Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night

Saturday, May 30, 2009: that was the last night I ever performed on my high school stage. By that point, I’d set foot on that stage countless times: for musicals and choir concerts, for performances in front of school district administrators, for so many hours of rehearsals and practices. It got to be the kind of thing that you experience so many times you start to take it for granted. And then, suddenly, that story was over, and I was trying to wrap my head around how the place that had made me into a musician was about to be in my rearview.

“It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win.”

Those were the last words I ever sang on that stage by myself. There were other words that I shared, singing in harmony with fellow classmates. But that line, the iconic sign-off of Bruce Springsteen’s greatest song, became my sign-off, at least for my musical journey at that school and, really, for my entire high school experience.

On paper, it’s an appropriate line for a big coming-of-age moment. Sequenced at the very top of 1975’s Born to Run, “Thunder Road” is the Boss’s bold, brash invitation for a girl to run away with him. “My car’s out back if you’re ready to take that long walk/From your front porch to my front seat,” he sings at one point. Later, as the song barrels into its final verse, Springsteen ups the stakes: this town is crawling with ghosts, and if you stay here, the promise of your youth will be spent; “Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet.” So get in the car, baby, and let’s drive. Let’s drive so fast and so far that they can’t possibly follow us. Let’s get out of this town and never, ever look back.