The following statement was released by Bruce Springsteen:
I know I should be excited about playing the Super Bowl, but the fact is I have no idea how to cut a four-hour show down to 12 minutes. I mean, "Thunder Road," that's 12 minutes right there. My stage patter is 15 minutes. It takes me 20 minutes just to introduce the band.
So that means no "Rosalita." No "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." No "Jungleland." I'm pretty much limited to "I'm On Fire" and all that boring folk music my fans pretend to like in-between E Street Band tours.
I was planning on closing with "Born to Run," but now that NBC has banned the PETA ad, I'm afraid they're gonna bleep the word "tramps." Not to mention "death trap" and "suicide rap." Who wants to hear that in a recession?
"My Hometown" is too depressing. "Born in the U.S.A." is too controversial. I might have to do 12 minutes of my part from "We Are the World."
Remember "One Step Up, Two Steps Back"? Me neither. Maybe I can lip sync it. If Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma can fake it at Obama's inauguration, then so can the Boss. Someday, I don't know when, I'm gonna get to that place where I really wanna go and I'll walk in the sun. But 'til then . . . see? It's TOO LONG.
I need to play six more Super Bowls just to do my two biggest hits. Andy Warhol said in the future everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. Well, he was off by three.