Thur

Established 1961 Lifestyle

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2019

This picture shows graves for dogs at the dog’s cemetery in Asnieres-sur-Seine, northwest of Paris. — AFP

hough Bruce Springsteen’s songs are a vibrant the Laurel Canyon music scene-with backing from band I’m good at writing,” he says. “Gravitating towards pain part of the contemporary American songbook, he members including his wife Patti Scialfa as well as a 30- feels more like home.” “You don’t know how to hold onto regularly uses his lyrics to express his deep mis- piece orchestra. love but you know how to hold onto hurt.” Scialfa, his wife Tgivings about the proverbial “American dream.” The recorded live performance, filmed in a barn on of nearly 30 years and member of his famed E Street Band, With “Western Stars,” a full-length feature film out Friday Springsteen’s property in New Jersey, features sweeping plays guitar and sings in the film, but also is charming in that marks the Boss’s directorial debut, New Jersey’s crescendos of strings that project a luxurious warmth- home movie from the pair’s honeymoon. favorite son is once again looking at a question he’s grap- the aural equivalent of slipping into a hot tub in the mid- Springsteen reminisces about the early days of their pled with for decades: the struggle between transient free- dle of the desert at dusk. But the music’s hazy glow con- romance spent on a park bench in front of New York’s dom and communal life. trasts with the edge of the artist’s piercing inner reflec- Empire Diner, where he eventually proposed. “When tions, as Springsteen considers the demons he’s you’re young, it’s all about going where I want to go, doing repressed and the aches he’s caused after nearly half a what I want to do, I’m going to be who I want to be, and century in show business. that’s okay for your twenties,” he told late night talk show “It’s easy to lose yourself-or never find yourself,” his host Jimmy Kimmel this week. “But somewhere in your voiceover says in the film. “The older you get, the heavier thirties, it starts to catch up with you and your definition of the baggage becomes that you haven’t sorted.” freedom has to expand to include family, your civic life, Considering the “destructive parts” of his character, you know, community that you’re involved in,” he contin- Springsteen says that in his younger life, “if I loved you, I ued. “If it doesn’t... you get stuck out in the cold, you would try to hurt you.” “You run until you’ve left every- know? Really out in the cold.”—AFP thing that you’ve loved and that loves you behind,” he says. “I’ve done a lot of that kind of running.”

Living in good faith Though his fame is rooted firmly in his skills as a musi- cian, Springsteen as auteur is not necessarily a stretch: the performer has long imbued his lyrics with a cinematic quality. The brawny superstar burst onto the international stage in 1975 with “Born to Run,” taking his audiences into bleak small American towns that contained youthful desires for adventure. “Western Stars,” his 19th album, marks a sharp turn from his signature hard-driving rock that recounted the mundanities of everyday life and blue- collar struggles, making him a working class hero. But Springsteen maintains the character-driven story- telling element that has long shaped his work, centering on the tale of a lone, washed-up Western movie star adrift and in search of roots. Springsteen considers “Western In this file photo US singer The meditative concert film features sweeping pans Stars”-which he co-directed with Thom Zimny-the third Bruce Springsteen performs over California’s wide expanses-think wild horses, a mus- installment in a trilogy that began with his acclaimed 2016 on stage during ‘The river cle car on the open road and cacti bathed in a rose sun- memoir and his wildly successful intimate show on Tour 2016’ in the northern rise-interspersed with Springsteen’s family home movie Broadway. Spanish Basque city of San footage. It is effectively the 70-year-old icon’s replace- The rock star has been open about his battles with Sebastian. ment for a tour to promote his latest solo effort. depression and self-loathing, saying publicly he’s been in Springsteen plays his full “Western Stars” 13-track album therapy for decades and continues to aspire towards, as he in the film-it hearkens back to the 1970s-era golden age of puts it in the film, “living in good faith.” “Lost is something

In this file photo (From left) US singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, his daughter Jessica Springsteen and his wife Patti Scialfa attend the New York special screening of ‘Western Stars’ at Metrograph on in New York City. — AFP photos