A Bruce Springsteen concert without "Born To Run"??? More than a few fans have taken note that "The Boss" has now placed "I'll See You In My Dreams" — the closing number to his latest album, Letter To You — as the finale to his revamped Springsteen On Broadway show now running at Manhattan's St. James Theatre.
Springsteen explained to USA Today about the changing the ending of the production, "It’s only a couple of verses and a chorus, but it really packs a punch for its brevity and it really ends the particular story that I’m telling on this leg of this show. It’s actually much more appropriate than 'Born To Run' was in that spot. It really takes all the ideas in the show and sums them up in that one short piece of music. So, it’s exciting to play that at the end of the night."
Springsteen's longtime manager and chief advisor, Jon Landau, shed light on the decision telling Variety, "I chatted with Bruce about that change, because I had assumed that he would still do 'Born To Run' as an encore. I mentioned that to him and he said, 'No, the story ends here. This is the story I’m telling right now, and this is where it ends.' He couldn’t have been clearer about it. And I think he made the right choice, both putting the song there and not putting anything after it, and letting that be the last word."
Springsteen addressed the small amount of protesters that demonstrated in front of the theater opening night, which permitted in only a vaccinated crowd. He told USA Today, "Hundreds of thousands of people died. It can be hard to know what to do. Obviously, I’m in favor of everybody being vaccinated, and that’s why the show is the way that it is. Plus, I’m responsible for the safety of my audience, but it’s hard, confusing times, so I actually have some feeling for the folks who were outside."
During his 2005 VH1 Storytellers taping, Bruce Springsteen shed light on the parts of himself he shares in the songs he writes: ["It's like anything else, y'know? You obviously, you put a lot of yourself in the songs, and it's songs, and it's an aesthetic, and it's a presentation; and you can't write without pullin' all this stuff up out of yourself. That's what makes it feel real. That's what makes it communication. But, I guess it's always an incomplete picture. That's what keeps me writing (laughs)."] SOUNDCUE (:19 OC: . . . me writing (laughs))