The Boss and Good Writing

By Tom Schreck


"A barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain..."

I was walking the dogs in the cold darkness before sunrise this morning and this line automatically ran in my head.

It dawned on me how often this line goes through me. Every time I return to being 18 and dream of being out of school for the summer and longing for a girlfriend.

Why this line?

There are others that come to me from time to time but this one does a lot.

I think it's because of the specificity of the words.

The girl is "barefoot", the beer is "warm", the car is a Dodge and the summer rain is "soft." There aren't too many adjectives nor are the adjectives complicated or flowery.

They're simple. They're true.

Maybe that's it.

They're true. They're authentic, they're immediate.

Maybe Bruce Springsteen had summers like the rest of us. It's obvious he communicates with the masses. His sales would surely suggest that he did.

His writing seems so ridiculously simple.

Maybe that's it.