Atlantic City

I know a lot of people have their own favorite Bruce Springsteen song. For Mads, my Norwegian companion, it's "Born to Run". "It's Shakespeare in Rock n' Roll," he says. For me it's a no brainer: "Atlantic City". Nothing else spoke to me more as a young man growing up in a working class background in Brockton, Massachusetts.

One day Mads and I are going through the music videos on ON Demand, when I see "Atlantic City" on the list. We had to go for it. Now, of course, I wish I hadn't.

It was a version he did with the Seeger Sessions band. All I can say was it hurt. It cut all the nuance and drama out of the song and replaced it with washboards and spoons. It was almost as bad as Alicia Keyes and the guy from Maroon 5 covering "Wild Horses" for some Unplugged thing.

"But, dude," Mads said. "If he's genius enough to make the song, he can do what he wants with it. I'm sure he was just experimenting with it, anyway. Don't get your panties in a bunch."

I always hated it when he called me "dude".