Bruce Springsteen’s Personal Journey Through Rock ‘n’ Roll (Slightly NSFW But Simply Great)

We know that Bruce Spring­steen can put on an amaz­ing show. We saw him do that last week­end at the Apol­lo The­ater in Harlem. (Watch it here.) Now, you’ll dis­cov­er that the Boss can give a damn fine speech too. Pre­sent­ing the keynote address at SXSW yes­ter­day, Spring­steen took his audi­ence on a per­son­al jour­ney through rock ’n’ roll, remem­ber­ing the bands that gave birth to the musi­cal form and that pro­vid­ed inspi­ra­tion for a young musi­cian grow­ing up in New Jer­sey. Elvis, The Bea­t­les, Bob Dylan, The Ani­mals, and James Brown get their due. As does Woody Guthrie. The talk, which fea­tures Spring­steen play­ing some gui­tar along the way, runs 51 min­utes. And it has a few NSFW words sprin­kled in, though they don’t feel gra­tu­itous, at least not to me. Sit back and enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig (1969)

Neil Young Busk­ing in Glas­gow, 1976: The Sto­ry Behind the Footage

Jim­my Page Tells the Sto­ry of “Kash­mir”