Uncle Bruce and Cousin Taylor | Culture

These last few weeks we have experienced a new chapter in the eternal battle between those who bought a house because they did not have Netflix and never flew to Bologna for a weekend with Ryanair and those who proclaim themselves the most prepared generation in history, despite the fact that They are going to live worse than their parents, guilty, by the way, of almost all their ills. On this occasion, the debate has not been fueled by impossible rents or by the arthritic nature of the labor market. It has happened due to the visit just a couple of weeks apart from Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, two musical icons who have helped the male faction of the army boomer laughed at the girls who supposedly wore diapers to last hours without losing their place in the front row of the concerts of the Pennsylvania and the female contingent swiftie responded by mocking all those gentlemen who should already consider wearing diapers at their age, especially if they are going to spend more than three hours away from home. But the truth is that there is much more that unites Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen than could separate them.

The battle has been deeply ridiculous and the arguments completely pedestrian. “Let’s see, Taylor Swift can’t be that famous if I (I!) haven’t heard any of her songs. And well, as I said, I haven’t heard anything from her, but now I’m going to tell you what I think about the singer.” Everyone seemed to have some theory to justify her success, a groundbreaking thought that shed light and closed the case. “Well, let’s see, I may be older, but this is not music or anything.” Yes, José Luis, you are older, that is the only sensible thing you have said in months and stop sending those comments every time something is published about an artist you don’t know, that with each sentence you lose more life than with a package of Camel. “But she doesn’t know how to dance.” Well, of course she can’t dance, but, to paraphrase Morrissey, you should see her play the piano.

The disguise and the illusion. That’s what the audience at both concerts had in common. Some with their bracelets, their sequins, their fringes; the others with their t-shirts from ancient Springsteen tours

And then, of course, the others, who believe that until they arrived here no one knew how to have fun. That all those who criticize any current pop icon are because they are sad and bitter, misogynistic or envious, in this particular. Darts poisoned with specialty coffee thrown by people who say they love music, but are less curious than a koala, who firmly believe that success is the only thing that justifies talent, who has turned the charts into a kind of Ibex 35 : They monitor them to make sure they always defend the strongest, lest something changes in this perfect world in which, even by unsubscribing from Disney Plus, they will not be able to become independent until they are 40. Anyway, sad but entertaining, like an Éric Rohmer film.

The disguise and the illusion. That’s what the audience at both concerts had in common. Some with her bracelets, her sequins, her fringes, her fantasy makeup and Taylor’s pajamas in the video You Belong With Me. The others, with their t-shirts from ancient Springsteen tours, their red scarves, their t-shirts from other rock artists, because in its death throes, rock no longer has any nuances, it is a monolith, and failing that, those other t-shirts of the joke, so beloved by a certain faction of middle-aged men—those who laugh at his jokes, make quotation marks with their fingers and call the bill the painful one—and who, with the Ramones logo, replace the name of the band for words like Rations or Hams, or Pink Floyd’s and instead of Wish You Were Here on the elastic it reads Wish You Were Beer. Someone who wears this cannot make fun of someone who wears pajamas and two hundred bracelets to a concert. And vice versa. Because being ridiculous and not caring is key to having a good time, no matter how old you are. Everything else is silence. And here we have come because of the noise.

After each album, there are millions of volunteers to accompany Taylor back home that night. And he, from that ability to tell stories about losers, with his cars, his girls, the guy with the Philadelphia chickens that got killed yesterday

It was Taylor’s first stadium date and perhaps Bruce’s last with the E Street Band. Two characters who, each in their own way, have based their success on the ability to empathize with their audience, on being close figures, in short, friends and confidants, despite the fact that their lives are nothing like those of their fans. , and if tomorrow you break your arm let me doubt that it will be Taylor or Bruce who will make the purchase for you and accompany you to the traumatologist. There have been many artists who have tried and achieved this, but very few, perhaps only them, have achieved it in the immensity of a football stadium. From the generational confidence of the almost real-time narration of her life, with an elastic speech that, when it gets too dramatic, she almost always finds the phrase to relax.

You identify with her, but you also love her, so that nothing bad happens to her. After each album, there are millions of volunteers to accompany Taylor back home that night. And he, from that ability to tell stories about losers, with their cars, their girls, the guy from the Philadelphia chickens who got killed yesterday and those days of glory that will no longer return, but when you remember them they still make you smile silly. More confessionally protected than Taylor, because he did not grow up in the era of autofiction and the ability to become a brand. And also from the social class, from a certain working class that today sounds very strange, almost imposed, but there was a time, when those guilty of our evils wore suits – now we believe that they are the ones who saved us from our evils – when there were certain class consciousness in music, and with his cracks and healthy checking account, Bruce represented it. No one, just maybe Bob Dylan and Billy Bragg, told stories like Bruce. Nobody until Taylor Swift arrived. May the forest of sequins not prevent us from seeing the tree in which she has carved the name of her, the protagonist of Betty.

The displeasure that Springsteen gave to Reagan when it turned out that ‘Born in the USA’ was not what the president believed: and the current Republican disappointment when realizing that his straight white girl is not the battering ram against the ‘woke’ culture that is so it would have gone well

We always thought that music was more fun than life, because in life everything is politics, while in music almost everything is sex. And look here, looking back and forward, we have two icons who have achieved it without selling sex – let’s see, sex is also very good, the best way to occupy nap time -, to the point of What if there is no greater ordinariness in the world today than making a lewd comment about Swift. There, curiously, Bruce is the one who has become a little more sexualized, especially at the time of Born In the USA. Because, in the end, there are ways to lose a friend: sharing a flat, going on trips and sleeping together. We can rest assured, none of the three will happen to us with any of these two. This friendship will last.

And finally, politics. Springsteen’s displeasure with Reagan when it turned out that Born in the USA was not what the president believed: and the current Republican disappointment in realizing that his straight white girl is not the battering ram against culture woke up How well they would have done. A sign of success is the ability to disappoint those you must disappoint.

Anyway, let Springsteen do a version of But Daddy I Love You Him. Let Taylor get a Street Racing. And peace in the world.