SOMEBODY HELP ME

How much do you love Lexis Nexis? At 1 in the morning, I can find the 1975 Springsteen cover story in Time magazine in an instant. (Note to self: get a life)


- The famous Taxi Driver line "You talkin' to me?" was supposedly inspired by Bruce, who DeNiro saw utter the same phrase before playing an encore at the Roxy in LA in the mid-70s.

- Patti Smith's (and 10,000 Maniacs') biggest hit "Because the Night" was written by Bruce Springsteen for Smith, though she mucked with a few of the verses.

- "Hungry Heart" was written for (and inspired by) The Ramones.

- John Hammond, the Columbia talent scout who signed Dylan, Billie Holliday, Robert Johnson and Aretha Franklin among others, signed Bruce in 1972 at the end of his long career.

- "Blinded by the Light", the god-awful FM classic rock staple by Manfred Mann with the bad synths and the chorus "Revved up like a deuce/Another runner in the night", was originally written by Bruce, and is technically his only #1 charting song.

- Springsteen offered to write a song for one of the Harry Potter films, though the title escapes me - his kids were evidently fans.

- Springsteen played one electric guitar, in the studio and on stage, for nearly three decades: a second-hand blonde 1953 Fender Esquire. Arguably the most famous single guitar in rock history.

- Springsteen holds the one-day US ticket sales record, for selling out ten dates at NJ's Giants Stadium (55,000 seats a night) in one day in the summer of 2003.

- I need to sleep now.

I swear, they're interesting even for people who don't read 30-year-old articles about the man at 1 in the morning.

Also, someone please caption this photo.