2005-05-24 Point Theatre (The), Dublin, Ireland

Scheduled: 20:00 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

No surprises in the set for the first show of the European leg. Piano songs are "The River", "Real World", "Racing In The Street", and "Jesus Was An Only Son". "Reason To Believe" is with the bullet mic. "My Beautiful Reward" and "Dream Baby Dream" are on pump organ. "I'm On Fire" is on banjo. European debuts of "Devils & Dust", "Silver Palomino", "All The Way Home", "Reno", "Jesus Was An Only Son", "Leah", "The Hitter", "Matamoros Banks", and "Dream Baby Dream" and first ever performances in Ireland of "Reason To Believe", "Long Time Comin'", "Real World", "Part Man, Part Monkey", "Nebraska", "Racing In The Street", and "Further On (Up The Road)".

Bruce Springsteen

Intro to “Long Time Coming”
´´Thank you….alright, thank you, my friends….oh, if you can, uh, spare me some of those little minicamera shots, I´ll stand here at the end of the night and you can shoot away (chuckles)….so, uh….alright, ´Long Time Coming,´ uh….a song, uh….´bout having kids, uh, you know, you kind of go through the three stages and when they´re little, you know, you, you´re kind of the benevolent hand of God in their lives, you know, they´re….and then you get a little, they get a little bit older, you´re kind of, a kind of tolerable idiot, you know….and then, uh, I´m worried about the next step: fucking idiot (chuckles) I hate to say it but I can feel it coming (chuckles) so, uh, when you get ´em, they come along, they do give you a chance to sort of, you know, you think you´re not gonna make any of the mistakes your parents made and all that stuff, which, of course, you will, you know, I, uh, had a fight with my boy the other night, you know, the next thing I hear coming out of the room (strums his guitar loudly) what was I gonna say? ´Turn it down´?….that ain´t gonna work….so, anyway, here´s to second chances….´´

Intro to “Silver Palomino”
´´Alright, here we go, this was, uh….I´ve spend a few years around horses….I can´t say that I can ride them (chuckles) but uh….they´re kind of these very big spirits and a good horse kind of takes care of you….this was, uh….a song about, uh, a boy loses his mom and enviews her spirit in this horse that comes out of the mountains at night….I´ll do this for my friend Eddie and, uh, this is called ´Silver Palomino´….´´

Intro to “The River”
´´I, uh….when I started out, I didn´t write many, many love songs, uh, my whole first, I don´t know, three, four, five, six records, there´s not many love songs on ´em, I had kind of a confusing upbringing, uh, my mother was Italian and my father was half-Irish (?)(cheers) you see, that that´s why I´m manic-depressive right there (chuckles) that´s a, that´s a helluva combination (chuckles) but uh….in the house in the morning my mom always had the radio on and it was, uh, it was a time when was, there were all these beautiful doowop songs on the radio and there was a generation of men that were trying to sing and sound like beautiful women and, uh, there were all these beautiful voices and occasionally in the States they have these TV-shows where they kind of get ´em all together again and they´re like 60 or 70 years old and they come out and they open up their mouths and out come these voices that are just kind of filled with, uh, you know, youth and, and, uh, uh, that still retain that classic 1950´s horniness that, uh (chuckles) they´re beautiful singers, beautiful voices, so my mother was, in the morning this is what we heard coming across the radio and my dad had a different approach, his idea was that all love songs were, uh, uh, a government conspiracy….and propaganda to, uh, get you married so you´d have to pay more taxes or something….so, uh, I figured that out in about….35 years (chuckles) while I was figuring it out, I, uh, I think I wrote some hidden, hidden love songs, I think this was one of them…..´´

Intro to “Real World”
´´Thank you….alright, here´s, uh, here´s a song I wrote in the early 90´s, it kind of got away from me on the record, didn´t get a good version of it but it was a good song, this is when I was feeling the love and showing the love so (chuckles)(?)….´´

Intro to “Part Man Part Monkey”
´´Evolution….a hot topic in the States right now….in Kansas the schoolboard….just opened a session to decide how evolution is taught there 80 years after the Scopes´ monkey trial…. now, the Scopes´ monkey trial was when they put a man on trial for teaching evolution….I believe at the end of the trial everybody agreed that monkeys had something to do with it…. which in no way takes anything from the Big Man…it just shows He had a sense of humour (chuckles) but….monkeys don´t vote (chuckles) and they don´t make campaign contributions (chuckles) so we are currently living in the United States of Amnesia (chuckles)….and the President, he´s just doing what he has to do so he can do what he wants to do….a lot of folks do that….how do I feel like I´m talking at a school here? (chuckles) but if they made the movie Inherit the Wind, a movie about the Scopes´ monkey trial, they couldn´t make it today ….now, the Flintstones, you get the Flintstones over here? (crowd: ´Yeah´) it´s one of our finest exports….that´d be banned today (chuckles) the whole neanderthal setting and the homosexual undercurrents of the Barney-Fred relationship….would rule the whole thing out ….that´s kind of our temperature back there (chuckles) so as Dorothy said about Kansas, ´There´s no place like home´….
(….) We´ve come a long way….and we´re going back…..´´

Intro to “All the Way Home”
´´(guitar reverb) The ghost of Jimi Hendrix in the room somewhere….´´

Intro to “Nebraska”
´´Thank you….uh….wrote this, uh….figured everybody….everybody knows what it feels like to be condemned so….here´s ´Nebraska´….´´

Intro to “Reno”
´´A love song about, uh, not being able to handle the real thing, not being able to handle the wrong thing….here´s ´Reno´….´´

Intro to “Racing in the Street”
´´Thanks, this is a, uh, kind of another one of those love songs….a while back had two different endings, one ending with, with two guys and….another ending was the guy and the girl (chuckles) I won´t even get into all that (chuckles) but, uh, there were two people I asked about the ending, one was, uh, uh, one of my oldest fans and she said ´Now, you gotta use the one with the girl,´ I figured she was going for the romance, the other person I asked was Steve Van Zandt….now I would´ve assumed that Steve, uh, would, would´ve said ´The two guys´ due to his great fear of women but uh (chuckles) but he (chuckles) but he kind of surprised me and, uh, said ´No, no, the one with the girl, that´s kind of, that´s what really happens, you know, you got your pals and then, then, you know, the life changes,´ so, uh, that´s the one I went with, that was the one I went with, it was the right one….´´

Intro to “Jesus Was an Only Son”
´´Thanks, I was, uh…..I was brought up Catholic so….I´m sure I don´t have to tell you (?) but, uh, you know, I kind of, I think I made it till about eighth grade in Catholic school and then I did everything I could to get out, uh, and I figured, you know, that´s it, you know, but I, I realised once you´re brought up Catholic, you know, Jesus is your homeboy, that´s all there is to it and that´s not gonna change and, uh….so I´m kind of in a funny situation, I guess I´m excommunicated ´cause I got divorced and I think, I think that´s it….I know that´s a whole other story over here too but, but, uh (chuckles) is that it or not? (crowd gives an affirmative answer, sort of) it is, that´s it, you´re screwed, right? (chuckles) and so, uh (chuckles) ooh, that takes a load off my shoulders, alright (chuckles) but, uh, uh, you know, you´re sort of still, you´re always still connected, all my relatives are big churchgoers and we grew up, there was a little L-shaped street, we had about eight houses on this one street and the church was here and the convent was there and the rectory was here and after school I was usually here in the convent so (chuckles) so, uh, but occasionally I go back now, you know, to where I was tortured and uh (chuckles) it´s one of those, what do you call it? the, the Swedish complex *, I forget what it´s called (chuckles) but now I get free beer and they let me watch the baseball game so it´s, uh (chuckles) (?) the wonderful benefits of, of, of fame and fortune right there, uh, but, you know how they picked the Pope a few weeks ago, that was kind of a big deal, uh, it, it was sort of like watching a very high-end sports´ trade for a team you don´t play for any more….it was, uh (chuckles) I was kind of trying….I tried to get excited at that but, uh, who cares, I´m sorry (chuckles) but I wrote this song, this song is, uh, I was in, I wrote a lot about sons and mothers on, on this record and, uh, I was interested in sort of the relationship between Jesus and Mary as Jesus being just Mary´s son, just her, her boy and, uh, I wrote this song sort of with the idea of looking into that ´cause one of the things, of course, once you have the kids is the first thing you know is there´s nothing you wouldn´t do to, to protect them and keep them from harm and, uh….this is called
´Jesus Was an Only Son´….
(….) at his mother´s feet….now the first thing that strikes you….as a parent is how….there is nothing in the world you wouldn´t do to keep your….children safe….I remember it came as a shock to very self-involved musicians (chuckles) but….mother prays…
(….) shall pierce your dreams this night…..at the same time your kids have, they´ve got their own destiny and, uh, the choices that they make and that we make are given weight and are given meaning by the things that we give up, the parts of life we give up, when you choose something, you give up something else….but I always figured that He had to be thinking…. Galilee is pretty nice this time of year….there´s a little bar down there I could manage…. Mary Magdalene could tend bar, we could, uh….do the preaching on the weekend, have, uh ….have some kids….and watch the sun on their face…..´´
^{(I assume Bruce is refering to ´the Stockholm syndrome´ where the captive starts to identify with and feel for the person who kidnapped him/her, or something along those lines).}

Intro to “Leah”
´´Well, we all, uh, oh, what are we doing?….oh, is it ticking?….alright (chuckles) as long as it ain´t ticking, I guess (chuckles) but, uh….we all carry, uh, the seeds of our own destruction, it´s kind of the merry part of the human package (chuckles) and we do a dance with it our whole lives (chuckles) but we also carry with us the seeds of, uh, I guess, the things that make things grow, create things, this is a song about a guy just, uh, just coming down on the right side of that equation, I wrote this song, I stole the title from a Roy Orbison song, it was a Roy Orbison song called ´Leah´ and it was about a pearl diver, who dives to the bottom of the ocean and tries to get the pearl for the girl, if you know the story, he gets stuck at the bottom and, and the whole, the whole thing, and it was kind of, uh, it was the kind of song that´d be kind of kitschy with anybody else but Roy, he´d be making that incredibly emotional, I got to meet him briefly before he, he died and I went to his house one afternoon and he told me he had another song about a windsurfer….(?) ´Windsurfing….I don´t know,´ I didn´t say this but I was thinking ´That´s not gonna fly´….you can write about surfing, that´s big, you can write about the wind….but windsurfing, I don´t know anybody who wants to hear about that, it killed John Kerry in the election, the whole windsurfing thing (chuckles)… for some reason, that was it….you know, the, the old trailers that we´ll pretend are the nuke, are the, uh, uh, you know, weapons of mass destruction, that´s ok, windsurfing, no good (chuckles) that´s where the American people draw the line (chuckles) but, uh, but, anyway, the song….this, this record comes out with this big song about windsurfing on it, it´s beautiful, right? (chuckles) and, uh, almost made me wanna windsurf except I didn´t wanna ruin my career, you know, it´s the kind of (chuckles) thing that can hurt you, but, uh, just goes to show you gotta have faith, this is ´Leah´….´´

Intro to “The Hitter”
´´This, uh, song, I guess, is the flipside of that, this is, uh…..the seeds of your destruction…. a song about a, uh, young guy gets in trouble, goes off to New Orleans, becames a champ, quite a champion and shorts himself, comes back at home towards the end of his life and has, this song´s a conversation he has with his mother through a locked door….Freud´s smiling somewhere (chuckles) but, uh, I kind of grew up in a house where, uh….that was kind of touched both by fortune and the harsh hand of fate and the only thing I learned was that those things didn´t negate one another….and uh….that they define the perimeters of all my songwriting, those two poles….uh….and all you can learn to do is kind of live with, live with them both, this is ´The Hitter´….´´

Intro to “Matamoros Banks”
´´This is a, uh, song I wrote that was a sequel to a song I wrote called ´Across the Border´ that I used to end the Tom Joad-tour with….and, uh, it´s kind of the same story, the, uh…. man making the same journey….trying to cross the wire into the United States, fuelled by the same hopes and love for his family, trying to get something a little bit better and uh….in the States hundreds of people die each year trying to, trying to cross the border, they die in the deserts and in the mountains and, uh, in the backs of vans, uh, in the rivers….and, uh, this is a song I wrote kind of backwards, it starts with the body at the bottom of the river, the journey across the desert to the banks of the Matamoros, which is a town across from Brownsville, Texas….this is called ´Matamoros Banks´….´´

Intro to “Land of Hope and Dreams”
´´Got some, uh, friends with us tonight from the Amnesty International, if you see ´em in the hall….Amnesty International´s focused on preventing and ending abuses of human rights…. promoting freedom of conscience and expression and fighting discrimination in all forms so ….you see them on your way out….give them a hand…..´´

Intro to “The Promised Land”
´´Thank you, thanks, Dublin….want to, uh, thank everybody for coming out to the show tonight, thank you very much….and uh….I also wanna thank you for taking my music and this record into your hearts, I appreciate that a lot….I know there´s a lot of folks who wanted to come, I wish I could stay for ten days (?)….here´s to you….´´

^{Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi.}

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