Bruce Springsteen sat down with Howard Stern live on SiriusXM on Monday morning for a wide-ranging chat that covered everything from the sale of his songwriting catalog to his memories of Clarence Clemons and thoughts on Taylor Swift. Springsteen appeared on the show to promote his new album of classic soul covers, titled “only the Strong Survive,” which releases on Nov. 11.
Springsteen made headlines in December when sold his entire recorded-music and publishing catalog to Sony Music for around $500 million, in what may be the biggest single-artist music catalog sale to date. When Stern asked Springsteen for his reasoning in the deal, he said that, at 73 years old, “it was a timing thing” and he trusted that Sony would do a good job taking care of his songs.
“I bumped into the luckiest job in the world, because they gave me a fortune for something I would’ve done for free,” Springsteen said.
But Springsteen has no plans to slow down anytime soon, saying he could never consider retirement since music is his main muse.
“I can’t imagine it. I mean, if I got to a point where I was incapacitated or something… But up until then, I mean, look at Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger. I played with Pete Seeger in Washington, at Obama’s inauguration,” he said. “Pete was 91 or 92, and he came out and sang ‘This Land Is Your Land.’ So I look at those guys … I don’t know if I’ll be doing three-hour shows [when I’m older]. But I have so many different kinds of music that I can play and do. The Broadway show, I can do the rest of my life, in one form or another, if I wanted to.”
Stern, a fan of therapy, asked Springsteen about the length of his shows and if he ever discussed it with a therapist. Springsteen admitted that if something went wrong during a three-hour show, he would obsess over it on the bus, even writing out notes on how to improve the next show.
“I was using it as a purification ritual,” he said, comparing it to growing up in the Catholic Church learning about original sin, saying it was all about “clearing out your soul and mind.”
“A lot of my self-created rituals were rituals of purification, and I took it too far,” he said, admitting to being a perfectionist.
He also opened up about the death of E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011, revealing that he played him a song at the hospital.
“I had a feeling he could hear me because he could squeeze your hand. When I first went to see him [after his stroke], there was some response to your voice and to you being in the room, it felt like,” Springsteen said. “I knew that he was going to die, and so I just brought the guitar in and I strummed a song called ‘Land of Hope and Dreams.’ … It’s about passing over to the other side. It’s about life and death.”
Springsteen continued, “His brother was there. I think Jake, his nephew, was there. And there were a few other people. But it was just a little tiny space… It’s a hymn … it was a song we were playing at the end of the night [on tour] and it was one of the last songs that Clarence and I worked on a sax solo together on.”
Springsteen was complimentary of several artists on the show, including Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and Taylor Swift, of whom his daughter, Jessica, is a huge fan. Springsteen listened to “Midnights” from the Newark airport to Colts Neck with his daughter, he said.
“It was good. She’s super talented, a tremendous writer,” he said.
As for his own writing process, Springsteen said it’s not as simple as just putting pen to paper.
“I don’t have something to say everyday, you know. I don’t go into a room at 11 o’clock and write till 3, or something like that,” Springsteen said. “I wait for the songs to come along.”
