The boss

Christian Century, Feb 24, 2004

THE BOSS: Readers of Walker Percy detect the influence of existentialists like Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre, especially in his novels The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman. But Percy's favorite American philosopher was rock musician Bruce Springsteen. Percy thought the "Boss" (Springteen's moniker) was a perceptive and empathetic observer and analyst of American culture.

To Percy, Springsteen's "songs are about America, without hyping the country up (becoming patriotic self-congratulation) and without knocking the country down (becoming mean-spirited nation bashing)." Springsteen doesn't just walk a fine line between these two extremes, according to Percy, for "he sings of us while singing to us, and what you hear ... is a plain ordinary guy soaring way above himself and everyone around him through his voice, and through the songs he's written.... When you really care about someone or something it comes across in your voice." Shortly before he died, Percy wrote a letter to Springsteen, but Springsteen wasn't able to reply before Percy's death (from Robert Colts, Bruce Springsteen's America, Random House).