I wrote this in Portuguese for BTR’s 45th birthday. This forum wasn’t around, but now it is.
I was about 27 and was lucky enough to be invited to go in someone’s car to the woods for some beer, pot and God knows what. I accepted, essentially because I couldn’t afford to decline such an invitation.
When we got there, in the darkness that only those who’ve been among pine trees at night know, because the moonlight causes strange effects as it passes through the needles above, they started to open the car doors and from inside you could hear music blaring (Maybe Nirvana or Bush or whatever). One by one, you could hear the sound of the beer cans being cracked open and everyone either started talking or just standing there posing as an adolescent who feels things deeply.
I walked towards one of the groups (the one I figured was less likely to ignore me) and set out to listen to the conversation so I could participate. But while they gossiped all I could make out were some isolated words here and there because, in my head, these words kept banging loudly: “sometimes at night it seemed you could hear that whole damn city crying”. Again and again and again. I remember looking at all those faces in the moonlight and seeing past their masks, watching them crying, begging for attention.
And all the while I just kept thinking “I wish I were back home listening to Born to Run”.