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Last friday I went to buy Working on a Dream, the last CD from Bruce Springsteen.

I’ve been doing the same stuff since I was 15 years old every time the Boss does a new album: I buy it, I go home and sit down in my armchair. I open it and put it in the player, I take the small booklet inside and read word by word every song while listening to it.

But this time something different happened, I noticed a dedication to Danny Federici: I suddenly discovered that this component of the E-Street Band passed away on April, 17th.

I’m not a poet so I let Bruce explains what’s inside all of us who grew up with the Boss and the E-Street Band on our side (eulogy to Danny Federici):

If we didn’t play together, the E Street Band at this point would probably not know one another. We wouldn’t be in this room together. But we do… We do play together. And every night at 8 p.m., we walk out on stage together and that, my friends, is a place where miracles occur…old and new miracles. And those you are with, in the presence of miracles, you never forget. Life does not separate you. Death does not separate you. Those you are with who create miracles for you, like Danny did for me every night, you are honored to be amongst.

Of course we all grow up and we know “it’s only rock and roll”…but it’s not. After a lifetime of watching a man perform his miracle for you, night after night, it feels an awful lot like love.

So today, making another one of his mysterious exits, we say farewell to Danny, “Phantom” Dan, Federici. Father, husband, my brother, my friend, my mystery, my thorn, my rose, my keyboard player, my miracle man and lifelong member in good standing of the house rockin’, pants droppin’, earth shockin’, hard rockin’, booty shakin’, love makin’, heart breakin’, soul cryin’… and, yes, death defyin’ legendary E Street Band.

If you want, support the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund.

Good bye Danny: we miss you!

PierG