I Got Some Beer and the Highway's Free

Song: Sherry, DarlingAlbum: The River Year: 1980

Well this is all a lot of raucous fun, but if my boyfriend abandoned my mother on the highway—my unemployed mother, who is obviously having a tough go of it as it is—I would not be all revved up to go have a fun night of drinking and driving with him. Also, it seems like part of his plan for this romantic date is to go ogle girls at the beach. Who is this guy? How did we wind up together? I've made some huge mistakes and need to seriously re-evaluate my life choices.

It reminds me of that Jimmy Soul song, "If You Wanna Be Happy." Both appear to be recorded in front of a live studio audience who are having the best time hearing about women being belittled. I choose to believe that Bruce is in a bit of a character for this one: the Springsteen Id, if you will. Real Bruce doesn't build up this anger and anxiety over familial responsibility; he does what he needs to do (help a down-on-her-luck woman collect a meagre unemployment allowance to help her scrape by as she looks for more work in this economy) and releases any tension out over a sweet sax solo. LIKE A MAN.

Rating: 6 out of 10 blocks that Big Mean Bruce Springsteen made an elderly woman walk in the hot sun.

This makes me feel: like rolling my eyes at the cliche of the big-mouth mother-in-law, but in a way that's secretly in-time to the music because it's just a good song and we all know eyeballs just can't resist a groove.

Fun Bruce fact: Another Bruce Springsteen blog, Burgers and Bruce, reports on The Boss's fave way to dress a 'burg: "A burger in 1950s America. It's nothing like what you get now. A thin little patty, squirted with ketchup, and that's the only type of burger there was." This is the kind of investigative journalism I can get behind.