Greggeloptics, my son calls me, stopped counting the years somewhere around sixty-five, but the gray in my remaining hair and the way my fingers sometimes hesitate over the frets remind me I am pushing seventy. I sat in my cluttered workshop in the garage near my rocking chair, musical spaceship contraption, surrounded by half-finished songs scrawled in notebooks, old guitar picks embedded in the wood grain of my high-end desk, and a couple of guitars, now somewhat vintage.
The Netflix show, "Poker Face," was playing that Springsteen song again—"Glory Days"—and I found myself nodding along. I understand Bruce, understand that hunger to capture something true about American life, the way a three-chord progression could hold an entire world. But where Bruce had taken his stories to stadiums and talk shows, I keep mine close to home, like secrets whispered to old friends. My son asked why I never released my music to streaming, so I did.
My phone buzzed. Another "spam likely" call from some licensing company wanting to place my 1980 song about walking, "They Give Me Hope," in a shoe commercial. If I pay them $50.00 for review. I deleted it without reading past the subject line. I'd been getting more of these lately—mining the pockets of songwriters having a hot and heavy romance with fame, it's the oldest music scam in the book. They talked about "authentic storytelling" and "nostalgic brand alignment" as if my songs were products waiting to be unwrapped.
They Give Me Hope