Released: December 14, 2018
Songwriter: Bruce Springsteen
[Spoken]
I'm gonna add this song to our set tonight. Alright, this is the final days of Patti's first pregnancy. And I receive a surprise visit from my father at my home in LA. Now he'd driven 500 miles unannounced to knock on my door, that's his style. So at 11 a.m. we sit Sunday dining room, and we're nursing morning beers, that's his style. That's my father's breakfast of champions. When, my dad, never a talkative man, right, blurted out, "You've been very good to us". And I nodded that, that I had, ya know, and uh, and he says, "And I wasn't very good to you". And, the room just, was, stood still. As to my shock, ya know, the acknowledgeable was being acknowledged, if I, if I didn't know better I would've sworn an apology of some sort was being made, and it was. Here in the last days before I was to become a father, my own father was visiting me to warn me of the mistakes that he had made, and to warn me not to make them with my own children. To release them from the chain of our sins, my fathers of mine and our fathers before, that they may be free, to make their own choices and to live their own lives. We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence. My father, on that day, was petitioning me, for an ancestral role in my life after being a ghost for a long long time. He wanted me to write a new end to our relationship, and he wanted me to be ready for the new beginning that I was about to experience. It was the greatest moment in my life with my dad, and it was all that I needed
I'm gonna add this song to our set tonight. Alright, this is the final days of Patti's first pregnancy. And I receive a surprise visit from my father at my home in LA. Now he'd driven 500 miles unannounced to knock on my door, that's his style. So at 11 a.m. we sit Sunday dining room, and we're nursing morning beers, that's his style. That's my father's breakfast of champions. When, my dad, never a talkative man, right, blurted out, "You've been very good to us". And I nodded that, that I had, ya know, and uh, and he says, "And I wasn't very good to you". And, the room just, was, stood still. As to my shock, ya know, the acknowledgeable was being acknowledged, if I, if I didn't know better I would've sworn an apology of some sort was being made, and it was. Here in the last days before I was to become a father, my own father was visiting me to warn me of the mistakes that he had made, and to warn me not to make them with my own children. To release them from the chain of our sins, my fathers of mine and our fathers before, that they may be free, to make their own choices and to live their own lives. We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence. My father, on that day, was petitioning me, for an ancestral role in my life after being a ghost for a long long time. He wanted me to write a new end to our relationship, and he wanted me to be ready for the new beginning that I was about to experience. It was the greatest moment in my life with my dad, and it was all that I needed
Springsteen on Broadway
- Growin’ Up (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Tougher Than the Rest (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Tougher Than the Rest (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Brilliant Disguise (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Brilliant Disguise (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Long Time Comin’ (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Long Time Comin’ (Springsteen on Broadway)
- The Ghost of Tom Joad (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- The Ghost of Tom Joad (Springsteen on Broadway)
- The Rising (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Dancing in the Dark (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Dancing in the Dark (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Land of Hope and Dreams (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Born to Run (Introduction, Pt. 1) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Born to Run (Introduction, Pt. 2) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Born in the U.S.A. (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Born in the U.S.A. (Introduction, Pt. 2) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Growin’ Up (Springsteen on Broadway)
- My Hometown (Introduction, Pt. 1) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- My Hometown (Introduction, Pt. 2) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- My Hometown (Springsteen on Broadway)
- My Father’s House (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- My Father’s House (Springsteen on Broadway)
- The Wish (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- The Wish (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Thunder Road (Introduction) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Thunder Road (Springsteen on Broadway)
- The Promised Land (Introduction, Pt. 1) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- The Promised Land (Introduction, Pt. 2) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- The Promised Land (Introduction, Pt. 3) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- The Promised Land (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Born in the U.S.A. (Introduction, Pt. 1) [Springsteen on Broadway]
- Born to Run (Springsteen on Broadway)
- Springsteen on Broadway (2018)
- Born in the U.S.A.
- Born to Run
- Dancing in the Dark
- I’m On Fire
- Thunder Road
- Blinded by the Light
- The River
- Atlantic City
- Hungry Heart
- Jungleland
- Glory Days
- Badlands
- My Hometown
- Streets of Philadelphia
- Backstreets
- The Ghost of Tom Joad
- Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
- Secret Garden
- Racing in the Street
- Nebraska
- I’m Goin’ Down
- Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
- Growin’ Up
- The Rising