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No Retreat, No Surrender
As if it’s the last thing we ever do…
In the spring of 1976, I was living in Nashville, Tennessee. I’d been there almost two years after attending a series of audio electronics and recording classes in Manhattan. Before that I had left home after high school and moved to Colorado.
Upon living in Nashville I landed what I thought was my dream job. I was deeply involved or at least enamored with all aspects of the music business.
Then, a new, yet undefined desire began to tug on my conscious every time Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run played on the radio. Soon, Thunder Road, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, Jungleland, and the rest of the songs from the album were getting massive airtime. I’d been waiting for a prolific recording since the Beatles breakup, and for me, it arrived.
When it was announced the band would play in the new Opry House I bought tickets right away.
The set list was everything I hoped for but what I remember most and what moved me was their energy. Romantic in the artistic sense, the music conveyed an emotional need to take a bold step and commit to fulfilling a heartfelt desire. That group of musicians embodied a song they would record a few years later titled, No Surrender. After nearly two hours and an encore, the audience expected the concert was over. Instead, the stage went dim, but…
