Confessions of a Fanboy

Every picture tells a story, don’t it? So do a lot of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs. His songs are filled with stories, and many of his songs are tied to memories that become stories. This is another one of them.

The first Bruce Springsteen album I ever purchased was Greatest Hits, in large part because of “Human Touch.” The song came out when I was in high school, firmly entrenched in an unyielding devotion to hair metal. If the guitar solo didn’t measure up to Satriani or Vai, it sucked and I had no patience for it. Strange then that the guitar sound of “Human Touch” would get my attention, but it did.

I still can’t explain what it is about the sound and tone of his guitar on this song, but I never forgot it. A few years later when Greatest Hits was released and “Human Touch” was on it, I made a slight detour one morning while running errands for work to score a copy. It was only then that I listened to the lyrics and realized “Human Touch” was an ever better song than I thought.

It is a torch song for lonely losers who are realistic enough to know they aren’t going to get the “it” girl but are delusional enough to dream of her anyway.

“So you’ve been broken and you’ve been hurt
Show me somebody who ain’t
Yeah, I know I ain’t nobody’s bargain
But hell with a little touchup and a little paint”

Even as a 21-year old who’d experienced so very, very little those lines seemed to be about me, or seemed like they would be someday. Yeah, I think I saw them as prophetic. I wasn’t even to that bargaining stage of my romantic life yet.

Years later, this is still one of my favorites and it was a driving force in getting me to buy my first Springsteen record. Those are two good reasons to want to hear this in concert. Oh, yeah, and there’s still that guitar!

• The Countdown Begins
• Day 20: My City of Ruins
• Day 19: Born in the USA
• Day 18: Pink Cadillac
• Day 17: Glory Days

Filed under: Tags: Bruce Springsteen, Nashville Coundown