Letter #3 The Journey or The Destination?

Dear Bruce,
You've spent a huge chunk of your life on the road and a number of your songs are about The Journey to some place (you hope is) better, but is The Journey the important thing or the Destination? Of course being in a Rock and Roll band the Destination is important because you don't want to end up in Poughkeepsie if you are meant to be playing in Cleveland!

Yes, I know it's one of those deep questions that probably doesn't come with an easy answer. It's not like when we were kids and every five minutes we would annoy our parents with the "Are we there yet?" question. We just wanted to get to the beach or holiday park and not worry so much about what The Journey meant but for our parents it was a lesson in patience in putting up with us, making sure they travelled the correct roads and avoided any troubles and danger by staying focused on the road. It was all about The Journey for them but for us it was only the Destination that mattered.

Maybe the focus on the Destination is to do with our youth when we feel we have no real responsibility to anyone else and there's always that longing that there's always somewhere better than HERE. I see that in a number of your early songs like 'Thunder Road' for instance which ends with that powerful line, "It's a town full of losers I'm pulling out of here to win".

When I was a teenager in 1977 there was a single by Eddie and The Hot Rods called 'Quit This Town' that was all about being disatisfied with where you were and something awaited beyond the border of your town. Looking back now I'm not totally convinced that the promise lived up to the expectation. The Destination, Anywhere But Here, was all that seemed to matter. As I've got older that perspective seems to have changed.

Now there seems to be a realisation that It's All About The Journey and The Destination is almost secondary. This might sound a bit odd, but stick with me for a moment. The Journey is about facing up to yourself, myself, determining where we are at a given moment and moving on to become a better version of ourselves and more importantly how we interact with others on The Journey.

It impresses me as your career progressed that the attention moved toward other people who are on The Journey with you and I can't think of a better song of yours that captures that spirit than 'If I Should Fall Behind'.

Thanks Bruce for all the lessons on The Journey.
Until next time
Doug

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