It was back in 1975. That’s when Dagbladet—which at the time was one of the most influential and sharp-eyed music papers we had—picked up on the fact that a brand-new rock sound had emerged in the U.S., just outside New York, more specifically in New Jersey. As a music lover, I couldn’t exactly let that pass.
This was before radio served everything up on a silver platter—before Spotify, before algorithms and playlists. Back then you actually had to search, and the search itself was half the magic.
So I headed down to the record shop at Grønland in Oslo, the one tucked into the subway complex. A place I already knew well—almost like a little underground cathedral for music obsessives. And what was I supposed to listen to? An artist I’d never even heard of, recommended by Dagbladet. The album was called Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and the artist was Bruce Springsteen—who would later become one of the most legendary figures in rock.
I bought the record, and sure—maybe it wasn’t an instant knockout for me. Not the kind of album that hits you square in the chest from the very first second. But then something happened: in 1976 another big act grabbed “Blinded by the Light” and made it their own in a much more driving, rock-powered version. Suddenly the pieces started to fall into place. I thought: I need to go back to the source. (It was Manfred Mann, of course, who had the big success with that track from the Asbury Park album.)
So—back to Grønland again (1976). And there it was: a new Bruce album had arrived, Born to Run. And it was a massive leap forward. An album with a completely different weight, a different momentum—as if the engine suddenly jumped from idle to full throttle. I played it constantly after I brought it home, and you know how it is when a record becomes part of your everyday life: it turns into the soundtrack of a chapter.
Later came the album I truly believe locked him into razor-sharp focus: Darkness on the Edge of Town—darker, more uncompromising, almost frighteningly precise. And then, like a global earthquake, came Born in the U.S.A. The rest is history.
But for me, this was never just about records. It also meant concert after concert in the years that followed—Valle Hovin, Frogner Park, and other places along the way. And he’s remained—not just an artist—but a genuine rock poet: a musician with an almost unique grip on simple, irresistible songs that still manage to hold whole lives, whole streets, whole dreams inside them. Springsteen has this rare ability to make ordinary people sound like heroes—and to make heroes feel human.
And then you sit there, year after year, and you understand more and more what it’s really about with this aging rocker. It’s not just guitars and choruses, not just nostalgia and old posters on the wall. It’s about life—possibility, dignity, the right to exist without being shoved into fear and suspicion. That’s why he tears down walls—both the invisible ones and the ones some people are desperate to build out of concrete and rhetoric. When he takes hold of everyday reality over there and writes about what’s happening—like in “Streets of Minneapolis”—he does it with the same rare gift he’s always had: he tells the story until it becomes human again, until it has names, faces, and a pulse, and until we who listen can feel that it concerns us too.
Because we all want to believe the U.S. can find its way back to the best in itself—to democratic values, decency, and a cleaner space for truth. But that doesn’t happen on its own. It takes words. It takes stories. And it takes artists willing to say it out loud in a way that cuts through the noise—artists who remind people that a country isn’t only laws and borders, but people: neighbors, work, hope, and a future worth defending.
Springsteen has always been at his best when he does exactly that—writing songs you can crank up in the car and still feel working on you from the inside, like a small, stubborn light in the dark.
NO Slah 