990s Springsteen was understood as a tribune of the (Eastern seaboard) white working class and the tribulations they endured as industrial Keynesianism failed (and Democrats substituted Blacks for The Working Man as the beneficiaries of their efforts)

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