Letter #5: My Hometown & My City of Ruins
Dear Bruce , People always wonder how a Songwriter in New Jersey can have such a connection with fans around the world and maintain it for decades. What is it that draws people to your music? Why do folk relate to it? To those who delve deep into your lyrics we are fully aware of the answer, you manage to capture something that is going on with our lives whether it be our relationships, our working life, our economic situations, our hopes, dreams, fears, loves, hates, and our experiences as kids, teenagers and as functioning adults. A good example of this is your song 'My Hometown' . We all have a story or two to tell about the place we grew up. We relate a bit to the fatherly view in the opening verse: "I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick/And steer as we drove through town" ; the tension in the community due to racial division and violence: "There was a lot of fights/Between the black and white/There was nothing you could do" (verse 2); the ...