On my seventh birthday, my dad gave me Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s Live 1975-85: a three-cassette extravaganza, with a booklet of all the lyrics to the 40 songs. I was underwhelmed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the Boss; I did. Dad was responsible for my early music education, and my tastes at that age were far more diverse than those of most of my friends. Sunday night drives back home after a weekend with Dad had an accompanying soundtrack of Phil Collins, the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Eric Clapton, and the Moody Blues. I just wasn’t terribly excited about a present I couldn’t play with.
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