Icon of Love, Champion of Authentic Romance: Bruce Springsteen

In our first Style Icons birthday series, I extolled the virtues of the Neil Young archetype in dudes. Looking for a dude’s inner Neilers was a legit game-changer in my life. Every girl’s heart deserves its own true-blue, heartfelt, loyal protector and champion, because that’s what Neil Young does besides make great music: he’s like your knight in shining armor through popular song, only without the patriarchal bullshit. This makes him a stand-up kind of guy, a good egg with a fierce loyalty and a ferocious sense of ethics. When you look for that in a sweetheart, everything is just ten times better.

Now I’m here to share with you the next big piece of the puzzle in the love story of life, the next phase and opportunity for growth: I’m gonna marry Bruce Springsteen.

Okay, no, I’m not really going to marry THE Bruce Springsteen. And I’m not getting married anytime soon. But I do plan on marrying someone with a strong inner Bruce Springsteen. The Bruce Springsteen archetype is similar to the Neil Young in that, at his core, he’s about being authentic, genuine, unpretentious and down-to-earth. The Neil Young is a bit more stubborn and irascible, but a Bruce type of guy is more easygoing and accepting of other people, able to kick back and let life happen as long as he’s got his girl, his dog and his guitar. That’s all well and good, and there are many guys who fit this bill, so I should be good to go, right?

But the real Bruce Springsteen test in a dude? This is the magic question, the one that will make me realize he could be a keeper: can he write a record as sensitive, searching and vulnerable about serious, grownup relationships like Tunnel of Love?

Tunnel of Love is really my favorite Bruce record. I know Nebraska is kind of his ultimate artistic statement for a lot of people and Born to Run as well and I can SO hear a ton of you out there being judgy, thinking to your fine selves, Tunnel is kind of his glossy 80s phase, Kat, when he was married to a model and stuff! That’s bananas! So yeah, I guess Tunnel of Love is about being married to a model. And it’s got drum machines! And songs about failing relationships, failing fidelity, and false intimacy. What a bummer!

But this is why it’s so good! Because Bruce is willing to go there, and reckon with the dark side of the heart. When you go through that, you come out with wisdom, and wisdom is not really something to forgo if you’re talkin’ lifelong sweethearts. You get wise by keeping your eyes and heart open during life, and keeping what’s true burning like a torch in your memory. Being a grown person now, I’ve come to realize: not many people do this.

I rediscovered Tunnel of Love one evening when I was feeling particularly pessimistic about relationships, and was basically looking for a Sign. I looked everywhere in search of insight for my romantic dilemma: other friends and conversations, books, even dating and relationship sites. (Have you ever perused them? They’re generally useless for heartfelt romantic adventuresses, hopelessly heteronormative, or scarily abusive of women and their pesky needs for love and respect in the guise of being “brutally honest.”) But as I was driving one night, mulling over my latest dilemma, a sign came in the form of “Brilliant Disguise” on the radio.

First I was super excited, because “Brilliant Disguise” is never on the radio! Normally I would’ve revved up the car and blasted that magic and sang at the top of my lungs. But luckily I was stuck in traffic and really got to listen to the song. It was a bit like hearing a voice from the other side: This is a man who gets it! I thought to myself. This is the man who’s looked into the abyss of himself and the gaping void around him! And he’s not a dick about it like Gentlemen by Afghan Whigs!

Tunnel of Love is a really profound record, an honest examination of a dude’s point of view in a marriage. Have you ever really listened to the lyrics of “Brilliant Disguise”? That song is like my power animal: I play the chorus in my head when I’m trying to figure out if I really know someone (or figure out how well he knows himself…amazing how closely they’re related). I play it sometimes when I’m thinking about if I’ll ever know someone deeper, or pondering the lines between deception and self-deception, those little lies you keep telling yourself when you want something to badly to work but it just isn’t happening. I play it for myself when I’m reckoning with my own roadblocks, thinking about what it would take for me to really, truly commit to someone.

So when I say I want to marry Bruce Springsteen, it’s not only because he’s certifiably foxy and genuine and a great songwriter. (Those too would be great things to have in a husband, so hello cosmic waitress, I’d like a side of those, thank you, and a heaping of kindness and a bawdy sense of humor as well.) I really just want to shack up with a dude who’s really looked at himself in the relationship mirror with a kind of unflinching honesty — not in the way that gets him off the hook for bad behavior. (Nothing worse than that person who prefaces a transgression with “I TOLD YOU I WAS A JERK!”) But with a kind of self-inquiry that exists to better actualize a life. A man who is learning his true motives, who outgrows a need for a modus operandi, who can let a girl look him straight in the eye and really reckon with him with honor. Someone with emotional bravery. That’s what I’m holding out for, that’s what I want for, and in, myself. (Because you know that great feminist advice: become the man you want to marry.)

I want to go through the Tunnel of Love and come out through the other side into the light with self-knowledge and a renewed sense of wonder about love and magic. It’d be grand if Future Lifelong Beau did the same. And we’ll move on and leave that behind and, you know, become a Tom Petty record or something. Together.

Related Posts

• September 8, 2011 -- We’re Obsessed: Using Spotify Playlists For Dream-Dude Manifestation (3)
• May 18, 2011 -- Style Icon: Bruce Springsteen in the ’70s (8)
• September 19, 2011 -- Random Picture Entry: My Beautiful First Tattoo (4)

Tags: Bruce Springsteen, dudes, love, style icons

This entry was posted by Kat on Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 7:41 pm and is filed under HOW TO LIVE, HOW TO LIVE, ALBUM EDITION, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.