I was very, very drunk...

 "Bruce Springsteen," she said, as an opener.
 She chose well, because that's the two word phrase most likely to get me to prick up my ears and stand to attention, after "free porn!" and "more beer?"
 "...I don't get it," she continued. "Whenever I hear him, I just think 'Give the man a Strepsil."
 Now, I'm used to getting shit for being a Springsteen fan.
 I'm used to getting shit from people who think he's an "80s act," and I'm used to getting shit from people who think "Born in the USA" is about patriotism.*
 So I'm no stranger to defending my fandom, and at the time, I rolled with it, with some good grace, not least because I respect the person who was texting those thoughts to me.
 Being a Springsteen fan requires some fairly specific socio-economic conditions, in my mind. You have to be poor enough to know what it's like to be poor, but smart enough to know what it's like to imagine NOT being poor.
 These criteria do not include, for the record, people who are middle class, went to uni and became poor, and now think they are "poor" as a description.
 That's not poor.
 Poor is having worn a high-viz jacket more working days of your life than not.
 Poor is knowing that you can eat or smoke, and you'd better figure out which one you want most.
 In possibly my favourite passage in his entire work, Springsteen explains the issue with typically astute stoicism.
 The song is called "Racing in the Street," the title a deliberate nod to Martha and the Vandellas. The melody is, similarly, a nod to the Crystals, singing "And Then He Kissed Me," although the piano refrain from that song has been slowed to the point that it is no longer a celebration and has become an elegy.
 Against this background, Bruce sings that "Some guys? They just give up living. They start dying little by little, piece by piece. Some guys come home from work and wash up, and go racing in the streets."
 That's all of working class life, in a line.
 Whatever you do, after your shitty job is over, whether it's going to the pub, whether it's reading the classics, whether it really is racing in the streets, you have to have something that makes the rest of your life bearable. Without your own personal salvation, it's all for nothing.
 With that in mind, I'm watching a documentary on Amy Winehouse, who I wasn't a big fan of.
 And she, in turn, is saying she didn't like Ella Fitzgerald.
 I'm sure there were people Ella didn't like.
 Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter who you like, or what you like, or what it means to others.
 Find something that makes the rest bearable. Good music is good. Funny jokes are funny. Bad music and not-funny jokes aren't worth it, but the beauty of life is that nobody will ever fully agree on what's good, what's bad, what's funny, and what isn't.
 Let's just all have fun with it. Find a thing you like, and that keeps you sane, whether it's Amy Winehouse, Ella Fitzgerald or Jack Daniel's.



*It isn't.