W.W.B.D?

Twenty-one years ago I saw Bruce Springsteen for the fifth time. It was back in the heyday of Bossmania: The Born In The USA Tour. I went with a group of other fans who had all pulled their time on the ticket line in the weeks before the show: Robin, Darren and Joe. Joe was hardcore, having been raised in and around the friendly confines of the Jersey Shore. The part I like best about this story is that, at this point in history, I knew more about Springsteen and his music than Joe. He was still recovering from a bout with Billy Idol worship, and he needed to be shown the light.
That night, September 23, 1985 the light came from a stage across the wide gulf that was Mile High Stadium in Denver. By this point, Bruce had been misquoted and misappropriated enough that the fire that burned in the opening chords of "Born in the USA" let everyone know that this wasn't a patriotic anthem. It was a story of a lost soul, part of a lost generation searching for redemption. By the time he was winding down, some three hours later, "This Land Is Your Land" answered the questions raised at the beginning of the evening. Then came the national anthem of Bossland: "Baby this town rips the bones from your back, It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap, We gotta get out while we’re young,`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run."
And this is the part that I don't remember for certain, but it seems that somewhere before the last encore, the crowd - at least a large portion of it - burst into a loud a capella version of "Happy Birthday." Bruce turned thirty-six that night, but I want to believe that we were the ones who got the present.
Today Bruce Springsteen is fifty-seven. Twenty-one years burnin' down that road - Happy Bossday, everybody.