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Bruce Springsteen The Boss Talks About Family, Creativity, Love and Loss in Our Exclusive In-Depth Interview National Parks Page 30 Without the Crowds or Hassle October/November 2020 aarp.org/magazine $4.50 Page 48 From top: ; Del Mecum/Csm/Shutterstock

- he Let , but it’s the first time he has he time first the it’s but , with its long view of life, its with its long view of life, agazine Longtime readers may know that this know may Longtime readers as our August- On a sadder note … just learned that author Gail Sheehy had had learned that author Gail Sheehy complications of from passed away and an insightful pneumonia. Gail was were we and highly influential writer, “Travels to include her essay honored Our thoughtswith Chollie” in that issue. and, family and friends with Gail’s are Chollie. her dog, of course, moments like “hearing Ben E. King King E. Ben “hearing like moments night”the at the end of stereo the over the of presence the into you bring can I begins on page 30. The story divine. rock a of portrait revealing a it’s think right. can tell me if that’s at 71. You star time the first isn’t of AARP T has been on the cover M that felt He interview. an us granted ter to You, with presented and joys—and sorrows Band— the full thunder of the E Street our readers be something you, would to hear about. like would and members, had to ask the right question.I just we September issue finished printing, - - Letter to Send your thoughts about the magazine to [email protected]. thoughts about the magazine to Send your EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITOR —Springsteen with me eyes locked Springsteen was funny, deep and deep and funny, was Springsteen “That’s incorrect.” “That’s ques warm-up My And so it went. his self-doubts, to writ his approach time and it has changed over ing: how liftoff! there, And from it hasn’t. how the better engaging for thoroughly honestly talked He part of an hour. many his about loss, and aging about seemingly mundane even and how lives tions kept yielding one- and two-word one-yielding two-word and kept tions alarm, growing my to And, answers. for the next this way things proceeded while, the All minutes. awkward few wits. my to recover scrambling I was to a stumbling in response next, But behindidea the of “sort about question new , this record”—his You 11 thoughtful paragraphs and delivered process, creative about the songwriter’s - - - Robert Love Love Robert Hochman decided to find out what had happened. find out what Hochman decided to in the twilight of his mistreatment face Did this icon Find out him? not protect wealth his own Could life? on page 54. starts that in the gripping read A LEGEND’S LAST DAYS LAST A LEGEND’S died at Lee Stan mastermind Comics Marvel When David our writer of elder abuse, amid accusations 95 on an old inter Us

THE MAGAZINE THE MAGAZINE

So, do you work out in the work do you So, viewer’s secret. Start slow and easy, and easy, slow Start secret. viewer’s throat his clear subject your let to of and settle in, and to get the two WILL LET YOU IN YOU LET WILL

A Letter Us to new matter the of heart to the gets right album Springsteen’s Bruce I’ve read that you’re a vegetarian.… that you’re I’ve read “No.” No? Springsteen: “Yeah.” Springsteen: and weights? Treadmill “Uh, yeah.” Me: AARP

2 fident. Then, this happened: morning? morning? Every When I went to visit Bruce Springsteen When I went I story, cover at his home for this issue’s fairly con opened with this technique, from there, sounding more like con like sounding more there, from (And interrogations. than versations last.) questions ask the hard always you talking. Most interviews take flight interviews take Most talking. you I autographs at MegaCon at autographs in 2017 Bay Tampa Stan Lee signing Lee Stan Between Bruce Springsteen

The Boss sums up 50 years of his work—“in ink and blood”­­­—with a powerful return to rock ’n’ roll that grapples with aging and loss and revels in the richness of a long life. By Robert Love PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANNY CLINCH

PART 1 Springsteen turned 71 in September, a freaky mile marker  THE GIFT  for many of us who have grown up with him. Though it shouldn’t be close to shocking. We have been along for the ride through his many and varied lives: the ’70s soul rock- RUCE SPRINGSTEEN, looking fit, tan and perfectly er and Boss of the mighty , the pumped-up at ease in jeans and a T-shirt, greets me with an stadium showstopper, the writer of iconic, decade-defining elbow bump as we sit down to talk on the porch of songs like “,” “” and “The Ris- B his farmhouse. The view from here, a ing.” And more recently, the author of a critically acclaimed rolling vista of 378 acres of beautiful horse country, is per- memoir, which he transmuted into a one-man show called haps the most visible reward for his lifetime of hard work . His directorial debut, a concert and outsize success as a rock musician and writer. But it’s film for his 2019 album,, whetted his appetite still a working farm. The busy recording studio is just down to direct again. Oh, and during this pandemic spring and Springsteen shot for the hill, and the 100-year-old barn is a multipurpose venue— summer, he seized the airwaves to try to raise our spirits AARP at home with his Harley on the ground floor, home to his family’s six horses; the hayloft, and preach mask-wearing and patience (“stay strong, and August 4, 2020 a place for local gatherings and even a bit of filmmaking. stay home, and stay together”) on his fortnightly radio

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2020 31 show, From My Home to Yours, on Sirius XM. The project began with a measure of self-doubt. rock ’n’ roll; it’s just something else. Springsteen and But I am here to talk to him about something quite “I hadn’t written for the E Street Band “But because I am primarily a rock ’n’ the E Street Band remarkable for a musical artist of his vintage. His new in about seven years,” he says. “I was thinking, Well, roll musician when I’m operating sort on their 1985 North American tour record, , an album of powerful, moving maybe I don’t have any more rock music in me.” of at my peak—in other words, in front and elegiac rock music, takes up the great mysteries True, rock was in the Boss’s rearview mirror for a of my largest audience with my favorite of life and death as only an earnest pilgrim of three- New Music while, as he embraced other musical styles, covered band—I like to … every once in a while, score-and-ten-plus-one could hope to pull off. With The Boss’s other writers’ songs, traveled wherever his muse Top: Courtesy ; opposite, from left: ; Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy come up with some rock songs.” the full E Street Band—big drums, bass, lead guitars latest album set the GPS. For his previous record, Western Stars, Come up with some rock songs.… Ho and keys—the record rocks, and it is age appropriate. touches on the project was a visit to 1960s-era , to ho ho. Just so you know, that last line, themes of Letter to You is an album about carrying on in the death, life, the days of –style folk-pop with lush spun out to its understated to-do-list face of loss. The loss of old friends such as George past, future. orchestration. Before that, he recorded and toured punch line by a virtuoso storyteller, was Theiss, who sang and played with a teenage Spring- with a modern jug band of 17 or more musicians also delivered with a self-deprecating steen in his first band, the Castiles. The loss of two beloved and a repertoire of traditional folk standards and spirituals chuckle. Springsteen is funny in per- E Street bandmates—organist and saxo- made popular by . And whoosh, just like that, son. He’s also fully present, generous phonist ; the passing of Springsteen’s seven years had passed, leaving Springsteen with nagging with his attention and, to my surprise, father; the slow decline of his mother due to Alzheimer’s uncertainty: Could he still write great rock ’n’ roll? as still as an Easter Island statue when disease. The shedding of lives past, the passage of time “You never really know,” he says. “It’s part of the anxiety he’s not talking. I ask if we can avoid itself—the preoccupations of all art that aims for great- and mystery of the job that I do—which is a magic trick, politics today. “Fine with me,” he says ness—is at the center of this work. It’s a summing up, too, because you take something out of the air that isn’t there. from the opposite end of a family-size an offering from an old friend. But to whom is it addressed? There is no existence of it whatsoever, and you make it table in front of this pretty fieldstone “Is it a letter to your younger self?” I ask. “Is it to your physical—literally. You can go for long periods without house. The day has brightened after a children? Your wife? Your fans? To me?” picking up anything significant. Or you’ll just pick up dif- morning storm, and Bruce’s wife of 29 Springsteen chuckles at the question: “It’s to you! It’s a ferent things. It’s like you’re in a mine and one vein has years, , a tall, redheaded letter to you! Whoever is listening. And, yeah, it is a sum- gone dry, so you tap into another. A pop vein or a folk vein, singer-songwriter of considerable gifts herself, comes PART 2 ming up of what I’ve tried to do over the course of my 45, and so you start working there, and you discover a whole out to check on us—offering drinks and monitoring the  WHAT ARE SONGS BUT DREAMS?  50 years now, working.” new rich vein of gold that you can draw from. It’s not social distance protocols at her home. Then the screen door closes, and she disappears back into the house. Springsteen is the great empath of the rock world. He RUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S famous New Jersey “I hadn’t written rock music for the E Street Band in shows up for causes, big and small: hunger, poverty, Viet- beginnings came full circle long ago. After about seven years. I was thinking, Well, maybe I don’t have nam vets, 9/11 first responders, hurricane relief and many the breakthrough success of his 1975 album more, right down to Asbury Park local. But since our time Born to Run, he traveled the world, married any more rock music in me.” today is not unlimited, I am very curious about how, after actress Julianne Phillips, got divorced four 50 years on the job, Springsteen still finds inspiration for years later, started a family with Scialfa and his songwriting. He answers not as a rock star but as a married her in Los Angeles. In 1998, the fam- member of a tribe, the humble representative of anyone ily cameB home to New Jersey and stayed. Being tethered to who makes art for a living. his old stomping grounds has been good for Springsteen, “You have your antenna out,” he says. “You’re just walk- boosted his creative output. Although in his Broadway show, ing through the world and you’re picking up these signals he points out the irony that he, Mr. Born to Run—“It’s a of emotions and spirit and history and events, today’s death trap! It’s a suicide rap!”—now lives happily just 10 events and past remembrances. These things you divine minutes from his place of birth, Freehold, New Jersey. from the air are all intangible elements: spirit, emotion, That means he is still physically tied to the landmarks of history. These are the tools of the songwriter’s trade before his youth and young manhood—his family home, church, he even picks up the pen. the places where he played as a young musician, the Knights “People who are very attuned to that atmosphere usu- of Columbus hall, the VFW hall, the beach bars, even the ally end up being artists of some sort. Because they’re so ShopRite on Route 79 in Freehold, where he and the Cas- attuned to it, they have a desire to record it. If that desire tiles set up their amps to play in the parking lot in 1965 for a to record it is strong enough, you learn a language to do so. “Midnight Madness” opening ceremony. During the sum- Whether it’s paintings, films, songs, poetry … mer months of the current pandemic, he would take long “My antenna is picking up so much information, I need drives (“to get me out of Patti’s hair”), noting with despair to find a way to disperse it. So, I needed to learn a language the emptiness of his boyhood towns, beaches and board- that does that. And the languages of art, film, records, walks. But when he drove by the ShopRite, he says, “where whatever you want to call it—all those languages do that. I was 55 years ago at midnight.… It was the only parking And you get to pass it on to your listeners or fans. That’s lot that was full of cars, and it almost brought me to tears.” how it begins.” And it was the 2018 death of the handsome, charismatic

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2020 33 Do you feel more at peace PART 3 What music do you play “I heard something of mine from 1975 on a record now than in decades past?  10 PERSONAL QUESTIONS  for her? Springsteen: Oh, yes. My A: Generally, 1940s swing the other day, and I said, ‘That was about children are grown up. band, but she also likes They’re citizens. Patti and I rock ’n’ roll, and I’ll play sense of my own life, my in the bedroom. I wrote are just at some wonderful, her some of mine because seven or eight lives ago.’ ” own identity, what I want some in the studio. I’ll drift wonderful place in our life she knows some of my to do, where I want to around the house and together, and things are music. She likes ’50s mu- go, how I want to spend write in different rooms very, very good. I just got sic, too—Bill Haley, “Rock Theiss, who was there with Springsteen, singing my time. to get different feelings at all of this brand-new and Around the Clock,” stuff and playing in the parking lot 55 years ago, that different times. And Patti very lively and exciting You seem to have ex- she remembers from when sparked this new record into being. When Theiss will do the same. I’ll go up music. The film [ofLetter tremely good recall of she had the radio on in the to get into bed at night, died after a long struggle with cancer, Spring- to You] is very good. So, your younger years. So, ’50s, and she was only 30 and she’s humming, you steen says, “this left me as the last living member it’s all of these wonderful you’re not running out of years old herself. know, writing a song. It’s of my first band—this very significant and mean- things creatively. Person- material, it seems. a part of how we live. It’s In your book you talked ally, things are great. It A: A writer has got to have ingful group of young men with whom I had this not separate a bit about having had no couldn’t be any better. a pretty good—a reason- enormous experience as a teenager.” interest in burning out ably attuned—memory of from our quickly or dying young. Shortly after Theiss’ death, something quite Do you still see a therapist? his past. And the stuff that daily life. AARP’s founder called extraordinary happened. Springsteen explains: A: Once in a while, yeah— I can’t remember, I just The process growing older a privi- “I was coming out of my play on Broadway. There the talking cure—it works. make up. [Laughs.] of creating In in 2016, inset, lege. Is it even truer was an Italian kid there. He hands me a guitar. But you’ve got to commit is a part the Boss played his longest yourself to a process. And Do you feel that you’ve of and is for artists? U.S. show: four hours, four ‘Hey, Bruce, this is for you. We had this built for I was pretty good at doing been able to create the completely A: I’ve found it to be so. minutes. Then, outside you. It’s very special.’ An acoustic guitar … no family that you longed for I’ve continued to make , he nearly topped it. that. I enjoyed the investi- integrated case. I just put it in the car and take off. You know gative examination of is- as a boy and young man? with how some exciting and inter- [I told him], ‘Thanks. Appreciate it.’ ” sues in my life that I didn’t A: Yeah, I do. But it doesn’t we live. esting work. And I contin- come out the way you ue to take my story and Slowly, the power of that gift revealed itself. “When I went to and 26, respectively.] Now Patti and I are living another understand. I learned a lot You’ve spoken so lovingly dream. It comes out much move it along further. And and therefore was able to about your mom, who is write, I picked it up and ‘Last Man Standing’ came out, along life. So, you live a lot of lives over the course of your one richer than you dreamed you don’t know when won- exploit what I had learned still suffering from Alzhei- with most of the rest of the record. Sometimes instruments life. And ‘One Minute You’re Here’ uses metaphors for that as a young man. You derful things are going to and turn it into a real life. mer’s disease. And you’ve have some magic in them. The songs for the album were in experience. Whether it’s the train whooshing by you in an know, there’s much more happen ... that I would write written very sweetly of Do you think our dreams richness in the experience this record at this late date the guitar that the kid gave me,” he says, still marveling at it. instant or the end of a summer … whether it’s a carnival that your memories of her in are the forerunner of life and in the lives of the for the E Street Band. And “You try for seven years and you write an album in a week.” comes through town for a week and then it’s gone. Whether your book Born to Run. on the other side, when people that you’ve gotten that the band would be at The recording happened fast, too, he adds. “We spent one it’s the sound of your feet on a gravel road and you look up and And how she loves music we will be reunited with involved with than you the top of their performing and loves to dance. How is week in the studio—five days—and cut the entire record. It the stars are there, and then they’ve disappeared. About the those we knew here? could have ever imag- powers—which is why it is your family coping during was all live, no overdub vocals and just a few overdub in- swiftness of death, I suppose, but also the richness of living. A: It’s a nice idea. I ined, pre-family. I can’t tell frustrating not to be able to the COVID-19 crisis? struments. It’s the first truly live, in-the-studio record of the “I wrote a song called ‘Death Is Not the End’ a couple From left: Keith Bedford/ wouldn’t count on it. someone perform at this moment— A: We do what it’s but it’ll come around when band we’ve ever made.” Fans will get to see how it all came of years ago, and I never finished it. But I liked the idea, Is the new record part of the best we like to have it comes around. together in a Springsteen-directed companion documentary. because I guess I don’t believe that it is the end. I carry so an ongoing memory proj- can. I’m very a child. I He loosely based all the album’s songs on the themes of many ancestors with me on a daily basis. I experience my ect that is related to the lucky that my AGE HAS BESTOWED can try. But Opposite, from top: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage; Jersey 4 Jersey/Getty Images for ABA memoir and the Broadway mother remains patience on Springsteen. “Last Man Standing,” he says: “of death, life, past, future.” father regularly. I experience Clarence. I experience my old that’s an show and Western Stars in very, very And the pandemic, which Covering all that ground are a dozen songs, all original, in- assistant, Terry Magovern. They visit me in my dreams quite Boston Globe experience and also looking forward good spirits. he has called “frightening cluding three written in the early that are released often—I may see them, you know, several times a year. you have to the future? She can’t really and heartbreaking,” has to have here for the first time (and on which you can hear Spring- “So, this idea is you don’t lose everything when someone A: I’ve never thought of it speak, but you taught him to value the

via Getty Images; Elizabeth Robertson/ yourself. steen’s early influences, especially ).Letter to You dies. You do lose their physical presence, but their physical like that, but that is how know when you most simple pleasures. begins with a song titled “One Minute You’re Here” and presence is not all of them, and it never was all of them, it appears. I reach 70 and What is it see her, she “When this is over,” he closes with “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” a quiet folk elegy even when they were alive. Spirit is very strong. Emotion I want to include sort of like living with a fellow still moves to rhythm if says, “I want to get an ice of hope in the face of mortality. It contains the lines: “Death is very strong. Their energy is very strong. And a lot of looking back. It’s natural artist—a wife who is in the you create rhythm or put cream cone at the Jersey as a springboard and a music on, and she’s happy. Freeze—to walk inside, is not the end / I’ll see you in my dreams.” this, particularly for people who are very powerful, really family business? way to look forward—to A: We just drift around She’s always got a smile. step up to the counter and “Yeah, well, I’m 70, so it’s what you write about,” Spring- carries over after death. look into the future and each other and create as it Always got a kiss or a hug. say, ‘Soft vanilla dipped in steen says. “These things—the mysteries of life—become “It’s like my friend George passes away and leaves me with to experience the time happens. I mean, because She can’t name you now chocolate, please.’ ” When more interesting. Life goes by quickly but slowly. I heard all of these songs. Clarence passes away and leaves me with you have left. I wanted to I wrote some of the songs or anything, but she can that day comes, the singer richly experience my past, [for the new album] in the recognize you and is excit- has even bigger plans: “All something of mine from 1975 on a record the other day, and these songs. Danny passes away, leaves me with these songs. Philadelphia Inquirer I said, ‘That was about seven or eight lives ago. It was a full And what are songs but dreams, at the end of the day? It contextualize it, and then family room here where ed when you come over. I can tell you is, when this it would contextualize the Patti’s lying on a couch And it’s been 10 years, so experience is over, I am and entire life of its own.’ And I lived that one, and it was a really is all my dreams that I put down on paper and on tape.” time that I have left and and just reading, and I’m it’s been a long time. And going to throw the wildest great one, and now I’m living another one. So, I say, it must be nice when your dreams connect with what I want to do with it.… over there just strumming her progress was very party you’ve ever seen.

“I lived a life where we raised our children. That life is so many other human beings on the planet. /AP. So, all of these projects the guitar and writing little slow, so I consider us quite And you, my friends, are

gone now. [Evan, Jessica and Sam Springsteen are 30, 28 “It is.” have been ways of making notes down. I wrote some lucky with the disease. all invited.” n

34 AARP THE MAGAZINE OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2020 35