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