DAVE MARSH ON ‘GLORY DAYS’

"Hopefully, Glory Days is at least eight years better. But it wasn’t until it came out and I started thinking about it that I realized there’s a continuity in all my books—both Bruce books, Elvis, Michael (Jackson) and the Who—and that is ‘does this stuff work?’ Glory Days is the most centered on this question, and the question is: can you live a productive adult life—and continue to grow—and still be involved in rock ’n’ roll? And I guess the counter to that would be: if not, then why am I so attracted to it? And Glory Days is the first book in which I’ve found someone who can say, in a very qualified and detailed fashion, 'Yeah, it works if you do this set of things.’ There may be other ways to do it, but with these things you can make it work at its most intense and highest level.

"The book isn’t about one person; it’s about a person and how he fits into various groups and communities. The story of Bruce and Jon Landau is very central. So is the story of Bruce working with a variety of community groups as a very intelligent and affirmative response to Ronald Reagan.

“A lot of this is very clear to me right now because I had a cousin I grew up with, Tommy Wilson was his name. He went to Vietnam, to the Marines, and he got shot. Just about everyone I knew that went to Vietnam got shot. He got shot in the eye and the leg, and when the doctors operated on him, they did some sort of damage, and they left him an epileptic. When I got in last night, there was a message to call home. They found him dead in a hotel room in Dallas. This is just another casualty of the Vietnam War, and it makes me remember why I do these things. There’s no reason for there to ever be another Tommy Wilson. And that’s what this whole thing is about for me, and that’s why I’m so militant about it. And there’s all this bullshit about my objectivity, but there’s nothing objective about this. It ain’t got nothing to do with who’s married to who or who knows who. It’s got to do with one of my friends being dead and another one being blind because of the war. There’s nothing objective about it.”

ON CRITICISM THAT THE BOOK REVEALS NO “SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET”

"Do they identify any skeletons? I talk about what’s relevant. But the presumption is that there’s a skeleton somewhere to be found. Hey, man, I’ve been around it real close for 15 years, and I don’t think it’s there. What did I miss? What did I leave out? They say I left Lynn Goldsmith out, but this book says ‘Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s.’ That was all over in 1979. So now you have a reviewer who can’t count. And I think there’s a tremendous amount of detail in the book about why Bruce got married, but the book’s about Bruce, not Julianne. What her motivation was... well, that’s the next book, not to be written by me.”

ON HIS AESTHETIC

"Probably the proudest thing I’ll get from this book, other than the kind words of Bruce and Jon, who like it, was that at my publication party in New York, some people from the Homeless Union were there, and they gave me a plaque for what I’ve done, which isn’t nearly as much as I feel I oughta do... I think I know what’s really going on, and I make my decisions on that basis. Not on the basis of what new records are coming out next month. And that way, all I have to be interested about in music is the music. So then I can dig the new Madonna record, because my whole political life isn’t tied up in this record collection. My whole attitude is ‘fuck Chuck Eddy.’ If Bon Jovi makes a great record, then you’re damn straight I’m going to talk about what it means politically. And it will mean something. I’m not an anarchist. I’m not that much of a perfectionist. I’ll settle for a little socialism, feeding and clothing some people who need it. If that means a few newspapers didn’t get published, that’s a trade I’d make. Somehow starving to death seems more important. It’s curious that a lot of intellectuals don’t think that. It makes you wonder how many meals they’ve missed.”

ON "REBEL” ROCK

“Look at Elvis for instance. He was a rebel, no doubt. But he was more rebelling into something rather than out of something. In other words, he was rebelling in search of reconciliation. And that’s very much what Glory Days is about. The reason so much juvenile thought pervades rock criticism is they haven’t completed the picture. And the picture has two distinct sides to it. The other side is in something like ‘Stand By Me.’ And you really have this thing, especially since punk, where that whole other side’s been written off. But if I can’t have, say, Smokey Robinson along with my Contours’ records, then fuck it, I’m not into rock ’n’ roll because I’m into both sides. Critics can’t understand why people don’t get into this music or that music. It’s because it only gives them half the picture, and they don’t want to live half a life. It’s true whether you’re talking about some of the pseudo-political stuff or some of the more arty stuff. It’s like, why don’t some of these noise and/or fashion bands last? Why do I believe in Bruce Springsteen so much? Why do I write two books about him? Because he’s whole—or at least he tries to get you to that place in a very realistic manner.”