The St. Paul Corduroy Jacket Is Bruce Springsteen. Let Me Explain.
On October 27, 1975, despite being a relative unknown to the general public, Bruce Springsteen appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek. People under 35 reading this: Those were print magazines. People would subscribe to them and have them mailed to their home or dental practice.
This week, despite being a relative unknown to the general public, a St. Paul Saints corduroy jacket appeared in Bring Me The News and Racket profiles.
Springsteen had just dropped Born to Run in August 1975, an album that lived up to the ferocious live reputation of his E Street Band. The title track and "Thunder Road" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" get all the classic rock station airplay, but can we get some love in the chat for "She's The One":
True story: I played this for my friend Dana the first time Mandy and I met his now-wife and I'm never letting him forget it.
The St. Paul Saints corduroy jacket has also been around for a bit, lingering as the coolest thing in the St. Paul Saints merch store. More and more St. Paul dads began buying them because, well, look:
It's a solid goddamn jacket. The back is even more iconic:
The similarities don't end there.
Springsteen's March show at the Target Center sold out in a heartbeat. The St. Paul jacket is unavailable through May/June.
Both cost more than your average rock show ticket/minor league baseball team outerwear.
Springsteen released "Streets of Minneapolis," an anti-ICE protest song, and joined a benefit concert at First Avenue in January. The jacket is a secret handshake for the St. Paul dads (gender neutral) doing patrol duty at schools and daycares where ICE goons are threatening to abduct vulnerable children or parents as part of their statewide ethnic cleansing campaign. These taxpayer-funded assholes are taking surveillance pictures of them, why not look fitted out for J. Edgar?
There's always a chance people will become bored with the jacket. Ask Bruce about Human Touch and Lucky Town. It's hard work staying an icon once you're an icon. You might find the jacket at the Woodbury Goodwill come 2028.
Do I have a larger point? Maybe. Those Bruce magazine covers landed in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam. The jackets spiked in popularity after a government invasion of my home state. People need something to take their minds off the grim reality of day-to-day living, be it a New Jersey musician or a well-designed piece of AAA baseball merch.
It's a Friday newsletter. I'm probably full of shit. Carry on.
SIDE NOTE: As a resident of St. Paul since 2019, I feel like I would be worthy of the jacket, but my identity is inescapably intertwined with outstate Minnesota. For me, it would be stealing valor.
What I'm saying is, somebody please make something half this neat for Hector or St. Cloud, Minnesota.
HOUSEKEEPING
The votes are in*. The beer-centric Midwest Excellence logo is the winner, and will be featured on the t-shirts and sweatshirts (probably on black instead of white, just so you know). I should get around to mocking these up next week, in addition to offering subscriptions and attempting to make some money off this thing.
*My daughter Celia liked the North Stars one but said the above design was "sick AF." I take her advice on such like.
PROGRAMMING NOTE
There may or may not be a Monday newsletter. We have friends visiting from out of town this weekend and would like to spend as much time as possible with them. Again, I realize none of you are paying me for this yet and there's no need to apologize, but I'm from Minnesota and you're going to get a goddamn apology whether it's merited or not.
See you Monday or Tuesday!
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