Instead of crying over your spilled milk, you should just resign yourself to "not getting it" and move on.

Besides hearing Born to Run on the radio, my first real exposure came from his 1980 double cd The River (also, a high school social studies teacher just fawned over Springsteen and loved to show us that then rare clip of Rosalita).

Then, out of the blue, a friend of mine just gave me a cassette of Springsteen's Nebraska.

From there I went backwards - almost in the exact reverse order.

What I really remember is one summer listening to Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town over and over again. I could go down the songs on both of these cds and point out how these two albums had it all from rock to ballads.

Meeting Across the River to Jungleland to Candy's Room. What a journey. Then later, like so many other young men, Thunder Road became my own mantra to a college sweetheart I just couldn't capture.

I guess what I'm trying to point out, is like so many long journeyed artists out there, in their collective body of work, often times there is just about something for everyone.

Um, that is unless you are a Sting fan.....