ralph riegel

Seventy-seven years. From a little boy growing up in Freehold, to a teenager who picked up a guitar, made it talk to all of us in such a profound way, and found the thing that would change his life, to a young man chasing an impossible dream up and down the Jersey Shore. From tiny clubs to the world’s biggest stadiums. From Growin’ Up to Born to Run. From The Promised Land to Glory Days. From Kingdom of Days to Last Man Standing and Letter to You. The face has changed. The years have passed. Friends have been gained and some painfully lost. There have been triumphs, heartbreaks, beginnings, endings, reunions and goodbyes. But through every era, one thing has remained. The music. And somehow, as #springsteen grew older, those songs grew older right alongside us. Songs we first heard as kids suddenly meant something completely different when we became adults. Songs about parents became songs about our parents. Songs about children became songs about our children. Songs about friendship, love, loss, mortality and hope began hitting places in us we couldn’t possibly have understood when we first heard them. Maybe that’s one of Bruce's greatest gifts. He didn’t just provide the soundtrack to our youth. He gave us a soundtrack for growing older, too. And now, at 77, he’s still here. Still creating. Still performing. Still believing in the power of music to bring people together. And we’re still fortunate enough to be along for the ride. For more than five decades, your songs have somehow found us exactly where we are. They’ve been there for the first loves and the broken hearts. The weddings and the funerals. The celebrations and the struggles. The long drives with nowhere in particular to go and the nights when we needed the music turned up just a little louder. You wrote about the people who work hard, dream big, fall down, get back up, lose faith and somehow find it again. You taught us about hope and redemption, friendship and loyalty, love and loss, second chances and the promise that somewhere down the road there just might be something better waiting for us. But speaking for the Spring-Nuts community, what you help us create through your music, became about something even bigger than the songs. It became about each other. Eleven years ago, this community began because of a shared love for your music. What none of us could have imagined was where that music would eventually take us. Strangers became friends. Friends became family. People traveled thousands of miles together. We stood beside one another at shows, celebrated marriages and births, mourned losses, helped people through some incredibly difficult times, and tried our best to live by one of the simplest and most important lessons we found in your music: To take care of our own. And somehow, through all of it, your music was always there. That may ultimately be one of the greatest gifts an artist can give. Not simply songs that people listen to, but songs that connect people to one another. There are people in this community who would never have met if you hadn't picked up a guitar and started telling stories all those years ago. Friendships, relationships, memories and experiences exist today because somewhere along the way, your music brought our paths together. At 77, you continue to remind us that rock and roll isn't measured by a number on a birth certificate. It's measured by the passion you bring to the stage, the truth you put into a song, and the connection that happens when thousands of people become one for a few unforgettable hours. So today, from this crazy family we call the Spring-Nuts, we simply say: Thank you, @springsteen . Thank you for the words. Thank you for the music. Thank you for the concerts, the memories, the friendships and the miles. Thank you for reminding us that dreams will not be thwarted and faith will be rewarded. And through your music, may we all continue to find some reason to believe.