Finally got Nebraska yesterday and realised today that's pretty much clocked it for me, barring that Devils & Dust tape that apparently exists, *and the "Chimes of Freedom" one. I've loved slowly collecting these things, no idea if I'll ever listen to them though.
I've also got a "Leap of Faith" single cassette and I know there are others kicking about like "Better Days", but I'm not too fussed about that.
And the big dog.
I have to share the story of my Tunnel cassette...
In May 1993, I went to Munich for my first Bruce gig with a former boyfriend (bad idea, but I was 18) and another Bruce fan.
The gig took place on a Sunday afternoon, pretty early, and we drove back home immediately after it had ended. I remember dozing but not really sleeping in the backseat of my Mom's car while the two of them exchanged for driving.
The car looked similar to the one in the photo below, and the approx. 500 km highway is cut through the Alps, so it was evident that it would be a whole night adventure. I was finishing high school, with lots of exams and studying, so I planned to go directly to class the following Monday. I didn't want to skip school because of Bruce (bad idea, but I was 18).
On a fabulous May morning, I came to school in an elevated state, still buzzing from the night before. There are various highs in life, but this was my first Bruce high, and I acted appropriately. I was either explaining overly enthusiastically about Bruce to people who couldn't care less or was I floating somewhere under the ceiling, not present mentally in that classroom...
There was a girl. Every class has a few of them, right? Popular, good-looking, pretentious bitches.. She walked towards me with a look on her face saying "do you think you are special because you drove to a concert to Munich last night?" But out loud, she said: "I hear you are listening to Bruce Springsteen. He is sooo old, and sooo past his prime days, and he isn't popular anymore, and have you seen the way he is dressed?" At that point, she took the Tunnel cassette from her pocket and shoved the cover into my face. I was a bit shocked, didn't know how to defend Bruce back then, as she went on: "You can have this. It's worthless. Nobody listens to him anymore."
I was 18 and naive. I should have said thank you but fuck you, but instead, I just took the cassette without uttering a single word. I still didn't own Tunnel at the time, so I thought, why not, I guess...
Karma is a bitch. She used to rave about INXS, and although I like the group, Hutchence is almost a quarter of a century dead now while Bruce is still making albums and doing other exciting projects.
Listening to Tunnel now. ❤️
Gary's big stero still in a moving box has double tape decks plus a 10 cd stacker and a record player
i have i think 4 Bruce tapes but still factory wraped
GOTJ, HT, LT and i think ToL
i got them for 99c each but $12.99 postage
now find me a pencil
One of my mates had a "dumped" mix tape which got passed around to the guy most recently binned by a young lady.
It passed through my hands a few times.
I forget the listing, the only two that stuck with me were "Here I go again on my own " by Whitesnake and "I hate everything about you" by Ugly Kid Joe.
Man, the time I used to spend figuring sequencing, timing, transitions...my tape deck had both a 5-second auto fade-in/fade-out function and I'd practice getting the fades just right. But then I also would sometimes do a smash cut.
I had a Pink Floyd mix that had all three parts of "Another Brick in the Wall," but just as he inhales during the telephone ringing at the end of "Part 2," it would suddenly cut to the final TV exploding and go into "Part 3."
I love CDs. I love love love my mp3. But there was something really special about a lovingly and well-crafted mixtape...