Springsteen’s Eulogy for Clarence Clemons‎

Today, Bruce Spring­steen pub­lished on his web site a revised ver­sion of the eulo­gy he deliv­ered last week for Clarence Clemons, his friend and band mate. It’s equal parts hon­est and mov­ing. The talk builds momen­tum as it goes along, kind of like a Spring­steen song, with the rhythm real­ly pick­ing up here:

I think per­haps “C” pro­tect­ed me from a world where it was­n’t always so easy to be an inse­cure, weird and skin­ny white boy either. But, stand­ing togeth­er we were badass, on any giv­en night, on our turf, some of the bad­dest ass­es on the plan­et. We were unit­ed, we were strong, we were right­eous, we were unmov­able, we were fun­ny, we were corny as hell and as seri­ous as death itself. And we were com­ing to your town to shake you and to wake you up. Togeth­er, we told an old­er, rich­er sto­ry about the pos­si­bil­i­ties of friend­ship that tran­scend­ed those I’d writ­ten in my songs and in my music. Clarence car­ried it in his heart. It was a sto­ry where the Scoot­er and the Big Man not only bust­ed the city in half, but we kicked ass and remadethe city, shap­ing it into the kind of place where our friend­ship would not be such an anom­aly. And that… that’s what I’m gonna miss. The chance to renew that vow and dou­ble down on that sto­ry on a night­ly basis, because that is some­thing, that is the thing that we did togeth­er… the two of us. Clarence was big, and he made me feel, and think, and love, and dream big. How big was the Big Man? Too fuck­ing big to die. And that’s just the facts. You can put it on his grave stone, you can tat­too it over your heart. Accept it… it’s the New World.

And final­ly the crescen­do:

SO LADIES AND GENTLEMAN… ALWAYS LAST, BUT NEVER LEAST. LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE MASTER OF DISASTER, the BIG KAHUNA, the MAN WITH A PHD IN SAXUAL HEALING, the DUKE OF PADUCAH, the KING OF THE WORLD, LOOK OUT OBAMA! THE NEXT BLACK PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES EVEN THOUGH HE’S DEAD… YOU WISH YOU COULD BE LIKE HIM BUT YOU CAN’T! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BIGGEST MAN YOU’VE EVER SEEN!… GIVE ME A C‑L-A-R-E-N-C‑E. WHAT’S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT’S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT’S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! … amen.

Get the full text here.

H/T to @opedr