Skip to main content

The Minister of Soul

Listening to Bruce Springsteen's music always makes me happy. Even the sad songs have an underlying joy that always brings to mind that line from "Badlands" - "It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive!" That's the line that always makes you want to jump out of your seat and dance around the room. That is, if you haven't already.

Springsteen's lyrics are dependent on the music to make them live, to make them become the anthems of our lives, and for the last forty years, with a few brief pauses, that music has been brought to life by the E Street Band with Springsteen's voice finding its echo in the soulful saxophone of the man he called "Big Man," Clarence Clemons. Now Big Man, the Minister of Soul, is gone, his saxophone silenced.

Clemons had had many health problems in the last few years and last week he suffered a stroke. He died of complications from the stroke over the weekend.

It's hard to imagine the E Street Band without him. He was such an integral part of its sound. But he's not the first member of this iconic rock band to die. Danny Federici, the organist and accordion player who had been there at the birth of the band, died three years ago. The band goes on and no doubt it will go on even without Clarence. Probably the only indispensable member is Bruce, himself.

Still it will be a different band without its Minister of Soul and some of that joyful sound will be absent, at least for a while. But I feel sure the remaining members of the band will rock on. Musicians may die but the music lives forever.
Labels:

Comments

  1. hire magento developerJune 22, 2011 at 12:35 AM

    Awesome. Even I also was experiencing my brother's composition and lyrics once upon a time.. Now he is busy with some other work.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...
19 comments
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters!  Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...
6 comments
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...
24 comments
Read more