BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE STREETS OF PHILADELPHIA

The Beans & The Boss in a private session

After visiting Atlantic City, The Beans were invited by Bruce Springsteen to have dinner. The Boss surprised them with an unplugged and private concert where he played lots of fantastic songs. 

Bruce Springsteen is one of the most important singers and composers of the history. He and his incredible band have created the soundtrack of millions of people around the world. Springsteen's music has a personal style and his lyrics are full of social critic and hope. He's like Charles Dickens nowadays offering hope for the no-hoppers. It's very difficult to choose only one song of all his compositions but if The Grandma has to choose, she decides Thunder Road, a song that talks about not surrender, not give up and continue in the search of our dreams and happiness.

More information: Bruce Springsteen

 

The Grandma & The Cold Case Team

The Beans have continued their travel to Washington, DC but they have decided to stop in Philadelphia. 

The Grandma wants to talk to Lili Rush and Scotty Valens two detectives of the Philadelphia PD division who are specialized in investigating cold cases. The Grandma has contracted their services in a private way to try to discover what happened with Corto, her lover, who disappeared some decades ago without a trace.

While the Grandma was talking with Rush and Valens, the rest of the family visited this beautiful city, witness of the most important events during the Revolutionary War and nowadays, symbol of tolerance, freedom and open mind thinking.

More information: Philadelphia Government

 

The Beans visiting Liberty Bell

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the sixth-most populous city in the United States, with an estimated population of 1,567,872. 

Philadelphia is the economic and cultural anchor of the Delaware Valley, located along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, within both the Mid-Atlantic region and the Northeast megalopolis. The Delaware Valley's population of 7.2 million ranks it as the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States.

Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape (Delaware) Indians in the village of Shackamaxon. The Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians, and their historical territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts. Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. 

More information: Lenape Lifeways

Maps of Philadelphia, 1681

The American Revolutionary War and United States' independence pushed them further west. In the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territory) under the Indian removal policy. 

In the 21st century, most Lenape reside in Oklahoma, with some communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario (Canada) and their traditional homelands.

William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city in 1682 to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia played an instrumental role in the American Revolution as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 at the Second Continental Congress, and the Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. 

Several other key events occurred in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War including the First Continental Congress, the preservation of the Liberty Bell, the Battle of Germantown, and the Siege of Fort Mifflin. 

More information: Civil War

The Grandma with her Liberty Bell souvenir

Philadelphia was one of the nation's capitals during the revolution, and served as temporary U.S. capital while Washington, D.C., was under construction. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became a major industrial center and a railroad hub. 

The city grew from an influx of European immigrants, most of whom came from Ireland, Italy and Germany, the three largest reported ancestry groups in the city as of 2015. 

In the early 20th century, Philadelphia became a prime destination for African Americans during the Great Migration after the Civil War, as well as Puerto Ricans. The city's population doubled from one million to two million people between 1890 and 1950.

Finally, The Beans have decided to buy a little reproduction of Liberty Bell and travel around the world with her as a symbol of freedom, tolerance and respect.

More information: National Archives

I walked the avenue, 'til my legs felt like stone.
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone

at night I could hear the blood in my veins.
It was just as black and whispering as the rain

on the Streets of Philadelphia.

Bruce Springsteen

B. SPRINGSTEEN & M. DEL MAR BONET: WORLDS APART

Bruce Springsteen published Worlds Apart in 2002. The song was included in the album The Rising. 

Two years later, Maria del Mar Bonet adapted this song to Catalan language and published Mons apart in her album Amic, Amat, a work inspired in Ramon Llull, the Majorcan philosopher who talked about respect, peace and understanding between all cultures and religions in the 13th century.

More information: Quis est Lullus?

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer known for his work with the E Street Band. 

Nicknamed The Boss, he is widely known for his brand of poetic lyrics, Americana, working class, sometimes political sentiments centered on his native New Jersey, his distinctive voice, and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running at up to four hours in length. 

His artistic endeavors reflect both his personal growth and the zeitgeist of the times.

I hold you in my arms, yeah that's when it starts
I seek faith in your kiss and comfort in your heart
I taste the seed upon your lips, lay my tongue upon your scars
But when I look into your eyes we stand worlds apart

Where the distant oceans sing and rise to the plain
In this dry and troubled country your beauty remains
Down from the mountain road where the highway rolls to dark
'Neath Allah's blessed rain we remain worlds apart

Sometimes the truth just ain't enough
Or is it too much in times like this
Let's throw the truth away we'll find it in this kiss
In your skin upon my skin in the beating of our hearts

May the living let us in before the dead tear us apart
We'll let blood build a bridge over mountains draped in stars
I'll meet you on the ridge between these worlds apart
We've got this moment now to live then it's all just dust and dark

Let's let love give what it gives
Let's let love give what it gives

More information: Bruce Springsteen

 

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer (born 1947 in Palma, Majorca) is a Balearic singer from the island of Majorca. Bonet studied ceramics in the school of arts, but eventually decided to dedicate herself to music. 

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer

She arrived in Barcelona in 1967, where she began to sing with the group Els Setze Jutges. 

She has published many folk music albums in Catalan, in spite of the ban on the Catalan language and its music during Francisco Franco's dictatorship. 

In 1985, as a result of her interest and research into North African music, she recorded Anells d’aigua with the Ensemble de Musique Traditionelle of Tunisia.

Jo no sé com has guardat la bellesa entre l'infern
ni com vas poder fugir de l'horror que t'ha esquinçat.
Quan et llepo les ferides veig al fons del teu esguard
el que no puc esborrar: que hem nascut en mons a part.

Més enllà dels oceans, més enllà del crit del mar
on la pluja té l'arrel beneïda per Al·là.
On la lluna cau dels estels sobre un món empolsegat
s'han trobat els nostres cors en un pont que hem aixecat.

En aquests temps que ens ha tocat no serveix la veritat
fem un temps pel nostre amor ple de vida entre la mort.
Acompanyen els estels el camí que hem inventat
el teu cor amb el meu cor per damunt dels mons a part.

Amb la sang i la foscor que hem après a tuejar
no tenim altre moment, no l'hem pogut triar.
La tristesa de la mort dels nostres mons separats
però que doni el nostre amor tot allò que pot donar.

More information: Maria del Mar Bonet

 If understanding followed no rule at all, there would be no good in the understanding nor in the matter understood, and to remain in ignorance would be the greatest good.

Ramon Llull

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN WALKS INTO THE THUNDER ROAD

Bruce Springsteen, born September 23, 1949 is an American musician, singer, songwriter and humanitarian. He is best known for his work with his E Street Band. Nicknamed The Boss, Springsteen is widely known for his brand of poetic lyrics, Americana, working class and sometimes political sentiments centred on his native New Jersey, his distinctive voice and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running over four hours in length.

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born to Run (1975) and Born in the USA (1984), showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life. He has sold more than 64 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award as well as being inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.

Bruce Springsteen draws on many musical influences from the reservoir of traditional American popular music, folk, blues and country. From the beginning, rock and roll has been a dominant influence and Springsteen's musical and lyrical evocations, as well as public tributes, of artists such as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Gary Bonds, and many others helped to rekindle interest in their music. Springsteen's other preferred musical style is American folk, evident on his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park and more strongly on Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad. Springsteen songs such as This Hard Land demonstrate the lyrical and musical influence of Woody Guthrie.

Often described as cinematic in their scope, Springsteen's lyrics frequently explore highly personal themes such as individual commitment, dissatisfaction and dismay with life in a context of everyday situations. It has been recognized that there was a shift in his lyrical approach starting with the album Darkness on the Edge of Town, in which he focused on the emotional struggles of working class life.

More information: The Official Bruce Springsteen Website

The best music is essentially there to provide you 

something to face the world with.

Bruce Springsteen