I, for one, am a bigger fan of Bruce’s first three albums, Greetings From Asbury Park (1973), The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (1973) and Born To Run (1975). The Springsteen most people know is the one that put out “Born To Run” or “Born In The USA”. Even though we eventually split up and even 30 years later, I still associate The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle with her. Just as we were growing as a couple and having fun with it I was listening to this record. There is something about falling in love and having a soundtrack to go with. She sold Springsteen to me unlike all others including MTV or Much Music. She was a huge Springsteen fan as were most if not all of her sisters (all five of them). The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle is an album that I had never heard of until I started seeing my then girlfriend (and eventual mother to my oldest child) in 1988. Yes I am a tad obsessive with old-school album owning and am clearly aware that music, all music pretty much, is essentially available online for a small fee. This one and the other record is The Best Of The Doobies. I have dearly missed having them in my collection. Well today I went down to the local record store and bought two albums which replaced two scratched records of years gone by. Worse, I was likely the one who walked on it. I’m pretty sure I left a copy of this Springsteen record on the floor one day (as you do) and it got walked upon much to my chagrin.

The problem was that some of my favourite albums were ones that I wore out or were literally trampled on in my living room. All of the albums in my collection have a back story and especially the ones in my Top Album list. When I set out a while back to write brief album reviews infused with personal stories (originally on Facebook) it was albums like Bruce Springsteen‘s The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (1973) that inspired me to write.

Wild innocent e street shuffle vinyl