I played Bruce Springsteen’s “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” on my iPod randomly one day while walking with our dogs, Tala and Juma, at a farm here in South Africa that we like to visit.
The song, which appears on the album “Born to Run” and tells the story of Springsteen’s E Street Band, resonated with me in a way it hadn’t previously. Maybe it’s the lyric about being all alone and on own’s own, which feels like an anthem to this stranger in a strange land, even if I’m hardly alone.
Or perhaps it’s the connection between this place and home. The green hills that roll to the Drakensberg here in Kwa-Zulu Natal and New York City, which I left, each have a scenic grandeur. As it happens, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are slated to play their first shows in South Africa this January.
Or maybe it’s that listening to “Born to Run” makes sense at a farm where the dogs and I go to run. If anyone were born to run, it’s Tala and Juma.
The Zulu guys with whom we share the road and I exchange a thumbs-up when we pass one another. Everyone’s smiling.
Here’s the song: