For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
1 Corinthians 1:25
I suppose there are a lot of ways to get famous. The odd thing about the moment in which we live is that a person can be very famous in one context (TikTok) and not at all famous in another (a Vestry meeting at almost any Episcopal parish). It may be that, in such a case, whatever the person did to attract attention was not terribly well crafted, or even intentional. Fame on social media was not really an option in 1971. Too many punch cards, for one thing, and for one brief (shining?) moment, there was a fairly clear way in which cultural content — movies, books, music — found its way to the people.
Of course, the people producing all of this content had more motivation than simply gratifying their aesthetic desires. They wanted to make some money. Nothing wrong with that except how it tends to drive a predictable process. Whatever worked before, let’s do that again. (Every generation must make Willy Wonka in their own way.)
By 1971, Bob Dylan was working. He went electric in ’65 and started printing money for Columbia Records. So the day that Mike Appel walked into John Hammond’s office and said, “Let’s sign Bruce Springsteen” and Hammond said, “Who’s Bruce Springsteen?” and Appel’s like, “The next Bob Dylan!” and Hammond goes, “OK!” because John Hammond had signed Bob Dylan to Columbia and wanted to do that shit again.
I don’t know if Bruce Springsteen could have gone full Dylan. His early songs show a facility with language that could certainly have gotten him close. But if Springsteen had been the next Dylan, he could not have been the first Springsteen. He might have made some quick cash tho. You can almost picture two A&R men of Mediterranean descent walking up to Danny Federici and saying “We want to meet Bruce.” Then Danny would have gone to Little Steven and said, “These guys want to meet the Boss.” And they would have gone to Bruce together.
Did Springsteen know what Jesus knew when Phillip and Andrew came to him saying that there were a couple of Greeks in the green room who wanted to talk with him? Because Jesus knew that was it. The movement had transformed from a caravan into a carnival. The townies had come out to look at the freak. Maybe Bruce was more willing to give Wild Billy’s Circus a chance, but it did not work for him either.
By 1975, Springsteen knew he would never be Dylan, no matter how much he tried. If he was going to be anybody, he would have to be himself. Mike Appel told him he was crazy. “Stick to the formula, man!” What Bruce knew to be true was a stumbling block to the record label and foolishness to the critics. They were still stuck where he had been, chasing the quick stardom, the easy money, the golden ticket. They were blinded by the light.