' ' Cinema Romantico: In Memoriam

Monday, June 29, 2009

In Memoriam

"The danger of fame is in forgetting or being distracted. You see it happen to so many people. Elvis' case must have been tremendously difficult. Because, I mean, I feel the difference between selling a million records and selling 3 million records — I can feel a difference out on the street. The type of fame that Elvis had and that I think Michael Jackson has, the pressure of it and the isolation that it seems to require has gotta be really painful. I wasn't gonna let that happen to me. I wasn't gonna get to a place where I said: 'I can't go in here. I can't go to this bar. I can't go outside.' For the most part, I do basically what I've always done. I'll walk into a club, and people will just say hi, and that's it. And I'll get up and play.

I believe that the life of a rock & roll band will last as long as you look down into the audience and can see yourself and your audience looks up at you and can see themselves — and as long as those reflections are human, realistic ones. The biggest gift your fans can give you is just treatin' you like a human being, because anything else dehumanizes you. If the price of fame is that you have to be isolated from the people you write for, then that's too fuckin' high a price to pay."

- Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stone Magazine, December 6, 1984

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