Crazy about Springsteen, everywhere, all the time. Now that the Boss has just hit the road again with the E Street Band on his first tour in six years, it is worth remembering that Vil·lanova de Bellpuig, a tiny town of ilerdense with 1,168 inhabitants, managed to bring together over a thousand amateur musicians to play ‘No Surrender’. Or, better yet, celebrate that the City of Peralejos de las Truchas, in Guadalajara, he is still determined that Springsteen win the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts. Yes, just as it sounds.
But first, a little history. Madrid, 2012. Springsteen speeds up one of his massive performances and a banner emerges from among the public on which the name can be read, not the title of a song, but the name of a town. Peralejos de las Truchas. «¿What is Peralejos?», Bruce wonders. That, what is Peralejos? Well, neither more nor less than the most fanatical people of Springsteen; a tiny portion of ‘promised land’ of barely 150 inhabitants in which the author of ‘Born To Run’ is a favorite son and an object of worship and devotion.
So much so that, since 2015, Peralejos organizes the convention ‘Greetings from Peralejos-Alto Tajo’, and for the last three years he has submitted a candidacy for the author of ‘Born To Run’ to compete for the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts. This same week, the plenary session of the City Council unanimously approved resubmitting a candidacy for a musician who came to Peralejos in 1981 “to stay.”
“His songs reached our souls and thanks to them we have felt identified with those anonymous heroes that Bruce describes in his lyrics, encouraging us to fight, to love, to seek our independence, to never give up, to value loyalty,” he highlights. the text approved by the plenary. For Txema García, director of ‘Greetings from Peralejos’ and promoter of the initiative, Springsteen’s songs have transported them «from this emptied Spain to that river, to that road of thunder; to Mary’s house…».
Last year, Springsteen’s candidacy garnered more than 200,000 signatures in support. This year, in addition to the campaign, the filmmaker Arturo Dueñas is shooting a documentary entitled “Greetings from Peralejos” which, explains Fernández, in addition to supporting the candidacy, will serve to graphically document all the work carried out by this town in emptied Spain. in support of the candidacy.