Bruce Springsteen was on hand in his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey yesterday (March 8th) at the official ceremony announcing, “The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music.” APP.com reported the joint effort between New Jersey's Monmouth University and the city of Freehold will be housed at the firehouse on Main Street in Freehold which is no longer, “adequate for the borough’s fire safety needs.” The official opening date for the Archives is set for some time in 2024.
Springsteen, who grew up nearby, told the assembled crowd, “The bottom line is you can't get away from the fact that it feels bizarre. I sat three blocks from here, came up with a few songs, things that I liked. The idea that 50 years later anybody was going to be interested in them at all, I mean, what are the odds, folks? They're very small.”
“The Boss,” who still lives close his hometown in Colts Neck, spoke wistfully about his time in Freehold, revealing, “Everything I've learned of deep importance, I learned in this town. You learn most of what makes you who you are, gosh, I don't know, by the time you're 12. Maybe your teen years. I had all the usual joy and heartbreak of growing up in a small town like this, and of course the minute the opportunity arose, I got the hell out (laughs).”
He went on to say, “I suppose the unusual thing was that moving around the world as I did, all I do is I always came back. I always come back. To this day I've spent quite a bit of money and time trying to figure out what I came back for, and so far no answer. I'll let you know as things go along.”
Bruce Springsteen prides himself that throughout his career — be it on the stage or in the studio — the thread of where he comes from is still fully evident and ringing true: “My heroes, a lot of my heroes, the people that came before me lose something when they lost a little sense of — I hate to say their 'roots' — 'cause you can go anyplace and you can take it with you anywhere you go. It's not, it's not necessarily being in a physical place — although that may help somewhat. But it's just that sense of your own history and what your initial motivations were. What the point was in the beginning.”
