Greatest Song Evah - Week of 1/6/23

It is a beauty, and it’s more than alright

Thunder Road

I believe that more than most of his contemporaries Bruce Springsteen’s assorted milestones cause a bit of a collective freak out. The 50th (!) anniversary of the release of Greetings From Asbury Park was yesterday, and that doesn’t seem possible. It also always seemed strange when he turned 50, 60, etc. To me it comes down to something specific about Springsteen himself. More than most people he has allowed his songwriting to age naturally. Essentially, he has aged along with his core audience. To use one example, if someone like Mick Jagger still acts like a tomcat at his age, people understand he’s still playing that character. But if Bruce acts older, that’s a sign that we’re all growing older along with him. Take a listen to Girls In Their Summer Clothes, one of my personal favorite recent tracks of his. The narrator of the song recognizes that the pretty young ladies walk past him as if he weren’t there. That’s a thought which would never have occurred to a younger Bruce.

Which brings us to this week’s Greatest Song Evah. Thunder Road so perfectly encapsulates everything about early era Springsteen. He’s young, confident, and filled with bravado. I can’t think of a better line that summarizes the dreams and concerns he frequently expressed in his first decade than “It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win!” The production gradually builds over the course of the song until it culminates with a spectacular Wall of Sound type of instrumental finale, and you’ve achieved perfection.

Sweet Georgia Brown

Plenty of people have been making Patrick Corbin to Kevin McCarthy comparisons, pointing out that both have similar losing records in Washington. That’s terribly unfair; Corbin has won 31 games as a National. A more accurate Washington sports comp would be the Washington Generals. I’m not sure who the Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal equivalents would be in this scenario, but I’m still workshopping the idea. Regardless, everyone really needs to steer into this skid. Next time McCarthy loses a vote someone gets to toss a bucket filled with confetti at him. The time after that he gets pantsed. Make this entertaining!

The Damar Hamlin Broadcast

He obviously is still facing a difficult road ahead, but as I write this the news on Damar Hamlin is very encouraging. I rarely watch football these days so I didn’t see it, but I did notice afterwards that there was universal praise for the way the ESPN broadcast crew, both on site and in studio, handled such uncomfortable circumstances. That immediately reminded me of one of the toughest events that I watched.

The 2011 IndyCar series concluded with a race at Las Vegas. It promised to be an exciting finale. Dario Franchitti had a minuscule points lead over Will Power; essentially whichever of the 2 finished ahead of the other would be the series champion. Unfortunately there was also some trepidation going into the race. Drivers had been complaining that the cars had gotten too easy to drive. In a tragic irony, this was to be the last race with those particular cars before the introduction of a new package with more enhanced safety features the following season. In addition, drivers felt that particular track with its steep banking was too fast. That combination of car and track leant itself to pack racing, which was exceedingly risky. Pack racing is dangerous enough for a NASCAR car, but it’s REALLY dangerous for an IndyCar.

Predictably enough, there was a crash only a few laps into the race, and since the cars were racing so tightly together, the drivers literally had nowhere to go to avoid the wreck and it took out about half the field. I noticed that Power’s car was among those damaged, so while disappointed that the race would turn out to be a bit of an anticlimax, I figured I could at least enjoy watching an exciting race once the track got cleared.

The first sign for me that something serious had happened was the fact that safety crews placed a tarp over the car of Dan Wheldon before hauling it away. I had never seen that before; the broadcast team of Marty Reid, Scott Goodyear, and Eddie Cheever mentioned something about the amount of debris necessitating protection to prevent scattering but that didn’t make any sense. As time went on the three had to conduct a telecast suspecting, and later knowing, that the worst had happened without letting the audience know before any official announcements were made. It was very difficult in this case because there so many hints as to Wheldon’s sad fate. There were multiple camera shots of weeping crew members in the pit area. Every time they interviewed a driver as he was released from the infield care center they looked ashen faced. The race was ultimately cancelled once Wheldon’s passing was officially confirmed to the public.

Football announcers need to go into each game prepared for the possibility that they might have to guide their viewers as they witness a devastating injury, that risk is multiplied for a racing announcer. Safety features in both cars and tracks have made serious injuries, let alone fatalities a thankfully rare occurrence in recent years, but the potential for catastrophe still exists. Like the ESPN Monday Night Football crew this week, the ABC crew in that instance did an extraordinary job. NBC currently has the IndyCar contract, so it’s been years since either of these men have called a race on a national stage, but they deserve a lot of credit for handling such a difficult situation as well as they did.

Sundry

As I mentioned in my intro post, I’m sure there will be a lot of trial and error in the early going. I encourage any and all feedback. What do you like, what would you like to see more of, less of, etc.? And forwarding to interested parties is always encouraged.